I’m supposed to be on vacation (I’m on a small island called Bonaire), but I can’t help myself. (So forgive me that I’m crunching what should be two posts into one.) But I just read this post from Josh Levy from the PDF blog and the first two bullet points stuck out for me. Both of these news items continues to fill out the concept of how the progressive media is having an impact on the political debate. One is a specific case study and one is an analysis of the larger progressive “noise machine.” First bullet point.
The Huffington Post continues to break campaign news. Late last week Celeste Fremon wrote about comments made by Hillary Clinton at a post-Super Tuesday fundraiser in which she blamed MoveOn and the “activist base” of the Democratic Party for her primary and caucus losses.
This story (a Huffington Post/Off the Bus collaboration) comes shortly after antoher OTB pro am journalist, Mayhill Folwer broke Obama’s “bitter” comment. I don’t necessarily agree that the bitter comment was worth the amount of panting and dissection that the mainstream media gave it, BUT the fact that is that a citizen journalist’s work drove the MSM political news cycle for days. Talk about IMPACT! I think that this collaboration b/w HuffPo and Off the Bus, hits our “impact” categories of:
- Uncovering the News
- Pioneering New Journalism Models
What else do you think this collaboration has done? Here’s our “in development” list.
Second bullet point from Josh.
TechPresident’s David All is the latest to approach the question of why conservatives fall behind the left on the web. Likely reacting to the failure of Freedoms Watch to replicate MoveOn’s fundraising success… In doing so he links to another post from Jon Henke, another smart conservative strategist, about why MoveOn works.
I read Jon’s post. Here are some highlights.
The Right has what might informally be called a “noise machine”, but it is a product of the time in which it was created: the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. It has never really evolved.
Meanwhile, the Left - in particular, the Progressives - have built a very powerful, very effective noise machine and they have built it both online and off. There are many cultivated (funded, strategic) elements to it, but the base - the underlying elements that make the cultivated, funded elements really effective - is basically organic.
Very true. The power of the web has allowed progressives to take many of their grassroots/bottom up strategies for campaign creation and execution online. Not only is that the right thing to do (hey–the people most effected by the issue gets to help decide what to do about it?!?), it has proven politically powerful. Jon continues.
So why - with very rare exceptions - can’t the Rightosphere do that? Fundamentally, the Rightosphere can’t do that (effectively) because the Right doesn’t have the gravitational pull to draw candidates to its agenda. The Left has a well-organized blogosphere that can do three things for Progressive candidates:
- Messaging - between Moveon.org, the blogs and the many issue-advocacy outfits, the Leftosphere has a very powerful communication mechanism for candidates and issues. They have messaging and distribution capacity and it is well-coordinated with advocacy and awareness elements of their coalition.
- Money - the Presidential money is high-profile and not every candidate gets a lot of online money, but the Leftroots can move significant sums of money to the challengers that hit the right notes, make the right friends, and jump into the hot progressive issues. They have succeeded in tapping the long tail to move fundraising - and the financial incentive machine - outside of the establishment channels.
- Mobilization - the Progressives are passionate, energized, over their ideas. They have a story they’re excited about, they have effectively tied their stories together and they’re tightly wedded to the (dangerous) tactic of populism. They’re unified around that mission, so they can and do mobilize people. Again, that moves significant power outside the traditional channels.
The Leftroots can deliver messaging, money and mobilization, so Democratic candidates become path-dependent on them. They have sufficient power to move politicians to their ideas. The Right does not.
I agree with many of these points. (YEAH!) But let’s not forget the fact that while the progressive’s developing media network is becoming quite influential, the right wing continues to dominate the airwaves and newspapers. They’re model, while creaky and old, still holds significant power and is a larger mouthpiece. It also continues to have much more funds (both in corporate dollars and individual donors) to get out their message and “journalism.” Combine that with shoddy work by the MSM (hello ABC presidential debate?) progressives still have a long way to go to balancing the scales. But I like where we’re headed.
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Interesting analysis of the impact and drawbacks of Eve Ensler’s vagina-centric road show–complete with creepy comparisons of New Orleans to lady parts.
Apr 18
Outraged by the debacle that was the ABC Presidential Debate on Wed. night, a group of progressive journalists and allies organized themselves to respond and repudiate the awfulness. I’m so proud!
After a quick survey of the intertubes, The Nation, TPM Cafe, The American Prospect, In These Times, Crooked Timber and Brave New Films have already posted the letter to their web sites. Let me know if you see anymore media outlets that have run the letter or link to it. I’ll keep you updated if there’s any response to it.
