Guerrilla Bloggers and the Old Elite

Last Tuesday, CNN fired Chez Pazienza, a producer for American Morning, for maintaining a blog. Yes, that's right. CNN, a leading news channel, sacked one of its journalists for exercising his First Amendment rights. Catch the CNN bosses in the daylight and you know what they'll say. "Of course we believe in freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is a pillar of modern society."

Yeah, right. There was never such a thing as freedom of speech. In order to speak freely you had to have access to a printing press, a newspaper, a radio or a TV station. And everywhere you had to get past the editors. Only an elite ever did -- the articulate and well-behaved representatives of ordinary people. But ordinary people themselves never had a chance to speak publicly.

Until now. Today the internet revolution -- led by a ragtag army of bloggers -- has given us all a chance to be irreverent, blasphemous and ungrammatical in public. For the first time ever, there are no editorial filters in place. We can all speak freely and to a larger audience than ever before. We can reveal secrets, blow whistles, spill beans, or just make stuff up.

The reactions of the CNN bosses, and other members of the old elite, reveal their hypocrisy. The people who used to control the editorial filters can't accept that their monopoly now is gone. They saw themselves as the custodians of the public sphere, yet their position rested on nothing more than the existence of a particular kind of technology -- printing presses, radio and TV. Now that there is new technology, the nature of the public sphere is changing and their position of power is undermined. "We were always prepared to die for people's right to disagree with us in public, but you are disagreeing in the wrong way. I'm not dying for you."

Let me give you another example: my old employer, the London School of Economics. I worked there for 12 years, as a professor in the political science department, but I don't work there anymore. I started a blog, you see, -- "Forget the Footnotes" -- where I among other things discussed the LSE's Director ("an anti-intellectual businessman"), its professors ("a varied bunch, some tipplers, some thinkers, some away on permanent research leave") and the students ("great kids, smart, witty, full of loudmouthed confidence").

Like Chez, I made few friends among my bosses. The head of my department ordered me to "take down and destroy" my blog and to apologize to a whole slew of people. The statements I made were "enormously damaging to myself and to reputation of the School," he insisted. And the LSE's Director himself - Sir Howard Davies -- concurred. "What about academic freedom?" I protested. "What about that long statement on freedom of speech in the School's handbook?" "Well, that's different," I was told. "Surely, you understand."

No, I didn't understand and I didn't listen to the head of my department or to the Director, and I didn't destroy my blog. Instead the student newspaper started writing about me and then the British press. The LSE students gave me strong support. Finally, they collectively agreed, there is a professor who calls things the way we see them. Someone who isn't so freakin' self-important. In a matter of days there were 380 signatures on a Facebook group "In Support of Erik Ringmar" started by one of the students, and emails of support poured in from around the globe.

Why does a leading news channel, and a university famous for its defense of liberal values, start censoring people who use their right to free speech? Partly it's surely vanity. Bosses everywhere hate to have their authority undermined and they hate to be made fun of. They resent the fact that their underlings now have independent means of communicating with each other and with the world.

But more than anything censorship is driven by a concern for profits. All over the net people are reprimanded, terrorized and sacked for the potential impact our words can have on share-prices, sales figures and quarterly earnings. An undergrad education in Britain used to be free, but in the year I started blogging (2006) a three thousand pound yearly student fee was about to be introduced for the first time. Clearly my LSE bosses were afraid that my freewheeling blogging style was going to be detrimental to student recruitment.

In this way the imperatives of the market reveal themselves to be our last taboo. The bottom line is today the only thing which is beyond criticism. In a democracy you can offend all you like as long as you don't say anything that has an impact on corporate profits. The market has become a threat to freedom. The market is today the only authority that never needs to justify its power over us.

We expected this kind of treatment from repressive regimes. But repressive regimes are the easy cases. Repressive regimes make no secret of their secretiveness and their repression. Democracies are supposed to be different, but in practice it is not at always clear where the differences lie. Modern liberal society has revealed a face which very few of us previously have seen.

Should we be cowered? Should we back down? Hell no! Let's instead call them on their bluff. Let's remind the members of the establishment of the promises they once made us. Let's insist that our societies live up to the principles they profess to embrace.

Instead of taking down and destroying our blogs we should blog more sneakily, employing well-established guerrilla tactics. We should duck, dive and dodge. Blog dirty, blog anonymously, change items around or claim they never existed; write in code, write in Bahasa Indonesia. Kick your boss once again on the shins, harder this time, and then run like hell. If they come looking for you, hide inconspicuously among ordinary internet users.

Blogging is the best chance we have had in a while to overturn old hierarchies, giving voices to the voiceless and empowering the powerless. Individual blogs will come and go but the internet revolution will continue apace. Working men of all countries, blog! And working women too, and unemployed bastards, CNN journalists, and disgruntled students and angry wives, and everyone else with a grudge, a bean to spill and a story to tell. You have nothing to lose but your gags.

