Death of the gatekeeper
: Once upon a time, journalists were the gatekeepers to the audience and from power.
Then flacks took over the gatekeeping from power (they control access to the famous and powerful and fame is the fuel that fires media today).
Now the Web — and weblogs and interactivity — are taking over the gatekeeping to the audience, allowing the famous and powerful to bypass the gatekeepers and vice versa.
See this latest example from Lost Remote:
The old-media types are furious – but the Red Sox regularly posted on a fan site/messageboard to discuss the now-dead A-Rod for Manny Rodriguez trade. This culminated in a hilarious showdown on a local sports radio show. One sports writer was complaining how the Red Sox were trying to go “directly to the fans.” New Sox pitcher Curt Schilling called in – shut the writer up – and told him the web is the place to go if ballplayers want to get their story out unfiltered. Brilliant.
: See also Dan Gillmor on the Pentagon bypassing gatekeepers at the networks by providing C-Span-like video from Iraq to local TV stations (and, I hope, the Web).
: If you’re a gatekeeper, what should you do? Don’t fight it. Enable it. We’re in the information business. More information is good.
