May 2008 Archives

Discussion of US media is germane to many of the concerns expressed at the blog on this site. Media in this country are primarily controlled by large for-profit corporations who derive revenue from advertising, with music programming and entertainment being a huge component along with "news." This is in large part thanks to deregulation and to consolidation of ownership over time. We rank somewhere in the middle for press freedom, and like other nations, our press freedom is heavily affected by economics as interrelated with matters of war and peace.

What We Are Offered

Our FCC-regulated television has three traditional (NBC, ABC, CBS) and four new networks (Fox, CW, MyNetwork, ION), and one noncommercial network (PBS). We have small local stations (most belong to big networks) and public access on local and Hispanic local channels, with subscription cable or satellite services like HBO and CNN. Radio has also consolidated, and most stations are profit-oriented, with the exception of noncommercial ones such as NPR. Young people tend to use comedic news parodies (such as Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert) as actual news providers. Talk radio "exploded" after the FCC Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987 so that "balanced" news programming was no longer standard. Subscription satellite radio is heavily consolidated and are not regulated by the FCC. Cinema is one of our big exports, as manufacturing and agriculture decline, and documentaries have grown in popularity.

Newspapers continue to decline and as the cost of producing them has increased, most now rely on wire services such as AP or Reuters, for their national and world coverage. This explains the "watered down" or sketchy coverage we sometimes get. US newspapers are privately owned by big chains like Gannett or McClatchy, for the most part. Smaller communities tend to have "weeklies" and larger cities often have "alternative weeklies" such as the Village Voice in NYC or The Stranger in Seattle. Many large cities are no longer "two newspaper towns" as their advertising revenue has been squeezed by Web sites like eBay, Craigslist and Monster.com. Magazines serve the specialty markets but most are owned by the same media conglomerates that own the other media. We have three main news magazines: TIME, Newsweek and US News and World Report which are said to strive for objectivity, but in practice have political biases that are fairly easy to see.

Do We Have A Free Press?

Reporters Without Borders compiles a Free Press ranking each year and last year, the US ranked 48th. We are not the best or worst, but somewhere in the middle.

The top fourteen were European, and though G8 countries had showed improvement, only two G8 members made the top 20 - Canada (18th) and Germany (20th). The Netherlands fell from number one to 12th via locking up two journalists who would not reveal their sources. France (31st) had its record marred by concerns about labor/demonstration coverage, and journalist confidentiality. Italy (35) had too much mafia influence over the press. Japan (37th) improved slightly, as quarrels between the press and militant nationalists died down. In the US (48th), a blogger (Josh Wold) spent 224 days in prison and a cameraman from Sudan was detained at Guantanamo (since 2002), which brought down our score. Bulgaria (51) and Poland (56) were Europe's low players, as journalists were attacked or given harsh sentences.

The US scored not much better than certain young democracies, such as Mauritania (50th), and we were beat by Uruguay (37th) and Nicaragua (47th), though El Salvador dropped (64). Benin (53) and Mali (52) fell in ranking after imprisoning journalists for insulting the president. Russia (144) did not progress, as journalists were murdered and not punished, and diversity was lacking.

The Internet and Press Freedom

Several countries fell in the ranking this year because of violations of the free flow of online news and information. In Malaysia (124th), Thailand (135th), Vietnam (162nd) and Egypt (146th), bloggers were arrested and news websites were closed or blocked. At least 64 persons are currently imprisoned worldwide because of what they posted on the Internet, 50 of whom are in China, eight in Vietnam and one in Egypt. (Where are the other five?)

War and News

War and conflict meant low rankins for Somalia (159th) and Sri Lanka (156th), as it has become hard for journalists to work. The battle between Hamas and Fatah led to press freedom violations in the Palestinian Territories (158th). In Iraq (157th), armed groups targeted journalists. (More than 200 journalists and media assistants have been killed since the US-led invasion in March 2003). Meanwhile, Nepal (137th) jumped up 20 places, as the end of war and return to democracy improved the status of the media there.

