The latest trend in our ‘democratic’ and ‘crime free’ society is the hostility expressed towards bloggers / reporters. The self appointed ‘elite’, financial or otherwise, id est those who have acceptable opinions are mightily indignant over inappropriate comments and leaks in the blogger sphere and want it stopped. The old tools they are so grief-stricken for are the mass media, proper academics and of course their legal technicians (as they are now called).
I my self find Chomsky’s explanations illuminating when he writes: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”