In a recent interview by Walt Mossberg, Steve Jobs uttered the following (can be found in the video around 2:00):

One of my beliefs very strongly is that any democracy depends on a free, healthy press.

Some of these newspapers are the news gathering and editorial organizations are really important. I don’t want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers myself.

I think we need editorial more than ever right now.

So anything that we can do to help the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other news gathering organizations find new ways of expression so that they can afford to get paid, so they can afford to keep their news gathering and editorial operations in tact, I’m all for. What we have to do is figure out a way to get people to start paying for this hard-earned content.

Bloggers vs. “media”
The moment I heard Jobs utter those words, I shot through the roof. What a guy!

Here’s a guy that has made his money predominately off of writers, journalists, bloggers and indie arts people. Granted, right now, established press has an enmity against bloggers, but what is a blogger?

This is an argument that we have been fully engaged in for a decade. The general consensus is that the difference between a blogger and a journalist is that a blogger is not one who has been through J-school and typically doesn’t act as “professional” (identifying before interviewing, honoring background/deep background, etc.) as a journalist. However, bloggers have, for the most part, enjoyed the same shield laws that traditional journalists have enjoyed.

Then there’s the question of hybrids: are all online news services blogs? And where do you classify sites like Wired or Engadget? Are the “media” or blogs?

No matter how you slice or dice it, the majority of people in this demographic are Apple users. Why piss them off?

Now, the way I read the stitches on this fastball is Jobs is someone who has time and time again been successful in what he has done. He can point to his previous achievements that have not once, but several times been world changing. Consider:

  • Macintosh
  • iPod
  • iTunes
  • iPhone
  • iPad
  • Pixar

These have all been game changers. I expect Jobs to continue to produce game changers until his career ends. But as @JeepCat pointed out, because Steve’s never been challenged because he’s had such astounding success, he is used to being dictatorial and getting his way.

I tend to think that Jobs was reacting to Gizmodo and the stolen iPhone fiasco.

Either way, I think that the only way to interpret what Jobs said is thus: “There should only be a few finely controlled news sources. The reason for this is that stupid people need to be told what to think. We can’t have a bunch of bloggers running around out there telling the truth and exposing facts we don’t want exposed. Read what I tell you to read. SHUT UP, SLAVE!

WWDC: Turn Off the Wifi
As if to back up my point, in a truly dumbass move that only a totalitarian could pull off, Steve Jobs barked the following from the stage today during the Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) when the radio in the new iPhone couldn’t get wifi signal:

“You know you could help me out, if you’re on WiFi if you could just get off… well we’re having a little problem here.”

Which Engadget complained about:

11:05AM Oh my god. Jobs is asking everyone to turn off their network cards and MiFis!

11:05AM He’s asking people to set their laptops on the floor.

11:05AM Guess what — we’re not doing that.

To which I Tweeted:

No bitching about Steve telling you to turn off your wifi. You applauded when he said “no nation of bloggers.” SHUT UP, SLAVE! #wwdc

Your Comments Go Here
What constitutes press? Is there a difference between bloggers and “the media”? Is Steve Jobs being dictatorial? Do you think that Jobs is in favor of censorship?