Authoritarian thinking and online media.

I’m going to be inflammatory for a bit.

Traditional newsmedia organizations are proving that their supposed role in supporting democracy by providing information is incidental, rather than part of the core intent of journalism.

Put more bluntly, if you’re against the democratization of publishing, you’re an authoritarian.

I’m not going to make comparisons to the printing press, I’m going to keep it more simple: when someone says, without sarcasm, that publishing information and opinion should be left to an elite, professional class, they are saying that no individual voice should be as loud as that of an authority, and that whatever confers the aforementioned authority is the only reasonable way to determine good information from bad, they are saying two things:

1) That the average person is too stupid to be taught how to vet information they are presented with; and

2) That submission to an authority is inherently superior to an open sharing of ideas, when a topic is sufficiently important or complex.

I’m not willing to support the existence of a business that wants to undermine by ability to contribute to discourse, and thinks that a lack of media literacy is an inherent human flaw, rather than a failure of education.

As such, I will provide no monetary support, of any kind, to any organization led by someone who insists that only professionals can create value, starting with people on the authoritarian side of the citizen journalism debate.

I’m done being inflammatory, now.