Repeat after me: Edward Snowden is not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden wiring of our networked world.
This insight seems to have escaped most of the world's mainstream media, for reasons that escape me but would not have surprised Evelyn Waugh, whose contempt for journalists was one of his few endearing characteristics. The obvious explanations are: incorrigible ignorance; the imperative to personalize stories; or gullibility in swallowing U.S. government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy rather than a whistleblower.
In a way, it doesn't matter why the media lost the scent. What matters is that they did. So as a public service, let us summarize what Snowden has achieved thus far.
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