June 2008 Archives
Recently I attended the regional blogger conference sponsored by Northwest Progressive Institute. One of the most provocative topics was the relationship between "real" journalists and bloggers. The more prolific bloggers who cover local stories, particularly of a political nature, discussed the relative warmth ranging to animosity of their interactions with the local press. There were instances in which the blogger was the one who got the news scoop, the exclusive interview.
When I was at the first YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas in 2006, the reporters of the "mainstream media" showed up in droves for the bigger-name speakers such as Harold Reid and Howard Dean. I asked one of them whether he was going to stay for some of the panels, which were substantive. He snorted, "I have a deadline." By the second convention, in Chicago last summer, I expected the press to behave in this manner and focussed instead on photographing the bloggers, who seemed comfortable and adaptable. Change is happening fast as newspaper readership is down, on-line participation is up, and most newspapers now have their own blogs, popular comments sections and reporters with their own blogs. Campaigns have blogs with a bigger role for each successive election, funds are raised on the internet and YouTube is a player as well.
In three weeks, Net Roots Nation will meet in Austin and the month after that, the DNC convention in Denver will include a Big Tent for all types and levels of professional and citizen journalists. Ironically, they will cover the candidate who is comfortable with a computer who is running against a candidate who is computer illiterate. At issue will be who is most qualified to help draw the line between the civil liberty and free speech vs surveillance and security in the age of information.
Roy Greenslade wrote about the relationship between bloggers and journalists, in a Guardian-UK blog article which is excerpted below.
WHY JOURNALISTS MUST LEARN THE VALUES OF THE BLOGGING REVOLUTION
The debate over blogging's usefulness to journalism tends to get stuck in a cul de sac, mainly because too few people - well, too few journalists - treat it seriously. At conferences I've attended recently, speakers have referred to blogging as little more than a sad ego trip. It is not regarded as having any real public service value. I'll scream if I hear yet again that the blogosphere is a form of anarchy, a cacophony of self-centred and mischievous voices who are either talking to each other or talking to no-one at all. I'm not denying that aspect, though I don't see why people sitting at computer terminals day after day and downloading their thoughts should threaten civilisation as we know it.
What is also clear, most obviously in peer to peer blogging, is that people are engaged with each other as never before. Without any institutional or corporate coaxing, people are forming cyber communities in which they converse endlessly about their interests. I say this as a preliminary to explaining why journalists, especially print veterans like me, are so suspicious of bloggers. We have spent our lives dominating conversations. No, that's wrong of course. We did not converse at all. We lectured. We provided the information that people feasted on in order to hold their own conversations.
DEPOSING THE SECULAR PRIESTS
But, the odd "letter to the editor" aside, we were largely unaware of the content of those conversations. We moved on. We were the secular priests who decided what information to give the great unwashed and even told them how they should react to that information, what to think and what to do. Public service performed. Job done. How clever were were. How privileged. In that old paradigm - to which many editors and journalists still cling - news was one-way traffic. We conceived it. We gathered it. We published it and broadcast it. It was justification enough that people bought our newspapers or tuned in to our radio and TV channels.
Blogging turns that model on its head. It allows people to question the information we provide. It allows them to produce their own information. It offers them a space to air their own views. The congregation is no longer in awe of the priests. Our supremacy is crumbling. Rightly, journalists point out that there is no perfect example of journalists and bloggers working in harmony. That's because journalism is undergoing a more profound change than traditionalists can bear to imagine. I've been as guilty of this reactionary thinking too.
I have tended to predict that future news organisations will consist of a small hub of "professional journalists" at the centre with bloggers (aka amateur journalists/citizen journalists) on the periphery. In other words, us pros will still run the show. I'm altogether less certain about that model now. First, I wonder whether us pros are as valuable as we think. Second, and more fundamentally, I wonder whether a "news organisation" is as perfect a model as we might think. The growth of media in the last century or so has been dominated by the growth of big media, which really means the growth of big media people, whether they be individual entrepreneurs or corporate chiefs. It is entirely conceivable that the digital revolution may, in the fullness of time, sweep the media mogul aside.
