Men, not machines: the Internet and cable TV are important, but far from all-important.(liberals' control of the media)(political interests in media policies)

THIS is the bloggers' hour. The blogs have exposed CBS, beaten the New York Times, and made fools of all the professional press critics at the Columbia Journalism School and the Poynter Institute. PowerLineBlog and Little Green Footballs and Instapundit and Hugh Hewitt: They have earned their garlands and their victory lap.

In the days ahead, there will be more work for them to do. There are still many unanswered questions--along with much arrogant spinning by CBS. But as the bloggers, reinforced by talk radio and the cable-news networks, force the truth to light, a word of caution.

There's an idea gaining traction out there that it's technology alone that has upended the old Big Media monopoly. According to this interpretation, computers and the Internet and cable television doomed CBS and the others from the start.

But that's not true. They have the same computers and the same cable technology in Europe, but there the old media companies still reign supreme. It's not technology alone that transformed the media: It's technology plus laws and rules that make it possible for the technology to be used. And those laws and those rules are under attack.

Think for a moment about your AM radio. Twenty years ago, AM broadcast pop music and news bulletins. Today it carries hours of conservative talk. What changed? Not the AM band--it functions exactly the same as it did in 1984 or, for that matter, in 1934. What changed were the rules. Up until 1987, any radio station that allowed time for partisan comment had to allot an equal amount of time to the other side--with the Federal Communications Commission deciding what counted as "the other side." Daunted by that regulatory burden, AM radio stayed away from politics altogether. It's not a coincidence that Rush Limbaugh emerged as a national voice only after the so-called Fairness Doctrine was abolished--and that liberal Rush critics have repeatedly tried to reinstate the old rule ever since.

Or think about the Swift Vets ads. Maybe you saw them on the Internet. But they were there for you to see only because senators John McCain and Russ Feingold failed in their attempt to amend U.S. election law to prevent citizens--like the veterans--from making their voices heard during election campaigns. As McCain's chief of staff, Mark Salter, explained soon after the 2000 election: "Growing numbers of members running for reelection feel they are losing control of their campaigns. It's not just independent-expenditure committees running ads against them that are the problem; it's the groups running ads for them that can turn out to be counterproductive, with uncoordinated messages which the candidates cannot influence."

You can soon expect to hear much sober chin-pulling about the "dirty" campaign of 2004--and the need once again to reform the campaign-finance laws so as to extinguish non-candidate election speech once and for all, as has been done in Canada and much of Europe.