The speech machine
: Jay Rosen writes a paper to provoke thought and conversation at an upcoming confab — both of which it will do in excess, I’m sure — and here’s my favorite thought nugget:
With blogging, an awkward term, we designate a fairly beautiful thing: the extension to many more people of a First Amendment franchise, the right to publish your thoughts to the world.
Wherever blogging spreads the dramas of free expression follow. And this will be true in journalism. There are struggles with freedom of speech. A blog, you see, is a little First Amendment machine. And some of the roots of blogging are in the right to speak up, the will to be heard. In some cases, heard over the din of journalism.
