Trippi is so tuned into the Net! You gotta love this guy.

[juliagoolia]

October 14, 2004 | 6:13 p.m. ET


Sinclair knows not what it has unleashed (Joe Trippi)

In my book “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” I talk about how the bottom-up empowering nature of the Internet is going to change how many of our top-down institutions wield power or lose it in the future.

And I suspect that the top-brass at Sinclair (See David Shuster’s "Sinclair Sin's" blog entry) are getting a taste of what I mean.

Corporations, broadcasters, government, and political parties are all top-down institutions. Those at the top make the big calls and we at the bottom have had little power (until now) to effect their decisions.

My view for some time has been that the Internet is changing that. That the Internet is the first medium that allows thousands (sometimes millions) of Americans to come together and combine our power to challenge top down institutions that are failing us and our country.

That is because in a society where information is power— then the Internet is not distributing information, it's distributing power. And in a top-down society, it’s distributing power to the bottom.

Sinclair Broadcasting Inc.’s top brass does not understand this. So when they made the decision to air the anti-Kerry documentary “Stolen Honor” they made one of those top-down decisions they thought the rest of us would simply accept. Wrong.

Instead websites and blogs are starting petition drives calling on advertisers to halt advertising on Sinclair Broadcasting owned stations. Viewer boycotts are being organized, and Sinclair is being taken to task from the bottom-up.

We are not in the Information Age— we are in the Age of Empowerment. Sinclair Broadcasting and a lot of other institutions will learn the hard way – just exactly what that means.

Thoughts? E-mail [e-mail]

[trumad]

1. And the revolution has only begun.

[DebJ]

2. we can hope....until Internet 2 comes out and is bogus