Alternatives

The internet has added a capacity to look up old news, via subscription or for free. Add bloggers, and we are writing our history as it happens. We need to seek out truth, wherever that lies, and it will take work. It takes diligence to find the facts and patterns amongst the hype and sensationalism. It takes discipline to do something useful with the information, rather than making gossip go viral or supporting conspiracy. Most of all, it takes detachment to "fight the frame" and to look at the forest or the individual trees, by consciously shifting perspective.

Here are some of the organizations who perform a "watchdog" function on the media:

Adbusters - Foundation with goal of changing the way society and the mass media interact.
Alternative Media Watch - Media group showcasing underreported news stories and issues.
American Journalism Review - National magazine covering all aspects of print, television, radio and online media.
Center for Media and Democracy - A wiki-based investigative journalism collaborative focused on the public relations industry and whistle-blowing manipulative or misleading practices. Contribute to a quarterly investigative journal, the Weekly Spin listserv, donate or draw on newsfeeds.
Center for Media and Public Affairs - Nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C., conducting scientific studies of the news and entertainment media.
Columbia Journalism Review - Publication serving as a watchdog of the press in all its forms.
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) - National media watchdog group advocating independence and criticism in journalism.
Global Media Monitoring Project - A twice-a-decade study of the media’s news coverage to be undertaken worldwide with the aim of documenting the participation and portrayal of men and women in the world’s news media.
Independent Press Councils (IPC) - Containing details of press councils who have successfully adapted the idea of self-regulation to their own cultural and political context, to facilitate the exchange of views and information, and to promote and support self-regulation.
Media Matters for America - A non-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Founded by David Brock, a conservative media insider.
Media Monitors Network - Grass roots watchdog of media coverage which seeks to uncover journalistic and media bias and provide contrary information and opinions.
Media Research Center- Conservative group founded to bring political balance to the news media and responsibility to the entertainment media.
Media Transparency - Watchdog organization tracing funding sources of many media and political organizations.
Media Watch - Organization focusing on media literacy and the challenging of stereotypes commonly found in the media.
Media Watch (ABC TV) - A leading forum for Australian media analysis. Summary, news, bungled stories and viewable episodes of the weekly program, plus archive of previous coverage.
MediaChannel.org - Nonprofit site dedicated to the political, social, and cultural impacts of the media.
National Institute on Media and the Family - Providing research and education on the media's effect on families and children.
NewsTrust - Online social network that aims to help people identify quality journalism. Sign-in to rate news and opinions.
On the Media - Site representing weekly, one-hour National Public Radio program devoted to media criticism and analysis.
The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press - Independent opinion research group studying attitudes toward the press, politics and public policy issues.
PR Watch - Investigative reporting on the practices of public-relations and public affairs industry, from the Center for Media and Democracy.
Project Censored - Locating stories about significant issues of which the public should be aware, but is not, for one reason or another.
Stats - Weblog and articles highlight abuses of science and statistics regarding policy issues.

What does it feel like to wake up in the morning, get out of bed, have a little breakfast, and then head off to work knowing that this day, like all the days before, what you do will send yet more African Americans to a slow but certain death?

In her book on Adolph Eichmann, Hannah Arendt coined the off-repeated phrase, “the banality of evil,” in her attempt to describe how apparently normal, seemingly non-insane people could so easily participate in the monstrousness of the Final Solution.

Banality is where you find it.

Just the other day, in a burst of pseudo-military bravado, Hillary Clinton reared back and vomited up this little gem. Asked what the U.S. should do if Iran were at attack Israel with nuclear weapons, she replied that the U.S. would “be able to totally obliterate” Iran in reply.

There are 65 million men, women, and children in Iran, all of whom Clinton would apparently be willing to murder. Clinton took a brief round of criticism for this blood-drenched remark, but no one called for her to be taken immediately to a mental hospital for a thorough work-up.