Here’s the letter and the signatories.
For 53 minutes, we heard no question about public policy from either moderator. ABC seemed less interested in provoking serious discussion than in trying to generate cheap shot sound-bites for later rebroadcast. The questions asked by Mr. Stephanopoulos and Mr. Gibson were a disgrace, and the subsequent attempts to justify them by claiming that they reflect citizens’ interest are an insult to the intelligence of those citizens and ABC’s viewers. Many thousands of those viewers have already written to ABC to express their outrage.
The moderators’ occasional later forays into substance were nearly as bad. Mr. Gibson’s claim that the government can raise revenues by cutting capital gains tax is grossly at odds with what taxation experts believe. Both candidates tried, repeatedly, to bring debate back to the real problems faced by ordinary Americans. Neither moderator allowed them to do this.
We’re at a crucial moment in our country’s history, facing war, a terrorism threat, recession, and a range of big domestic challenges. Large majorities of our fellow Americans tell pollsters they’re deeply worried about the country’s direction. In such a context, journalists moderating a debate–who are, after all, entrusted with free public airwaves–have a particular responsibility to push and engage the candidates in serious debate about these matters. Tough, probing questions on these issues clearly serve the public interest. Demands that candidates make pledges about a future no one can predict or excessive emphasis on tangential “character” issues do not. This applies to candidates of both parties.
Neither Mr. Gibson nor Mr. Stephanopoulos lived up to these responsibilities. In the words of Tom Shales of the Washington Post, Mr. Gibson and Mr. Stephanopoulos turned in “shoddy, despicable performances.” As Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher describes it, the debate was a “travesty.” We hope that the public uproar over ABC’s miserable showing will encourage a return to serious journalism in debates between the Democratic and Republican nominees this fall. Anything less would be a betrayal of the basic responsibilities that journalists owe to their public.
Spencer Ackerman, The Washington Independent
Eric Alterman, City University of New York
Dean Baker, The American Prospect Online
Steven Benen, The Carpetbagger Report
Julie Bergman Sender, Balcony Films
Ari Berman, The Nation
Brian Beutler, The Media Consortium
Michael Berube, Crooked Timber, the University of Pennsylvania
Joel Bleifuss, In These Times
Sam Boyd, The American Prospect
Lakshmi Chaudry, In These Times
Joe Conason, Journalist and Author
Brad DeLong, Brad DeLong’s Semi-Daily Journal and UC Berkeley
Kevin Drum, The Washington Monthly
Henry Farrell, Crooked Timber, George Washington University
James Galbraith, University of Texas at Austin
Todd Gitlin, Columbia University, TPM Cafe
Merrill Goozner (formerly Chicago Tribune)
Ilan Goldenberg, The National Security Network
Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films
Christopher Hayes, The Nation
Don Hazen, Alternet
Michael Kazin, Georgetown University
Ed Kilgore, The Democratic Strategist
Richard Kim, The Nation
Ezra Klein, The American Prospect
Mark Kleiman, UCLA/The Reality Based Community
Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed
Ari Melber, The Nation
Rick Perlstein, Campaign for America’s Future
Katha Pollitt, The Nation
David Roberts, Grist
Thomas Schaller, Columnist, The Baltimore Sun
Mark Schmitt, The New America Foundation
Adele Stan, The Media Consortium
Jonathan Stein, Mother Jones Magazine
Mark Thoma, The Economist’s View
Michael Tomasky, The Guardian
Cenk Uygur, The Young Turks
Tracy Van Slyke, The Media Consortium
Kai Wright, The Root
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“Since its launch last week, “The Real McCain” shot to sixth on Amazon’s list of political biographies, right between tomes by Jesse Ventura and former Pentagon official Doug Feith. Yet there has been no paid advertising for the book so far, and Schecter
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Michael Tomasky asks: what guidelines should citizen journalists follow?
Sue Cross, Senior Vice President of Global New Media and U.S. Print and Broadcast Markets The Associated Press gave a speech at Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication on Monday. Online Journalism Review has the report.
Here are some good highlights.
Cross cited The Washington Post, The Tyee [EDITOR’S NOTE: The Tyee is one of The Media Consortium’s great allies from Canada] and Hip Hop Caucus as examples of journalism’s proven appeal creativity, social media and aggregation. Ink and paper may be dying, she said, but the newspaper is not. At least not in the short-term.
