Hugh Hewitt's prophet was Michael Crichton

Hugh Hewitt is widely recognized as the "godfather of the blogosphere." This guy has a vision for the incredible potential of the new media form called blogging, and he had it literally before anyone else did. His book Blog is a quick read jam-packed full of the brief history of blogs, the incredible power they've already wielded, and advice for blogging's future. Trust me, Hugh is riding the first wave of this phenomenon. And incredibly enough, he is a living example of how a Bible-believing Christian can be great at what he does (blog, author books, host a syndicated radio show, teach Con Law at a university) and lead the way in innovation, creativity and style.

Hugh's biggest discussion topic is the slow but steady decline of the traditional media and the upsurge of power and influence in the blogosphere. He is a true pioneer of the "new media."

Funny thing is, this was prophesied over 10 years ago by someone else: Michael Crichton. Just listen to a few excerpts from a speech of Crichton's from 1993:

The media has always been driven by technology, but it's surprising how many of its attitudes and terminology are very old. Stereotype and cliche are eighteenth century printers' terms, referring to metal type. The inverted pyramid story structure was a response to the newly-invented telegraph; reporters were not sure they could get the whole story in before the telegraph broke down,a nd so began to put the most important information first. The first image broadcast on television was a dollar sign, setting the tone for the future of that medium.

But the modern thrust of technology is radically different, because it is changing the very concept of information in our society.

Crichton notes his observation of the increasing bias and poor reporting in the media. Then he predicts the solution.

But what if somebody offered a service with high-quality information? A service where all the facts were true, the quotes weren't piped, the statistics were presented by someone who knew something about statistics? What would that be worth? A lot. Because good information has value.
[...]
Today's media equivalent of the old telephone operator is Dan Rather, or the front page editor, or the reporter who prunes the facts in order to be lively and vivid. Increasingly, I want to remove those filters, and in some cases I already can.
[...]
[Now,] my ability to view C-SPAN brings us the third trend: the coming end of the media's information monopoly. For two hundred years, since the inception of our nation...the media has been able to behave in a basically monopolistic way. The media has treated information the way John D. Rockefeller treated oil - as a commodity, in which the distribution network, rather than product quality, is of primary importance. But once people can get the raw data themselves, that monopoly ends. And that means big changes, soon.

Crichton/Hewitt have directly pinpointed the problem with the MSM: reporters' biases and lack of understanding of the issues leads to poor questioning and bare-bones reporting. Switching to the perspective of a journalist, Crichton writes:

I can frame very general questions and get away with doing [my job poorly]. How do I justify my position? Well, I can tell myself that I'm too busy to do better, because the news rushes onward. But that's not really satisfactory. Better to say the American people don't want details, they just want "the basics." In other words I can blame my own shoddy behavior on the audience. And if I hear the audience criticizing me, I can say I'm being blamed as the bearer of bad news. Instead of what is really going on - which is that my customers are telling me that my product is poorly researched and often either uninteresting or irrelevant. It's junk food journalism. Empty calories.

I could have pulled that out of Hugh's daily perspective on the MSM, and probably almost word-for-word.

Mr. Crichton, your prophesy is coming true, and Hugh Hewitt is riding that wave.

Tags: blog, blogging, blogosphere, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Crichton, MSM, media bias, bias, journalism