Winners Write The History

There's an old adage in the history business -- winners write the history. It refers to conflict, usually wars, in which the victorious side's cause takes over the historical record. In our context, the American Civil War is one of the easiest analogies -- the Union was right because it won. That's not an endorsement of the Confederacy; it's the recognition of a fact. Had Hitler succeeded, would Franklin Roosevelt not been cast as a war criminal who singled out people of Asian origin for concentration camps?

To bring another old saw to bear, the line from The Right Stuff: No Bucks, No Buck Rogers.

Winners and losers in the business world are measured in dollars, not sense. And once the big winners in the net media world figure it out, I can predict who the "Big Three" of the early 21st Century are.

Of course, the old Big Three networks, who commanded the media stage and set the national agenda were ABC, NBC and CBS. They are gone. They can barely fund their core functions, much less pay for the type of news organizations they once had.

The New Big Three networks: Google, Yahoo and Fox Corp.

Huh?

What made the old Three was advertising. Money. The Bucks for Buck Rogers. Today, who has the advertising dollars? Primarily the web-based ad network of Google, and to a much lessor extent Yahoo and Fox Corp (notice, not Fox or Fox News -- the mothership).

The sports world got a taste of what this means. Who funded the investigative journalism that turned over the latest round of tawdry recruiting issues in college sports? That would be Yahoo.

When the Googleplex decides it is time to reshape journalism, they will unleash a firehose of funding that will make every net media outlet associated with them masters of their domain.

How they do it, and to what ends are yet to be seen. Could be meet the old boss, same as the old boss. Could be time for something completely different.

One thing is for sure. The new winners are about to write the first draft of history.