The endless apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding Net Neutrality and many other tech policy debates proves there’s no downside to gloom-and-doomism as a rhetorical strategy. Being a techno-Jeremiah nets one enormous media exposure and even when such a person has been shown to be laughably wrong, the press comes back for more. Not only is there is no penalty for hyper-pessimistic punditry, but the press actually furthers the cause of such “fear entrepreneurs” by repeatedly showering them with attention and letting them double-down on their doomsday-ism. Bad news sells, for both the pundit and the press.
But what is most remarkable is that the press continues to label these preachers of the techno-apocalypse as “experts” despite a track record of failed predictions. I suppose it’s because, despite all the failed predictions, they are viewed as thoughtful & well-intentioned. It is another reminder that John Stuart Mill’s 1828 observation still holds true today: “I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, is admired by a large class of persons as a sage.”
Additional Reading:
My friend Pablo Chavez, Managing Policy Counsel of Google, brings to my attention the fact that the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act (H.R. 3714) was pending before the House today, and I’m happy to note that it passed late this afternoon. The bill, which is co-sponsored by Reps. Schiff and Pence in the House and is co-sponsored by Sen. Dodd in the Senate, would expand the examination of press freedom worldwide in the State Department’s annual human rights report and establishes a grant program aimed at broadening and strengthening media independence internationally. Specifically, the bill would identify “countries in which there were violations of freedom of the press, including direct physical attacks, imprisonment, indirect sources of pressure, and censorship by governments, military, intelligence, or police forces, criminal groups, or armed extremist or rebel groups.”
This is a worthwhile goal and a fine tribute to a great journalist, a first-class human being, and someone I was honored to briefly count as a friend in this world before he was murdered by terrorist scum in 2002. Indeed, some of my fondest memories from the mid-90s are of the times I would meet Danny Pearl for beers at Cap City Brewery or other bars in downtown Washington, DC. He was an up-and-coming star reporter covering telecommunications policy for
The Wall Street Journal and I was just starting to make a name for myself as a policy geek in this field. Because I was working very closely with a number of Hill offices at that time and helping to craft some of what eventually went into the Telecom Act of 1996, Danny knew I had a lot of good inside information. And like any great journalist, he knew that enough beers and late-night banter would eventually get me to spill the beans about something I wasn’t suppose to be sharing with a reporter! I didn’t mind being an “unnamed source” in a couple of his stories, and the fact that he sometimes quoted me in others gave me and my career an unbelievable boost. I still remember sending my family the first big WSJ story I was ever quoted in. It was a piece Danny wrote back in ’94.
Everyone now knows the tragic story of how Danny was abducted and murdered by terrorists in 2002. I remember how numb I went when I heard the news and still find it hard to fathom how such a gentle, down-to-earth soul could have been viciously murdered.
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Yo people, help me build this list of the best Internet and digital technology (“Info-Tech”) policy reporters on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/AdamThierer/infotech-policy-reporters/members
I’m trying to make sure I’m following the best reporters out there who cover public policy developments related to the Internet, cyberlaw, digital media, and so on. I’ve got just under 50 reporters on there currently, but I’m sure I’m missing some. I would love to get some other suggestions about who is missing from my list, and I encourage others to follow my list if they find it a useful way to keep track of some of the best reporters on this beat.
Incidentally, I do understand it is hard to define exactly who counts as a “reporter” these days, but my general rule of thumb here is that (I think) almost everybody on my list actually gets paid to write about these issues. In other words, I kept tech policy bloggers off this list. There’s just too many of them to count.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.