Kaplan, sobre els media

Robert D. Kaplan: The Media and Medievalism
Policy Review, 12/2004-01/2005.

Presidents, even if voters ignore their blunders, are at least responsible to history; journalists rarely are. This freedom is key to their irresponsible power.

There is nothing irresponsible per se about publishing one’s opinions. In fact, government would be worse off with no pundits than with too many of them. Pundits, in one form or another, have always had a role to play in free societies. But the ongoing centralization of major media outlets, the magnification of the media’s influence through various electronic means and satellite printing, and the increasing intensity of the viewing experience in an age of big, flat television screens has created a new realm of authority akin to the emergence of a superpower with similarly profound geopolitical consequences.

(Versió francesa: Les médias et le médiévalisme.)