UNDERSTANDING THE IDEALISTS
Though I long ago rejected Marxist orthodoxy, I retain an affection for, and understanding of, the idealism of those who originally espoused revolutions. In most cases the majority were enthused to overturn the established order because they genuinely believed in democracy (and were then let down, of course, by a new form of totalitarianism). But the joy of the digital revolution is that it is bloodless, and democracy is at its heart. However, as with political revolutions, the establishment views it as anarchy and therefore dangerous. In fact, as everyone should surely know, democracy is rather messy. It is often chaotic. It is often illogical. It does not obey rules.
I think journalists are failing to grasp that truth. Blogging, though democratic in spirit, does threaten the established order of journalism. I was inspired to write this after reading a blog posting by Adam Tinworth (courtesy of a tip from Kristine Lowe. Many thanks). Tinworth writes: "Most media people don't realise that blogging is a community strategy. They think of it as a publishing process... They certainly don't think of it as a conversation." Here are some more highlights:
Blogging is all about personal voices interacting with one another, not about personal voices lecturing. And that's something that the media usually misses...
It's all too easy for people from a traditional media background to see community as a place - something off to the side where the readers go, while the journalists sit over here in the real part of the site. They are content-focused, not people-focused. After all, that's what the job's been all about for the last century or so. Sure, they may occasionally deign to join in a few threads. Or include a letters page in the print title. But, usually, it's very much "them and us".
When we journalists talk about integration we generally mean, integrating print and online activities. But the true integration comes online itself. The integration between journalists and citizens. Of course, there should be no distinction between them. But journalists still wish to see themselves as a class apart. We have to open ourselves up to a new thought process. There is no us and them. I had a sudden thought to end this posting with a Marxist-style call to arms: "Bloggers of the world unite". But it is the lack of unity that makes blogging so vibrant, so critical and also so self-critical. And, of course, so revolutionary.
I hadn't written anything yet for this week because I'd been at a regional blogger conference and was still mentally processing and mulling over alot of things in my head. I saw these symbolic grave markers and stopped, but soon realized that it would be impossible to photograph them. When I took a photo encompassing all that would fit in, and then moved to where that photo ended and took another one (with the hope of connecting them for a panorama), it took me twenty photos. When walking back, I decided to film them. It took me a few seconds short of five minutes just to walk by and capture the graves of Arlington West, which are here in Seattle for the fifth year. For shame!
Meanwhile, as Matthew Carnicelli alerted us to, the networks are avoiding war coverage. They may be tired of it, but those of us who haven't forgotten should remember when we vote next.
Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burner
Getting a story on the evening news isn’t easy for any correspondent. And for reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is especially hard, according to Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS News. So she has devised a solution when she is talking to the network.
“Generally what I say is, ‘I’m holding the armor-piercing R.P.G.,’ ” she said last week in an appearance on “The Daily Show,” referring to the initials for rocket-propelled grenade. “ ‘It’s aimed at the bureau chief, and if you don’t put my story on the air, I’m going to pull the trigger.’ ”
Ms. Logan let a sly just-kidding smile sneak through as she spoke, but her point was serious. Five years into the war in Iraq and nearly seven years into the war in Afghanistan, getting news of the conflicts onto television is harder than ever.
“If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts,” Ms. Logan said.
- more -
From the above article:
Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The "CBS Evening News" has devoted the fewest minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC's "World News" and 74 minutes on "NBC Nightly News." (The average evening newscast is 22 minutes long.)
Meanwhile, US taxpayers have funded with $500 million dollars a propaganda network in the middle east, designed to counteract sources there, with failed results. (see Middle East Hearts and Minds)
George Lakoff was recently in Seattle at Town Hall to talk about his book "The Political Mind." Prior to speaking, staff from Northwest Progressive Institute had dinner with him. I was invited but found the email when it was too late to arrange to go. By the time I got back to town, I would not even be able to get into Town Hall to hear him speak. Luckily, there were reviews.