Comments

[Orikinla]

I read all and phew!
Blog dirty?
That would be filthy!
Unemployed bastards?
I hate cursing and swearing.

We should blog with commonsense.

[TyroneTanic]

Freedom of speech doesn't mean you don't have to pay consequences for your speech. Publicly biting the hand that feeds you is never a good idea -- unless, of course, you don't need the paycheck given to you by the people you're criticizing.

[slank]

It seems to me if you blog about something that only an insider could know and you are paid to be an insider, how can that not affect your employer? If you blog about co-workers, you are giving only your opinion, loud and clear with no balance and I think you take your chances.

[Kungfublood]

Bush plans to close tha national mall to protesters?
In another heinous demonstration of they fact that America is run by criminals and or quivering jelly bellied cowards, who because they plan further criminal action against the American people, (people better then themselves) know that it is necessary to isolate any constitutionally protected actions by the millions of wronged citizens.(After all It might be seen on TV!)
It belongs to the realm of the absurd that a pretended American President should be so fearful of the people he has sworn to protect that even as he thinks himself above the law he is willing to look so weak and meek that he would order a cowardly crime like free speech zones to exist in America!
That a gang of criminals like the Bush gang would be allowed to do such a thing is anathema to the Rights and Liberties as spelled out in existing law and if the media were doing it's job such a anti American notion would be ridiculed from coast to coast!
Free speech belongs everywhere in this country and if our leaders don't like it they should be politely asked to leave and never return.
I therefor oppose any effort by the craven Bush mob to alter the basic and fundamental right of people braver than themselves with legitimate grievances to assemble on the Mall and exercise their Constitutionally protected and God given right to peaceful protest. A letter sent to late?

[thewhitewitch]

This is such a great piece. Right on the money!

[larry278]

CNN is part of an abortion which includes Time-Life, an old print media firm. TIME has practiced & continues to engage in the practice of disparity of treatment of less favored employees vs the better treatment of TIME's stars who are careful to echo TIME's code of conduct. Why are you surprised that CNN uses TIME's policies & practices? That may be a reason that nobody wants to buy the pieces of Time-Life, CNN, AOL. Damaged goods don't sell well-even at a giant discount. If you want to speculate-Fla realtors will sell you land that's only 3 ft under water at low tide & lots of foreclosed houses at a deep discount.

[wm1066]

Meanwhile, Jack Cafferty and Wolfie brag about thier blogs on air to get people to read them.
WTF?

[shaman]

One more thing: Not all comments on HP make it past the filters or reviewers. Somewhat ironic isn't it?

[larry278]

Not really. HP is up front about being a monitored site & states the rules HP's editors & monitors use to judge if a comment is worthy of appearing on/in HP. HP's rules are clear & short. It is a good idea to read HP's rules once a day if you send comments to HP.

[shaman]

Interesting post and comments. Many issues going on here. Freedom of speech and the press is expressed in different countries, such as China and even the UK (so much easier to get sued). The US Bill of Rights does not extend to business, not just Freedom of Speech, try to convert people to your own religion or bring a gun to work for example.

Blogging anonomously is not a good solution since in most cases you lose most of your credibility. And identity theft is much easier, I could write as "anonomous you" and make you look like a fool. In keeping with that, do you have the right to expose someone else's personal traits or weaknesses? Do you have the right to lie about someone else or a business or government action? You imply we can say anything we like. but doesn't that lead to restriction when people blantantly smear someone or something?

Last, blogging is in many cases impotent since there is no action taken other than write. In the past passionate people striving for justice or equality did not just right, they went into the streets or took other action to support their beliefs. I fear that in this day most bloggers never leave their screens.

Thanks for a great topic and intelligent comments.

[ikkytito]

this is why the establisment is so intent on controlling the internert. China already has. Microsofts attempted takeover of yahoo is another example. It's dangerous to allow citizens to voice their opinions in a public forum without control. Why first thing ya know -They'll expect to be treated equally.

[milo9]

The internet provides an oppurtunity for an idea whose time has come to go viral.

Many people observe the same data, and think the same idea. The internet provides validation.

[curioustorquemada]

"The market has become a threat to freedom."
Perhaps it was your economic theories that led to your demise at LSE.

[kirotahoe]

as an old newspaperman, i am so happy to hear you make this point. until lately, there was a truly free press for only a few select very rich men. the rest of us were technicians. units if you will.

the internet so far, is the most liberating feeling. as long as i don't act boorish, i can say just about what i want. sometimes folks even agree and i want to fly! finally after all these years i can be free to talk, and all it took was a fairly inexpensive machine and a hook up. marvelous!

[SkimaskBob]

here here!

[runswithscissors]

Great post. First and foremost we need to fight to prevent regulation of the internet or we're back to square one.

[milo9]

Preserving the freedom of internet has to be a do or die issue. No compromise, no surrender.