Bloggers Boot Camp, 2nd Edition

7Mob Rule, Inciting a Riot, and Freedom of Speech

It’s a common perception that in the old days, journalists resided in their ivory towers, typing out their sacred texts and knowing their readers would absorb their scribbling without question. Some readers wanting to raise a stink about what was written would sit down at their typewriters and peck out a letter to the editor. Those journalists who received such screeds would often toss them in the trash, but every once in a while a few of them would find their way into print. Those were published alongside the sacred texts, completing the circle of communication. The cranks had one page in the paper while the journalists had the other hundred.

This mode of communication in which writer is disconnected ...