Davd Codrea: Preaching to the Choir

Good points, but you’re preaching to the choir,” I’ve been told countless times. “It’s fine and good to write for gun owners, but we already support the right to keep and bear arms. You need to reach the people being brainwashed by the mainstream media, but they’ll never give us a voice.”

So what are we to do? Admit we exist in an echo chamber, and give up?

To begin with, I reject the premise that just because someone agrees with gun rights they have earned the right to be considered choir members. That’s right, I said “earned.”

The choir is comprised of people up there performing. They put themselves on the line. To get ready for that, they practice. And study. And work. And get to the venue. And put other things on hold to fulfill their commitments to people depending on them.

And they’ll do it again next week. And the week after that.

The people listening to them sing aren’t the choir. And more often than not, getting them to bring a new person, or to put a dollar in the plate, can be like pulling teeth.

But my well-meaning advisers have a point about the mainstream media, that group I alternately call “Authorized Journalists” and “Fourth Estate Fifth Columnists,” and that Dianne Feinstein and Joe Biden refer to as “real reporters” and “legitimate news media.” They’re too busy lying and committing sins of omission to give us a fair shake, and our concerns aren’t part of their agenda anyway.

Besides, if they had their way, they’d stomp out the competition new media is giving them. Years back I wrote about how an “advocacy” lawyer was hyping “an energy tax, by making some computers, Web sites, blogs and perhaps cable TV channels too costly to maintain [to] reduce the supply of information.”

That’s right, “reduce the supply of information.” And give the old guard media its advantage back, under force of government arms.

Really. How very “progressive.”

So how do we deal with the reality that not only is the establishment media against us, they would like to stamp upstart independent content providers out for ending their role as exclusive gatekeepers, and for being a threat to their rice bowls and their continued viability?

We need to start by becoming more than mere consumers of information. The choir observers are absolutely right when they note the message needs to go beyond niche readerships.

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