Blogging to the Sound of the Tumbrels

In a previous post, I compared the downfall of the Main Stream Media (MSM) to the French Revolution. Centrifugal forces spun the old order apart. It was a financial crisis in France that catalyzed the newly empowered middle class and led to a complete change in government. In the MSM, it has been arrogance, hubris and dreadfully poor performance that catalyzed a waiting group of novice reporters to blog.

In France, the new order cannibalized itself to some extent as equilibrium was reached. In the case of the blogs, the hysteresis effect is not yet complete. We are still carting people off in tumbrels to behead them. The mob is still rioting when some new offense occurs.

Ed Morrissey, Glenn Reynolds and others fret that Mme Guillotine seems to be working overtime. Alas, my friends, I believe it still has quite a ways to go. Such is life in revolutionary times.

When Dan Rather was brought down, bloggers gloated at the perfection they had attained. We were a self-policing group and that Army of Davids awaited us all to mete out punishment on the inaccurate or libelous. For a time, the Directory in revolutionary France thought they had attained perfection, too. Napoleon proved otherwise.

In time, the distribution of power in the media, both new and old, will strike a balance between large-scale enterprises like the AP and entertaining and sometimes vicious sources like the blogs. Meanwhile, I think that Ed, Glenn and all the rest need to put on their seatbelts and enjoy the ride.