For what it’s worth, it’s very nice to see the interest that the Iranian election and riots has spawned in America—while it’s easy to criticize the over-the-top blogging and twittering right now, especially after those same individuals almost universally ignored Sri Lanka, Georgia, Zimbabwe and the variety of horrors that continues in Myanmar, among others…it’s still attention on a place that needs and deserves it, and that’s a good thing. The problem—because there is one—is that the bloggers and twitter types fail to recognize that They Are Not The Story. Is the Western media having trouble getting the story out, both due to Iranian media blackouts, intimidation, and a basic lack of Western spinal columns?
Sure they are. But that doesn’t make people who re-tweet youtube videos of beatings important. The story is what matters. Not the confirmation bias of children. Right now, we’re sitting around watching two things happen—one of them, the story of Iran, matters. The other one—about the brave kids in Brooklyn who are updating their Facebook status with statements about how “important” this all is—that’s not a story. That’s meaningless shit, and it obscures the point. Information matters. The audience doesn’t.
— The Factual Opinion: Economist Versus Idiot: 140 Characters Tattooed Across Your Face(co-sign)
