In order to understand the title of this article, you need to watch a video. I regard this video as the finest low-budget cartoon ever produced. It is titled “Bambi Meets Godzilla.” It was made in 1969. This will take you only 90 seconds.
On very rare occasions, a public event takes place that represents a turning point. It is not that the public event causes the great turn; rather, it illustrates it or represents it. Such an event took place in December 1998, when Matt Drudge published his brief article on the decision of Newsweek to suppress the story of Bill Clinton and an unnamed intern. That was a visible turning point of the shift of influence away from physically published journalism to digitally published journalism. It was also symbolic of the beginning of the end of the gatekeepers’ control over the flow of information.
Today, the number of newsprint employees is down by over 55% since December 1998. The number of print magazine employees is down by 40%. Matt Drudge is worth about $90 million.
Such an event may have taken place last month. Anyway, I hope so.
BAMBI GOES ON THE ATTACK
On January 16, Cathy Newman conducted an interview with clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson. Ms. Newman played the role of Bambi. Ms. Newman is a British TV personality on the BBC’s Channel 4 News.
Either she or her producer decided to interview Dr. Peterson. He was in Great Britain to promote his new book. Dr. Peterson is a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Toronto. He has an enormous following on YouTube. Every time he posts one of his lectures, it gets at least 200,000 hits. He raises so much money through voluntary donations to support his video productions that he has a team of videographers who record all of his lectures. I have never heard of…