But committing genocidal murder can be so much more subtle. Take that seemingly benign little chemical flavoring, menthol.

Civility is the glue that allows people to live together peacefully, especially in big, diverse nations. Canadians are usually civil. Many Americans try to be civil, but we do seem to have alot of horrific role models.

Jeffrey Feldman has written a book called Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy. Feldman also has a blog called Frameshop, which deconstructs the way the American right uses language. In his book, he dissects the mass of hateful spew into seven specific types of us and them rhetoric. For each of the seven bad ways to talk and act, he uses a conservative talking head as an example.

Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association has a vision of the world in which a "command-obedience" relationship exists between the governors and the governed and the use of force is dispensed under the authority of the governors. People are silenced in the presence of arms.

Pat Buchanan leads the charge against immigrants, which he sees an a Mexican invasion of America as revenge for our defeating them 160 years ago at Santa Anna. This framing aids corporate conservatives as it takes the focus off their takeover of immigration policy and instead, blames the immigrants.

Ann Coulter justifies violence against the target of her choice. Liberals are traitors who need to be eliminated because of their collaboration with Al Quaida. She is the ultimate "my way or the highway" advocate and thus closes off any discourse.

Bill O'Reilly blusters so that there is no way to talk about national security or other issues. John Gibson assaults the idea of diversity with his "War on Christmas," and James Dobson extends ideas about child discipline and family authority to the greater society. Dinesh D'Souza blames liberals for all the wrongs of the world, from 9/11 to the war itself.

Collectively, the right wing pundits have almost destroyed the concept of civility.

Discussing the same article, Sara Robinson says:

Somehow, we need to find our way back to each other. And, as simple as it sounds, it may start with a determined resolution that we are going to be civil to each other. Always. Even to your obnoxious Dittohead neighbor. Even to your annoying fundamentalist sister-in-law. Even to that jerk with the faded W'04 bumper sticker who stole your parking space. Even to the whinging concern troll in the comments thread. Catharsis feels like a birthright in our I-want-it-now society; but it's a luxury that progressives can no longer afford. Every time we give into it, the culture splits a little wider, and our odds of ever healing again it grow a bit more remote. It's time for progressives to step up and show the rest of the country how grownups behave. We've got an example to set, and a hundred million people to educate.

If we want to rebuild the country, we need to remember that we are all heirs to the same vast trust of social, political, and physical capital built up by previous generations; that our livelihood and liberties depend entirely on how well we can manage to sustain that common legacy; and that we share a duty to ensure our children's future by passing all of that on to them, not only intact but richer yet.

Our Democratic primaries have been an exercise in how NOT to conduct ourselves civilly, though it is pretty easy to analyze which candidate(s) took the higher road. Negativity has been said to be more powerful than positivity in political contests, but given our record, we need to try a new model.

Last Saturday, as I was fielding comments on Daily Kos about the piece Why We're Leaving, prospective buyers were traipsing through the house, opening the doors of newly-cleaned out closets, perusing the half-empty book shelves, and asking the occasional question about the plumbing. The traipsing continued through Sunday, even though we did not even have a For Sale sign in the front yard yet.

On Monday, we had four offers to buy. We accepted the one from the nice young couple who will have a baby in three months. They seemed to be the hopeful choice: they had saved their money for ten years, had lost out on another house they had loved, and were so so positivel about our house. They bid high. They won.

And thus our own sense of doing the right thing at the right time was validated.

We have found a sweet little (tiny, small, teensy) apartment to rent for a year, about a mile from our current location, and a mile from the Capitol as well. Our chances of running into Members of Congress at the supermarket are slim, our proximity to the halls of power reduced, our privileged views a thing of the past.

I cannot tell you how freed I feel. Tears of relief rise up in me, and have all week.

