Echoing Glenn's point about how to defeat the MSM/create alternatives to the MSM .

I am a producer of original material.  I take very expensive equipment to very dangerous places.

Then I produce original documentaries--four so far , with number five on the way then I'll go to Afghanistan and Iraq and shoot three more.

I am the exact opposite of the pajama clad pundit.

So are Michael Yon and Michael Totten (even more than I.)

The sad truth of the blogosphere is that 90% of it based on the reporting of MSM or another media outlet.  There is very little original reporting.

There are some original inputs of data coming from the right side of the blogosphere, but the blogosphere has a parasitic relationship to the MSM it despises.

The MSM still controls the killer app of gathering original information and producing original products.  But even they have cut back back original reporting...it is cheaper and easier to line up a pundits and "strategists" to yell at each other than actually go out and produce hard news.

There is a vaccum in overseas reporting that some like me have filled.  The vaccum exists because covering wars and foreign countries is expensive and difficult.

So far the nominally right side of blogosphere has started to fill that vaccum.  But it is expensive and dangerous.  (And I honestly don't know how many more times I have until that bullet or bomb finally catches up to me.)

Last Spring I set what I thought was a modest goal:  Beat Brian DePalma's anti-soldier movie "Redacted."
I'm 68% of the way there.

If a small independent production could beat a film financed by a billionaire and directed by an major Hollywood director, then maybe someone would notice that there is a market for documentaries about Iraq that show the dignity and bravery of the troops.  And hopefully that someone would back a much better director and deploy a real crew to Iraq.

As the blog father said , "There's a vast underserved population out there, for news, entertainment, movies, etc., and if people start serving it, the current "mainstream" media won't be so mainstream anymore."

The market must be proven with original content.  And original content is not cheap or easy and, in my personal case, it is often dangerous.

So go see An American Carol this weekend.

Buy Michael Yon's book .

Buy Evan's DVD .

Hit Totten's tip jar .

Buy one of my DVDs .

---