He spoke about his book, The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st Century American Politics with an 18th Century Brain.
Lakoff's thesis is that the progressive movement has been stifled by a faulty theory of mind and that progressives think arguments are won using facts and reason whereas conservatives have poured money into think tanks. Therein, they made up neo-con terms like "tax relief" which are then parroted by the media.
Lakoff likes Barack Obama's "hope" strategy. Elections are about values and identity, he said. Conventional thinkers might be skeptical of Obama's "cult of personality" but historically, people relate more to ideals than to campaign promises. He felt that Hillary Clinton realized this late in the game and that people connected with her as a person after awhile but that her "run to the center" strategy was not well timed for this election.
Lakoff believes that there is not so much a pure left and right, but that progressives and conservative frames are activated for a variety of issues. Obama thus has a central theme which is empathetic and people can say that it's just "rhetoric" but it doesn't look good to attack someone who is showing empathy with others.
As for Lakoff and cognitive linguistics, he also goes on in his book to discuss "mirror neurons", which exist in our body which relate to empathy. "Mirror neurons" happen to be something I've been reading about with respect to autism. I may just have to read Lakoff's book.
I did turn to a review in New Scientist.
According to this interpretation, Lakoff wishes to employ wisdom from cognitive science in order to defeat the conservatives in November, which seems a worthy proposition. His take is that progressives buy into the 18th century Enlightment view that humans are thinkers: rational, logical and attentive to facts. I know that I would certainly like to buy into that view.
Yet he argues then that humans are not rational but affective, imperfect and easy to trick since we combine passion and emotion with thought. Karl Rove obviously learned this a long time ago. As Lakoff says, "There is a name for those who use this knowledge to gain power. In America they are called Republicans."
Rather than changing minds through arguments and evidence, politicians often configure people's neural pathways through repetition, comforting words and appealing narratives as well as mantras and mottos. "Politicans who control brains win elections."
Americans like "redemption." According to Lakoff, Bush had been an alcoholic with DUIs, an avoider of service and a failure in business but his team portrayed him as a redeemed man and people bought it. They have carefully framed ways of talking about taxation as theft of the fruits of labor and a war that is supposedly against terror itself. Lakoff thinks this was all no accident, as repetition of phrases like "war on terror" strengthens neural connections.
As in his last book, he goes back to the family as a metaphor and compares the strict father with the nurturing parents. Conservatives knuckle under to authority who then is to protect us from evil, using force if necessary. The strict father thus doesn't need to win public approval, as he knows best. Progressives are moved by empathy and Lakoff would like to help them set up progressive think tanks to make and push policy using frames that will capitalize on their strengths.
This is why Lakoff would have been having dinner with the Northwest Progressive Institute and I am looking forward to hearing a firsthand report about what I missed.
I remember the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. very well because I was part of the "Children's Campaign" of his primary opponent, Eugene McCarthy, in South Dakota. We would pull into a small town, hoping to start a McCarthy headquarters, and there would already be a shining new RFK headquarters much more impressive than our campaign could muster. We had the homemade signs, they had the slick ones. We were impressed and we were envious. Of course, we would have supported him. The McCarthy and RFK platforms were very similar and we knew it. We respected him, but he was our opponent. Then Humphrey emerged from the convention, to be beaten by Nixon. I remember this much more clearly at the conclusion of this contentious primary season, and a few days after the 40th anniversary of RFK's assassination.
I was impressed by this passage, written by one of RFK's surviving children, in the New York Times, at a time when we face not only crucial national and local elections, but are at war for no good reason, with our economy in tatters.
