• by Jim Meskauskas , November 18, 2004

My colleague, Tom Hespos, kicked up a little dirt this week in his column about the increasing sway that seemingly small numbers of people have on the current state of debate regarding content in media. Nothing is more a testament to the fact that the public square - though perhaps now broken down into much smaller tiles -- is as vibrant as it has ever been than the amount of commentary related to his column that appears on the Spin Board.

In spite of what we read these days in the more general press - and what we read these days can be very different depending on how much information segregation to which one's source of news is subjected - there are opportunities to very freely (some might say too freely) express one's self.

The Internet medium, of course, is where this is most on display. We might all have a different perspective as to whether or not there exists a state of equitable access to these points of view, e.g. the poor are less likely to have access to computers or cable and so are bereft of the rich mosaic of perspective that the media landscape provide, but there is little doubt that the "truth is out there."

Whether found in the crucible of an interpretive self that exposes him or herself to all points of view in spite of how he or she may feel about those points of view, or the collective wisdom of the blogging community that in aggregate may offer up the Truth - of the big 'T' variety - in spite of themselves, we are not at risk, yet, of losing our "Fourth Column."

But this does not mean that we still are not required to guard against the tyranny of the minority just because there is always somewhere else one can go for the kind of content one wants.

The recent spate of stories regarding well-organized social minorities (or perhaps not minorities, we don't actually KNOW) successfully lobbying advertisers to abandon programming they find distasteful may not be a four-alarm fire, but it does signal an alarm nonetheless. Programs like ABC's "Desperate Housewives," Fox's "Married by America," and, most recently, the concerns generated by ABC's promotion of the aforementioned "Desperate Housewives" leading into "Monday Night Football" have all come under sudden and sonorous attack.

In this land I love, it is anyone's right to object to something one finds objectionable, but when that objection encroaches on another's right to engage what that person or persons finds objectionable, we begin wading into murky and sometimes dangerous water. It is like the old saying, "your right to swing your fist ends when it touches the tip of my nose."

The right of protest is fine and should be encouraged, and from time to time deserves to take root, start a movement, and make change. But we must stand cautious before the attempt by others who decide to affect change that the change being affected does not rely on undue denial of another's interest in keeping things the way things are if the preservation of the status quo is not unreasonably infringing on the inalienable rights of the community.

Currently the Internet stands as the bastion of our freest channel for speech. It supports some of the most secret of truths and the vilest content. But to protect the weak - and let's face it, the ready foil for moralizing content is the old "what about the children??!!" battle cry -- from that which we find unseemly, offensive, or even dangerous, should we prevent all others from indulging? Think of the powerful communities we could create, if in order to prevent the subjection of the "weak" to the will of the "strong" we made everyone strong rather than making everyone weak?

A great thing I heard J. Walter Smith, president of Yankelovich Partners, say last week at Ad:Tech in relation to a completely different subject: "The answer to a flood is not a drought."

It is likely that advertisers who have acquiesced to certain pressures related to the content they implicitly endorse with their advertising on television will go to the Internet to find the people they are giving up by not running advertising in the content being objected to.

It is possible that those advertisers will still end up in or around content that the consumer constituency protesting in the first place will find objectionable for one reason or another, but given the hyper-niche quality of the Web, those advertisers will be able to better "hide" from those protesters. This continues the trend away from mass marketing, but it is still necessary to market to the masses, and there are a whole lot of masses that like "Desperate Housewives."

I don't wish to imply that I think there is a crisis at hand and we are at risk of waking up tomorrow without being able to watch what we want, read what we want, listen to what we want, and, for the most part, say what we want. But I don't think that showing concern that one day we could be on the brink of a disaster is unreasonable. The price of freedom is constant vigilance, and well-placed vigilance succeeds in warning us of a threat before it becomes a reality and not only once the threat has become a crisis.

After all, it is much better to go to the doctor than have as your epitaph, "I told you I was sick."