James Fallows' Interview with Google's Dan Drummond
Fallows’ raw transcript of his interview with Google’s chief council gives some insight in the timing and process of Google’s withdrawn from mainland China. What blows my mind is the Chinese stance that censorship is a reflexive responsibility, that such a practice is a law, and that all of these things can be discussed so rationaly. I know that this is one of the basic absurdities of a totalitarian state, but the Google episode is bringing it home for me.
On an different tack, one that’s maybe a little meta: Fallows is clearly going through his method as a journalist here, and the new media is acting as a very productive rider. He is covering this subject. He gathers annecdotes, performs interviews. This material will be condensed, synthesized, and edited to make an article. In the meantime, however, he is making use of the raw material on his blog at the Atlantic with what seems like very little extra effort expended in the way of reporter overhead. I read the full content on my RSS reader, and it both makes me feel like I am one of his readers (good for him) and much more interested in buying the end product (good for the Atlantic). It would seem that the only people who should be afraid of this business model are those who have no ability to go beyond the first-order of content. If all you are doing is republishing what is essentially a commodity (ahem, MacRumors and Apple Insider), then you can’t execute the change, use the lever of your mind to make something of the raw material, then you are in trouble in the media world. You are just an amature or a wire service.