There was no quality my father admired more than courage, save perhaps love. I remember when one night after dinner he picked up the battered poetry book that was always somewhere at his side and read aloud Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade." We listened aghast to the story of the soldiers whose commander orders them to ride into an ambush. They know they will be slaughtered, but they obey the command anyway. My father then explained that he and my mother were going on a trip and challenged us to memorize the poem while they were away. I did not win that contest, but one famous stanza has remained with me:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.
You may wonder why a father would ask his expanding brood of what would become 11 children to memorize a poem about slaughter and war. I think there were three reasons. He wanted us to share his love of literature and he wanted us to embrace challenges that appear daunting. But most of all, he believed it imperative to question authority, and those who failed that lesson did so at their peril.
Kerry Kennedy
I got a message a couple of weeks ago from a local progressive organizer saying that when he read the newspaper, he recognized names of people from our group that had worked together previously, and his heart sank as he read. The thing he had warned against had happened .. Obama supporters were very vocal. Clinton supporters were just as vocal. Support of one's candidate was fine, but this unique campaign had brought negativism down into the mud.
Then he began to remember - about the other side - the conservatives who want the negatives to go on right through the convention and election. If we hate each other, who wins? He thought about the voting machines and disenfranchisement. Then he took action. He got ahold of a film and invited everyone to see it.
The invitation to the film:
The film I am showing exposes how deep the election corruption goes. Democrats are not the only ones getting crushed by this corruption juggernaut. You may not want to hear about it or maybe you think you know all about it. I was wrong. So is everyone else. This is a much larger issue. I never wished this happened, but the proof is in this film. I spent my own money to purchase this DVD. I am not a rich person, but all I ask here is come and watch this film and talk about what this means to you.
This is the film:
This is the trailer:
This is the "blurb":
UNCOUNTED is an explosive new documentary that shows how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006 - and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 election. This controversial feature length film by Emmy award-winning director David Earnhardt examines in factual, logical, and yet startling terms how easy it is to change election outcomes and undermine election integrity across the U.S. Noted computer programmers, statisticians, journalists, and experienced election officials provide the irrefutable proof.
UNCOUNTED shares well documented stories about the spine-chilling disregard for the right to vote in America. In Florida, computer programmer Clint Curtis is directed by his boss to create software that will “flip” votes from one candidate to another. In Utah, County Clerk Bruce Funk is locked out of his office for raising questions about security flaws in electronic voting machines. Californian Steve Heller gets convicted of a felony after he leaks secret documents detailing illegal activities committed by a major voting machine company. And Tennessee entrepreneur, Athan Gibbs, finds verifiable voting a hard sell in America and dies before his dream of honest elections can be realized.
UNCOUNTED is a wakeup call to all Americans. Beyond increasing the public’s awareness, the film inspires greater citizen involvement in fixing a broken electoral system. As we approach the decisive election of 2008, UNCOUNTED will change how you feel about the way votes are counted in America.
This is from the Co-Producer:
Global Acceptance
We just received notice that Uncounted was accepted into the Globians Film Festival in Potsdam, Germany in August with an additional screening in Berlin at Babylon:Mitte, Berlin's preeminent art-house facility, in September.
Uncounted, International Film of Mystery!
But it's not just this one festival that has us excited. Uncounted has been shown by groups like Democrats Abroad at screenings in Germany, France, India, Spain, Mexico, Japan, Cambodia, and England, and individual copies of the DVD have also sold in Belgium, Canada, Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Switerland, South Africa, and Egypt. Upcoming international screenings include Melbourne, Australia at The Loop on May 28, Gottingen (Germany), Brussels (Belgium), Oxford and Cambridge (England), and Mubai and Chennai (India).
The Plural of Chad is Chad
Kevin Spacey was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann to promote Recount, the HBO movie about the Florida recount during the 2000 election. I know Kevin Spacey isn't an expert on all matters electoral, but it was still disappointing that Keith didn't take the interview one step further - the 2008 election. And its not just Olbermann. With all the publicity surrounding Recount, now would be the perfect time for the media to take the national conversation to the next level and ask the most logical follow up questions, 1) Why wasn't our electoral process equipped to handle margins of victory so small and margins of error so big in 2000?, and 2) Are we equipped to do so now? Watch the video...
