Published: April 10, 2008 12:23 pm            

CHRISTY: Meet the new perversion — same as the old perversion

Don’t believe everything you read. How often have we heard that?

But still, it’s in our nature that, if it’s in print, it must be true. This has been the case since, I would imagine, people began putting things in print. In fact, archeologists put a lot of faith in cave drawings from thousands of years ago. What if some caveman was chewing on a cocoa leaf, have-crazed on the buzz, and making up all the drawings, enhancing his hunting prowess just to impress his cavewoman?

The print business, like any business, has probably always had its 10 percent or 20 percent of absolutely corrupt practices. Sometimes, most recently Germany in the 1930s, entire organizations are taken over by authority figures, old documents burned, and new documents created and forced on the general public as truth. Here in America there has been a general review of our history books with the notion that they were written in a far too Euro-centric style.

I mention all of this because the “new” form of print media is the online publishing business and the ever-present blog. Like every honest new invention it started out innocent, genuine, and a way for everyday people to interact and share ideas. You could search for experts in any particular field and find someone in a far-flung corner of the world who knew everything about an obscure topic.

No more. Blogging for pay is now a thriving business. Companies or industries hire people to create blogs to promote — i.e. perhaps lie — about their products and ideology or to infiltrate news blogs and spread positive stories relative to their industry. Sometimes the pay can be phenomenal, but more often it’s today’s equivalent of the sewing sweatshops of the garment district in this country 125 years ago, and in China today.

According to the New York Times, three weeks ago a blogger on technology subjects died of a heart attack at age 60, and in December another tech blogger died of a massive coronary at age 50. It’s an increasing problem that this form of work, with its 24/7 cycle where deadline is a constant issue and sleep-at-your-own-risk is the mantra, can be pressure-packed and dangerous. Private business has always been fast, cutthroat and played very seriously, as it should be. Much money is at stake, dominance in an industry is coveted, and private business is the backbone and engine of any country.

Here in Western New York we have virtually no industry to speak of. We are dominated by government at every level imaginable. So we have to start asking ourselves: How long before our government catches on to this now-common business practice of inventing information and making it look like news? How long before it is part of a staff job description to infiltrate Web sites and spread positive information about politicians or policies their political boss is favoring? All the while making themselves look like average citizens who care about their community when in fact it may be someone paid by our tax dollars sitting in a government office?

Government in New York State is so professional compared to other parts of the country that I would imagine this is already happening, and we’ll only read about it years from now when someone exposes the practice. In a strange, surreal way, that’s a tremendous compliment I’m paying to our professional politicians and employees. They are the best of the best at what they do.

Professional marketing people are already employed by our elected government officials to write newsletters, create the slick mailings and even create radio and television programs promoting their agenda. I myself worked on such television back in the 1980’s when I helped script shows for elected officials on a show called Assembly Update, which is still on the air. It is no stretch of the imagination that today’s equivalent of that work is the supposedly neutral blog writer.

If this offends you, then there is still hope. While it’s always a buyer-beware marketplace, you have every right to be offended if your tax dollars are being used to fund a government employee who surfs the Internet all day and night pretending to be an average citizen. An influence-predator if you will.

Your only guard against such tactics is to only believe someone who is willing to put their name on a comment. It’s the generally accepted practice whether its customer comment cards in restaurants or someone ranting about the death penalty. People who care use their real names. They’re not afraid of their identity.

Years from now, when history sheds light on this practice — electronic fingerprinting which identifies exactly who and when and from where information gets transferred is already upon us thank god — we might all be safe again. But for now, as always, don’t believe everything you read.

Tom Christy is the founder of FAIR Government, a non-political and non-editorial educational foundation dealing with local government issues. www.fair-government.org. He encourages communication and can be reach via e-mail at aim1986@mac.com.

        

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