The Internet: Enabling Pastor Terry Jones and crazies everywhere

[Commentary] It is a horrifying wonder of the Internet age that a failed, half-crazed Florida pastor with a Facebook account can cause checkpoints to be thrown up on major roads in New Delhi, provoke violent demonstrations in Logar province south of Kabul, and be rewarded with the attention of America's four-star commander in Afghanistan and the president of the United States.

Rev. Terry Jones achieved something new, something that will be studied for generations: the propaganda of the idiotic gesture. This development was made possible by a number of enabling conditions. The first is the symbiotic relationship between new and old media. There was a time when gaining attention for saying something stupid required an institutional standing -- a prominent pulpit, a denominational leadership position, a following of more than a few dozen people meeting in a warehouse. In the Internet era, attention for stupidity is a democratic right, rewarded for audacity and timing alone. The new media provide a platform without filters for those without credentials -- people who, in previous times, could not get a letter to the editor published in the shopper's gazette. The old media enable this trend. A competitive news environment drives saturation coverage. Saturation coverage confers legitimacy -- even as reporters themselves feel guilty in their complicity. A second enabling condition is the pressure on political figures to respond to the manias of the news cycle.