--
Mary Mancini
Co-producer, "Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections"
If you have not yet seen "Uncounted," please find a way to do so. Your vote is supposed to count and you expect it to count toward the candidate you support. But the voting machines are not reliable and they can be manipulated. They have been manipulated. Our democracy depends on the fair process of elections. This is not paranoid ranting. See the film. Then call your state and federal representatives. Insist that a paper ballot be available for each one of our votes in November.
Sunday Morning, 7:48 A.M. We've already been up for an hour, working on organizing the day, so that when the three college students arrive (our own kids) we can appear to be efficient and ready. There will be pancakes, which will give them at least a nominal reason to get out of bed this fine morning. Their job: moving boxes and taking apart furniture. We are taking bets on: 1.) How late they will be (they were summoned for 9:30 AM) and 2.) How long they will last (this will vary. Richard's daughters are more the fast-twitch types--short spurts and fast burnout; mine is definitely slow-twitch--slow to start but with some stamina, if not attention-span).
7:52 A.M. Richard opens the Sunday new York Times and reads this aloud:
When the Golden Rule Insurance Company rejected her application for health coverage last year, Peggy Robertson was mystified.
“It made no sense,” said Ms. Robertson, 39, who lives in Centennial, Colo. “I’m in perfect health.”
She was turned down because she had given birth by Caesarean section. Having the operation once increases the odds that it will be performed again, and if she became pregnant and needed another Caesarean, Golden Rule did not want to pay for it. A letter from the company explained that if she had been sterilized after the Caesarean, or if she were over 40 and had given birth two or more years before applying, she might have qualified. (Barbara P. Fernandez for The New York Times)
"Another reason we are leaving," he says.
8:00 A.M Richard shifts to the Washington Post and reads this:
U.S. Campaign to Promote Abstinence Begins
Groups Are Enlisting Parents in Effort to Lobby for Changes in Sex Education
Proponents of sex education programs that focus on encouraging abstinence are launching a nationwide campaign aimed at enlisting 1 million parents to support the controversial approach.
The National Abstinence Education Association, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that it sent e-mails last week to about 30,000 supporters, practitioners and parents to try to recruit participants and plans to e-mail 100,000 this week as part of the first phase of the $1 million campaign.
The e-mail is promoting the Parents for Truth campaign, which the group hopes will eventually involve 1 million parents nationwide to lobby local schools to adopt sex education programs focusing on abstinence and to work to elect local, state and national officials who support the approach.
"There are powerful special interest groups who can far outspend what parents can in terms of promoting their agenda. But we recognize that parents more than make up for that by their determination and motivation to protect their own children," said Valerie Huber, the group's executive director. By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer)
I don't know about you, but we now feel we have to stop pouring so much of our money and energy into promoting UNSAFE sex for our kids. We don't want all those PRO-TEEN-SEX organizations to outspend Parents for Truth, after all...
Richard and I agree to tell the kids we are joining the abstinence-only movement...just for the momentary looks on their faces.
8:10 am: I start calling the kids. No answers on their cells. I wake Larry's father and ask him to engage with our son. This is going to be a PROCESS...
Updates to follow. Meanwhile, feel free to share the news of the day, as we will be moving on from the instant news cycle...
***
9:15 AM: The drama continues. Will Larry make the 9:20 train? He has called three times already, trying to renegotiate the deal he agreed to, proposing an 11:30 am arrival instead of the 10 am arrival he was supposed to achieve. Who does he think he is? Harold Ickes? His Dad is on the case and on the job, promising me that he WILL be on that train...
9:19: The girls just called. They are "running late." Pancakes will be at 10 am instead of 9:30...shocking. Also, they asked "how long this will take." I told them no more than 10-15 hours.
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