My friend in England said to me last night (on Skype), "But what if Obama wins?" An ex-pat American, who divides her time between Norway, Spain, and England, she is not bitter and she has hope, now, at last. I told her that if Obama wins, that would be wonderful, in my opinion, because it would mean that the American voters have managed to overcome our natural inclination to elect the person we would rather get drunk with rather than someone who can actually govern the country. But it is still going to be a nasty nasty struggle, and the forces working against the common good are well-funded and effective.

Those forces have too many of the Washington insiders in thrall. You can see it in their eyes: alternately vacant and worried. Avuncular men state "all is not lost!" to each other, and pound the upper arms of the distressed. Staffers slink around, busying themselves with press releases and policy statements so they don't have to think too much about the ramifications of those statements. The members of the Progressive Caucus try to be cheerful as they watch their own hard work undermined, over and over again, by the Blue Dogs, who are in turn, defensive and determined.

The last thing any of them want in their day: activists. Activists disrupt the flow of business. First of all, there are not enough of them around to make much of a difference, except as they impede one's progress along a corridor, and secondly, they tend to ask uncomfortable questions. And they actually want answers.

Today I am going to summarize three articles I have received recently which have to do with the US dollar. I've been watching this closely for about ten years, as our original plan was to retire early and expatriate. The plan was to have a better life yet spend less money, but we may have missed the window of opportunity. I am often reminded of all the stories I heard as a child, about growing up in the Great Depression. To make it all more creepy, I know people struggling to live abroad, and people on the USS Lincoln (off the coast of Iran), which makes our current economic mess all the more personal and ominous.

Dollar's fall forces new standard of frugality

Americans have been living large, often on borrowed money, as consumer spending represented more than 70% of our commerce and we bought more than we made and sold. Our trade deficit is $800,000,000,000, about 7% of the economy, aside from our budget deficit and national debt. Our news is all about what is rising (debt, unemployment, price of oil, war fatalities) and falling (value of the dollar, quality of life.) Foreigners are wary of investing in our economy, after lending us money to stop til we dropped and joining us in propping up sub-prime lending. As the feds push down interest rates, investors yank their money and put it to work where there is a higher rate of return. The dollar has lost 17% against the euro in one year's time. Our economy had grown since the end of WW2 but now it's the turn of China, India, a united Europe and Latin America.

As a country, we are tightening the belt on our collective fat stomach. Sales are up for rice, down for casinos. People do not normally cut back their standard of living. When food and fuel go up, values of homes and retirement funds drop, and it's hard to get credit, French wines, restaurant meals and imported cars go first. With increases in oil and foodstuffs, basic necessities are also affected. Credit is harder to get, which affects home buyers, those needing cars to get to work, and students needing to borrow money for school. Assets like home value and retirement funds shrink, so cannot be drawn on and no longer represent as much security. The upside is that people may actually have to put money down to buy a house. They may be given credit based on their actual ability to pay back loans. There may be more enthusiasm for clean energy and buying local.

The Dollar's Down But We're Not

Americans living abroad, such as those who work for foreign companies and pay in dollars, are having a hard time. They report cutting out mineral water, then restaurant meals, even at small neighborhood bistros. By now, those in Europe are absorbing the equivalent of a 50% pay cut. A Parisian quotes these prices: $50 for a dozen croissants, farmed salmon for $23/pound, $4 for a newspaper. Wine and soda are both too expensive, and some people have bought potted plants as they can't afford flowers any more. Many are selling their cars or even returning to the states (which means quitting jobs or stopping studies.) Any trips or returns to the States mean hours on-line, desperately seeking bargains or ways to cash in frequent flier miles.

A woman in Paris says:
"I think of stopping our subscription to Le Figaro, but not to the International Herald Tribune, without which we'd be lost. Cooperatives for exchanging the New Yorker have sprung up. I pass on my Times Literary Supplements and New York Reviews of Books to my friend Eric in Germany."

On top of it, people at home may not be sympathetic, not realizing that expats have to pay taxes in both countries and don't want to uproot their kids. Some specialities do not translate into jobs in the US. Doesn't the envy also suggest that people wonder if there might be places better to live than the US? Some people will accept fairly major reductions in quality of life in order to stay in Europe.

