BuzzMachine
by Jeff Jarvis

September 30, 2004

A one-person poll

chart1.jpg: Here are my own post-debate poll results. I asked myself a battery of questions and the results:

I've said that I was a "likely Kerry voter" because you deserve to know my perspective as I write what I write here.

How likely? Weeks ago, I'd have put that at, oh, 85 percent: not wildly enthusiastic, perhaps, but OK with the decision.

Recently, that number has fallen to, say, 75 percent. I have become disturbed by Kerry's efforts to turn himself into the antiwar candidate -- while we are at war -- and also troubled by his inability to run a compelling campaign (about which I agree with Joe Territo).

As for Bush, I never was a likely Bush voter because I disagreed with him on many fundamental issues. But during the last four years, I did support him as our President; I certainly supported the war on terrorism and I supported the war in Iraq. To my surprise, I saw circumstances under which I would vote for him (eg., if Howard Dean were the other choice). So there were times when I was 50-50 on Bush -- surprisingly high for the likes of me. I became a possible Bush voter and that's a big deal.

But I was OK with Kerry and glad he was not Dean and so I leaned his way. That's not the strongest endorsement, I know. But it also reflected my post-9/11 political views; I believe it is time to pull together against a common demon and not to demonize each other. I seek the center. I'm militantly middle.

Tonight I rushed out of my kid's back-to-school event and turned on the radio to hear the debate soon into it. And I got upset with Kerry from the first.

coke1.jpgKerry was pushing his Coke-commercial view of a world marching together hand-in-hand and I don't buy it. I don't buy that the U.N. or Old Europe will come into Iraq to save our skins -- or to fight for democracy or the rights of the Iraqi people. If you say that Bush mislead us to think we'd find WMDs in Iraq then perhaps you also should say that Kerry misleads us to think we'll ever find a French butt on the line there. I fear the consequences of giving these countries what amounts to veto power over what we must sometimes do; the result will be paralysis.

In this new era of terrorism and of our role as the sole superpower, I want to see a new vision and strong strategy for foreign policy. The Kumbaya gambit won't cut it.

I heard Kerry criticize the war over and over without hearing a clear plan for winning it -- and a clear will to win it. I also did not hear Bush give a clear plan for winning this war -- but at least I still hear his will. It's not that Kerry flipflops. It's that I don't hear iron will. And in a time of war -- war against terrorism -- we need a leader with iron will.

At the same time, will alone won't win the war. Great planning and great execution and tireless diligence will win this war. And we don't have that today, either. That is Bush's failing.

Many others were able to blog the debate as it occurred. In some ways, I am glad I had to catch the debate in bits and just listen. I listened to what it did to me. And it made me more unsure about Kerry. He sounds more like Howard Dean and I didn't want to vote for Dean. He had my likely vote; it was his to lose. He hasn't lost it ... yet.

I spun around the dial to hear all the spin and on FoxNews, the conservative commentators were saying that it was a close debate and that it may tighten the race, which is to say that they thought Kerry did OK.

Screw their spin. Raze their spin zone.

There is no single score. Each and every voter who watched this debate was looking for something different and scored it differently. I was looking for a resolute Kerry with a clear vision for a foreign policy that will protect us. I didn't hear it.

So how likely am I now? Peg me at 65 percent and note the trendline. The next debates and the next weeks matter. The election isn't over for me or for millions and millions of voters. We're the real pollsters and our results are not in yet.

Upper hand

: Dumb question: Why (on NBC, at least) is Bush 10 percent higher on the screen than Kerry?

: ALSO: I don't mean to dwell on the inconsequential but we had NBC on one TV and CBS on another and they weren't in sync. It sounds as if one of them is using a delay. What, are they afraid one of them will drop the F bomb?

Lub-dub

: Tony Blair is getting a hospital procedure for the same heart wackiness I have: palpitations and irregular rhythm.

In a parallel universe

: I'm at my son's school, stealing a moment's wi-fi and bandwidth as I wait for back-to-school night to begin. It's fun. But I'm madder and madder that this district did not reschedule this to allow us voters to watch the debates tonight. This is one heckuva lesson in priorities to give our own children. Arrrrrgh. See you after the instant replay.

Homework

: Dan Froomkin calls on all bloggers to fact-check the debaters tonight. Your editor has spoken. Now get to work.

I don't care what you say, just spell the URL right

: Wired.com columnist and NYU j-prof Adam Pennenberg makes what I think is a spurious prediction regarding GoogleNews and online news publishers:

As it turns out, however, Google has a problem that is nearly as complex as its algorithms. It can't make money from Google News.

So while other online publishers like Yahoo News and MSNBC earn tens of millions of dollars in revenue each year and continue to grow, Google News remains in beta mode -- three years after it launched -- long after most of the bugs have been excised.

The reason: The minute Google News runs paid advertising of any sort it could face a torrent of cease-and-desist letters from the legal departments of newspapers, which would argue that "fair use" doesn't cover lifting headlines and lead paragraphs verbatim from their articles. Other publishers might simply block users originating from Google News, effectively snuffing it out.

Who says so? From the way that's written, this doesn't appear to be reported, for there is no one quoted, not even an unnamed source. This seems to be just his speculation -- and if so, he should say so.

Now I don't pretend to speak for the industry or even, in this case, my employer and I'm not a copyright laywer and don't play one on TV. But...

