The www: the biggest threat to Nicolas Sarkozy

There was a time when politicians could avoid unpleasant stories to circulate in the media, simply by going to lunches with the leading editors. They could also let their children become best friends with the children of the most important people in Broadcasting and Business. They could go golfing with their rivals on Sunday and send off a bottle of Champagne to their enemies for Christmas.
Not to forget the time when the president held monopoly over the press, and hence had total control over the information flow.
Those days are gone…
Mr Sarkozy sits by his desk and flips through the "History of the Press". He looks at his forerunners and how the censures always help them in crisis. But that does not work anymore. Because, just like himself, the newspapers are getting less and less popular. On Edelman’s blog, he writes about his meeting with three senior journalists from the Wall Street Journal. They all appear very doubtful about the future of print media, as the www is becomng a greater threat. And although bloggers often link back to newspapers, these serve a lot of time only to reference information that you already knew.
The circulation has dropped significantly for daily news papers on a global level. As a consequence to free newspapers and online news, people do not really see the point anymore to buy Print media. Daily News papers in the EU have seen a 5.63 drop since 2002. Evolution of technology, forces print media to the cliff.

The consequences?

People access their news online and the information flow gets faster and less controllable. Reputation management for politicians like Nicolas Sarkozy will be fairly challenging. Through wikis and blogs, anyone with something to say can publish it within a few seconds.
Therefore, close ties with the news media will not help Nicolas Sarkozy. In a network that comprises 100 millions of blogs, there will take more than champagne bottles to avoid unpleasant news circulating on the web.