I was struck by this stat in a New York Times story today about consumers taking charge of their junk mail: 148,471,508 phone numbers are now on the federal do-not-call list with 300,000 more added every week. There weren’t that many votes cast for President in 2004. Pardon me, but I have to reach into the drawer and dust off my T-shirt with Jarvis’ First Law of media and life: Give people control and we will use it; don’t give us control and you will lose us. Give us the chance to take control of our lives, and we will, by the hundreds of millions. And then I was struck by a second story in the paper: A grocery store put up its own labels rating foods on their nutritional value and found that it affected sales: more people bought the good stuff. Give us information and you give us control and we will use it. Isn’t that what media is all about? It’s simple and obvious but too often forgotten.
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