The Dolan family, owners of the cash machine known as Cablevision, will soon be the owners of a controlling interest of the primary newspaper of Long Island, Newsday.  From a business perspective, it’s a great combination, allowing the Dolan’s to leverage their ownership of the 2 primary sources of news and information on Long Island.

It also means that Jim Dolan gets to cherry pick the information provided to Long Islanders, via News12 (the only Long Island television station, exclusively available on Cablevision) and Newsday.  Should one man, regardless of how one feels about the Dolan’s, have his hands wrapped around the sphincter of information, loosening and squeezing as he will?

Plan B was Rupert Murdoch, the other bidder for the affections of Sam Zell, former owner of Newsday.  Murdoch, who just happens to live a stone’s throw over the bay from Dolan, is the owner of the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.  And Fox Television, too. 

It might be a bit sensationalistic to ask you to think back to George Orwell’s 1984 at this moment, but it’s message that the control of information is the control of thinking.  From a more practical perspective, whatever appears on the front page of a newspaper is the news.  Things that show up on page 79 are not as important.  We know that because the newspapers tell us that.

The lessons learned from the great media empire of Magnate William Randolph Hearst are not forgotten; it’s just that newspapers aren’t exactly the best financial bet these days, and they can’t force someone neutral to buy them.  They can only take the offers made.  Nor can we blame the Dolans or Rupert for seeking to leverage their empires by accumulating new toys.  As I said, it creates great synergies.

But for the people, it’s a potential nightmare.  Too much control in too few hands means that our information is suspect.  At a time when there is so much political and economic turmoil, coupled with a paucity of hard information to begin with, this is a recipe for democratic disaster.  For democracy to work, the public needs to know what is really happening.  Yes, most don’t bother and won’t learn anyway, but we can’t force people to think no matter what we do.

New York is the largest media market in the world,  We have more outlets than anywhere else.  And yet, we are watching as they align into camps, as the media universe contracts.  On Long Island, the Dolans will be the indisputable single source of news.  Makes me shudder.  But we can’t force Newsday to become an independent.  Each daily paper would cost too much anyway. 

So is the sky falling on the residents of Long Island?  Nah.  You see, at the same time that the old media contracts, new media expands to fill the void.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and will never allow this information vacuum to exist. 

While the blogosphere remains the hysterical, ignorant, unreliable stepchild of old-style journalism, it provides an alternate source for anyone interested in looking for a different take.  Much like our favorite seditionist, Thomas Payne, there are those who challenge, question, editorialize and persuade others to recognize issues and considerations that the newspapers and television never will.  They’re huge.  We’re tiny.  It allows the bloggers to say what they want, say it quickly and put it out there for the world to see.  If the world wants to see it.

Is the blogosphere really the media?  Not quite.  I depend on the kindness of strangers for information.  But we can look at a wealth of sources to arrive at a reasonably valid viewpoint.  Whether anyone else should accept or adopt our perspective is entirely up to them.  Blogs don’t promote themselves as “fair and balanced.”  We are what we are, warts and all. 

But when you hear that something has happened in the world today, you can wait for the 6 o’clock news, or tomorrow’s paper.  Or you can check the blogosphere at that very second. 

If you want to hear some views on the significance of a slice of news, you can hold your breath and hope that the Times will have an editorial about it eventually, or you can check out a few thousand blogs that will explain what they think it means and express an opinion about it.

The media universe is expanding, because the blogosphere exists.  No matter where you live on Long Island, you don’t have to take Jim Dolan’s word for it as to what really matters.  I have no idea how heavily Jim’s thumb will press on the jugular of the managing editor of Newsday, or whether the Dolan’s will want to be as “fair and balanced” as Rupert.  Maybe they will be good stewards of the First Amendment.  It could happen.

But George Orwell never imagined that there would be an underground called the blogosphere to nip at the heels of big media.  For every word they try to remove from the lexicon, we can create two.  For every memory they try to alter, we will have it cached.  While few of us will ever compete with the big boys of the media, we will still be here offering an alternative view. 

Let the Dolans buy Newsday.  If they mess with the news, the blogosphere will be there to pick up the slack.