“It’s allowing people to personalize the Post,” said Cross as she demonstrated the newspaper’s new Facebook widget. “It’s a light, just kind of fun application. At the same time, the Post isn’t giving up for a minute being an authoritative force of political coverage. The Post puts incredible resources and incredible dedication into very expensive, very insightful reporting…So I think this idea of in-depth reporting and text reporting, as we’ve seen from the Post, it may take different shapes, it may be mixed up, but it’s not going to go away. Still a very important piece of the future.
“You’ll see a fair amount of blogs saying people don’t care about news anymore. Young people don’t care about news. First of all, common sense says it’s nonsense. And the research also tends to say it’s nonsense. On the contrary, I would argue we’re in really the biggest media explosion in history. You can’t get in a cab without seeing a window with news on it. You cannot get in an elevator without seeing a news ticker. You can’t open your cell phone, you can’t go to your e-mail without seeing news headlines. That represents a voracious appetite. Those would not be there unless people wanted them. So I see the interest in news surging, and that’s a very good thing.”
On Advocacy and Journalism:
“I don’t think objective journalism is going to go away… But along with it, there is a huge increase in grassroots journalism. Activist sites are doing a form of journalism that the public considers journalism, and which gets news to the public. And I think they can exist alongside good, objective journalism, and I think they’re here to stay.”
On Financing Journalism:
“Right now, this whole discussion over the business model and what’s going to support good reporting, it’s not working for new media either. There’s not a great financial base. That’s why you see so much more opinion than reporting in blogs and citizen journalism and so forth. The Pew study said, ‘the journalism of the future increasingly appears to be a hybrid that takes advantage of the technology rather than fights it. But the questions of who will pay and how they will do it seem more pressing than ever.’ The fact is that the financial bind is affecting bloggers as well as the local broadcaster.
“What is the issue? It’s deeper than Wall Street; it’s deeper than the mechanics. It is a fundamental uncoupling of advertising and content. The two have gone together, and one supported the other. And now you’re seeing that really broken apart.
The whole article is a really good read. I highly suggest you take a look.
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Apr 16
Actor and activist Tim Robbins was the keynote speaker at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Vegas this week. But if the NAB had gotten their way, none of us would have heard his speech. (Ironic, eh?) From Advertising Age:
The Academy Award-winning actor and critically acclaimed screenwriter, director and producer first indicated to the audience that he would not be giving his speech. Then, floor agents of the NAB organizers ordered journalists’ video cameras turned off.
Funny thing is, they forgot to tell the reporters to turn their audio recorders off. Robbins reversed course and gave his speech. And the last six minutes are a doozy.
Here are some snippets. (Rushed Transcript)
“We are at an abyss as an industry and as a country…
You, the broadcasters of this great nation has a tremendous amount of power, and a tremendous amount of potential to effect change… You can lift us up into a more enlightened age. Or you can hide behind that old adage, ‘I’m just a businessman. I provide what the audience wants.’ Well, I’m here to tell you that we don’t need to look at the car crash. We don’t need to live off the pain and humiliation of the unfortunate. We don’t need to celebrate our pornographic obsession with celebrity culture. We are better than that. (Claps from audience.)
Some of you are trying… But I know you do so against the odds of ratings and job security. It is really up to the leaders in this room. It us up to you, the zions of this industry to leave behind formulas and focus groups and your own fears of job security. Only with your courage and your vision can we begin to imagine a world of broadcasting where the broad consensus of those with real power say, ‘Enough is Enough.’
You should really listen to the whole six minutes. He’s using soft language (as in non-political), but really drives home the point of how the broadcasting industry can inform and lead this country to a better place, if they only had the courage. Of course they don’t and they won’t, but it’s still a pretty cool speech.
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Blogs
Book Publishers
Magazines
Online Magazines and Portals
Progressive Media Allies
Radio Projects
Television and Film Projects
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- The Most Public Index | The News is NowPublic.com
- Anatomy of the Right Wing Noise Machine: Maliki and Withdrawal | Election 2008 | AlterNet
- PressThink: The People Formerly Known as the Audience
- Pew Research Center: The Changing Newsroom: Gains and Losses in Today's Papers
- MSNBC Has Its Eye on Rachel Maddow - NYTimes.com
- Firedoglake opening a community diary section
- Daily Kos: State of the Nation
- CJR: Yglesias: Totally in the (Think) Tank
- Cracking Code Pink | Salon News
- Progressives Have a Big Tent at the Dem Convention | Election 2008 | AlterNet