US Beats War Drum as Iran Dumps the Dollar

Let's hope this doesn't mean what it sounds like. A "senior military official" leaked to the press plans to publicly reveal evidence of weapons caches found in Iraq which can be traced directly back to Iran. They are the type of roadside bombs often used against occupying US forces. The plan to present this evidence of Iranian support for Shiite militias inside Iraq comes at the same time that Iran has dumped the dollar for oil trades. They will deal, like a certain supermodel, in Euros or yuan, rather than the dollar.

A second US aircraft carrier has arrived off the coast of Iran. Gates calls the carrier a "reminder" and not a threat elevation. Another "anonymous senior official" says the USS Lincoln replaces the USS Truman, which is returning to its home base. Some analysts believe that Saddam Hussein's decision to switch from the dollar to the euro precipitated "regime change," to protect American interests. Others wonder if others around the world may follow suit and dump some of their reserves of US Federal Reserve notes. This would bring the dollar down further and the cost of fuel upwards.

(graffiti from Belgium & Spain, where the dollar is currently worth US $.6459)

When did we know we had to leave?

Certainly the first indication was right before the 2004 election, after a year-plus of working hard, 24X7, to elect a smart, good, thoughtful, honest man to the White House. Richard and I were sitting in the car on the Sunday prior to election day. He hesitated before turning on the car. "I have a bad feeling," he said. "I have a sense that in churches all over America, people are being told to vote for Bush."

My mind reeled. I had been operating under the assumption that the good guys would win this time. I was much more concerned about what would happen to us WHEN John Kerry and John Edwards were elected. I was concerned because I genuinely respected and liked very few of the folks who were high up in the campaign at that point in time. It seemed to me that they were spending more energy on casting themselves in key roles inside the White House than they were in actually winning the hearts and minds of voters. Few of them seemed to even like or respect John Kerry himself. My concerns were split: that Richard would not find a place of integrity inside the new administration and/or that he WOULD and we would have to hang out with these sleazebags for years.

My concerns were unfounded, his were not.

It was on November 4, 2004 that I found the website for homes in Canada. There was a converted church listed, and it sat on the water, serenely overlooking lapping waves. It was open; it had flow and history.

I looked at the church until it disappeared, then noted when it returned, and then when it returned again.

Meanwhile, the political insiders who made up the bulk of our social lives split up and found camps to join: the MoveOn folks, the policy organizations, various NGOs, Media Matters, the Campaign for America's Future, etc., and, of course, various campaigns. We had a difficult time with all of the organizations; having begun the Democracy Cell Project, we found ourselves competing with much larger and sexier communities. No one believed in the power of a few knowledgeable and motivated folks to change the world, despite Margaret Mead's oft-quoted belief in that possibility. But most significantly, no one believed in the community management skills we had honed over the course of the Kerry Blog. What they did believe in: scaling, page views, market share.

We had nothing to offer on those fronts. Having worked in an atmosphere of the high-touch interactions, and having spent a lot of time and energy on learning how to shift perceptions and manage difficult people, we were uninterested in either the circle jerk of insiders or the ATM machines-for-change that were set up. We proposed helping the Congressional Progressive Caucus build a community and they passed. We advised the Kerry people on how to utilize the loyal supporters they had and were more-or-less ignored.

But we noted that both the Obama and Edwards campaigns were picking up on aspects of what we had promoted, and that felt validating.

As the Clinton campaign got rolling, we watched them make mistake after mistake, online and off. Our friends who were working there were uninterested in our perspectives, and that was OK. The message back to us was that we were a little quaint, under-informed, and possibly disloyal.

We went to Nova Scotia and visited the church, for sale again. it was old and needed work, but the perspective, the water, the distance from insanity, felt marvelous. We made an offer. A few minutes later, another offer came in, without our conditions. We lost the church.