Every online news publisher I know is eager to get links from GoogleNews, just as they're happy to get links from Drudge (which is the No. 1 referrer of traffic to both the New York Times and the Washington Post, last I knew). It's free traffic, free marketing, new audience. Many news sites that require registration even implemented what we call the Drudge exception, allowing readers who come from Drudge or who come directly to a story from a link to see that story without having to register. The only problem with this for some publishers is that it's not necessarily sellable traffic; it may be out-of-market traffic coming to a local site with local advertising. So there's a small cost of that bandwidth. But for most every publisher out there, traffic is good. Period.

GoogleNews merely takes a headline and a snippet and then links to the original source. That is a service to the source and to the reader.

That's not to say I don't have problems with GoogleNews and its questionable choice of some "news" sources and questionable exclusion of others.

And that's not to say that publishers don't have another, bigger, and ultimately unsolvable problem with Google itself:

Google is as brand-killer. Time and again, I've seen that consumers find the information they want via Google without being very aware of who ended up providing that information: They ask a question; Google takes them to the answer; they leave, satisifed; they don't pay attention to where they were. This can harm brands that get advertising based on syndicated research that asks consumers how often they visit or how aware they are of a brand; they may well visit a brand's site but if they don't pay attention then the brand doesn't get credit in the survey and looks smaller than it is. In spite of that, I can't imagine a publisher who wouldn't want to come up in Google searches; hell, they all pay companies in the new industry of search-engine optimization to make sure they come up higher and higher in those searches.

Publishers will have other problems with Google as it enters their spaces. Google is entering local. It will enter directory advertising. It has entered shopping. I wouldn't be surprised if it enters classified.

But GoogleNews merely sends links to news sources, who can then profit from that traffic with advertising.

It's important to challenge Penenberg's assertion -- and ask what his source is -- because what he says has an even greater impact on bloggers, who quote original sources at greater length than GoogleNews (and often critically). Most bloggers don't profit from that; but they will. And it's important to note that bloggers are performing an important function of fact-checking, pushing, and goading news media and we need to protect that.

: See also Rex Hammock and /.

Atta boy

: Months ago, Jay Rosen urged media and campaigns to raze spin alley and now it's happening as Jay praises the NYT's Adam Nagourney for staying away from the spinsters; he'll watch the debates on TV, just like the rest of us, just like a citizen.

Civics class

: My kid's school scheduled back-to-school night tonight. Great timing. So I'll be late watching the debate. Tell me what happens....

: UPDATE: Thanks to my diligent commenters, the reviews are already in. I don't even have to bother watching the tape tonight:

Let's see...

The Dems think Kerry won.

The Repubs think Bush won.

Old media agrees with the Dems.

Talk-radio agrees with the Repubs.

The pajama-wearing ankle-biters are divided over who won, but really defend their positions well.

Michael Moore is a jackass.

That pretty much covers it.

September 29, 2004

Issues2004: The blogroll

: At the suggestion of a reader, I've added links to all the Issues2004 posts and comments as well as the Technorati cosmos for each in the right-hand column ...

: THURSDAY UPDATE: See Fred Wilson's response to my foreign affairs post here.

Iranian strongmen freaked by ... bloggers

: Hoder reports that a hardline Iranian paper has gone after bloggers, accusing them of being a -- you guessed it -- CIA plot. Disturbingly, it names names.

What are the implications? First, it proves, at least to me, that our recent protest has been so effective that have made them react this desperately and harshly. Second, it shows the fact that hardliner conservatives see Internet as a threat to their interests and therefore act against it, proves it as a potentially powerful medium for promoting democracy and freedom of expression which deserves more attention from the Western countries and media. Third, it displays that the number of internet users in Iran (between 5 to 7 million) is big enough to worry conservatives about its influence. So they probably start policies that limit access the users to Internet and in this regard, Shaare 2 project, gets a whole new meaning.

Personally I'm so happy to see the effort I begun 4,5 years ago in Asr-e Azadegan paper by starting a daily column introducing Internet to journalists and average Iranians have been so fruitful. The miraculous technology of internet enables individuals do things that would have required big political organizations a few years ago.

Spread the word.

Issues2004: Election reform

: Every time I scream and shout about protecting the First Amendment (and Howard Stern) against the repression of the FCC, a commenter or two whines that I don't similarly defend free speech when it comes to federal election laws limiting contributions. I ignored them -- first because it pisses them off (hey, a blogger has to have some fun) and second because I honestly don't know what I think about election reform. It's a one-hand/other-hand thing for me.

On the one hand, as an absolutist on free speech and the First Amendment, I agree with those commenters that free speech should extend to elections -- of all activities.

On the other hand, I am concerned about the lobbyists and special-interest groups and now hate groups using their money to hijack elections.

On another hand, if we limit some people but then allow the Bloombergs and Corzines to come in and spend their wealth to get elected, then that is unfair to all of us who aren't rich.

On yet another hand, I think it's ridiculous that we individuals are limited on what we can spend on a candidate; it's our country and our money, eh?

And on another hand, I wonder whether the limitations on candidate contributions are only channelling more money to fringe groups like the Swifties and MoveOn and thus only fueling the mudslinging and nastiness of this campaign.

Anybody have few extra hands?

In the end, I think we're trying to approach this from the wrong end. We are trying to legislate ethics -- with politicians, of all people. And it's not going to work.

Election laws and the loopholes that magically appear in them only provide ethical cover for politicians, parties, and pressure groups to go ahead and game the system however they can. Hey, it's not my fault, they say when caught with mud on their hands; I'm following the law.

So what we should be doing instead is pressuring the political parties to adopt their own voluntary standards for ethical campaigning and slamming those who don't. Election reform should come from within the parties. They should limit their spending and refuse some contributions and those who don't are only revealing themselves as slime.

Media -- and citizens online -- should monitor their financial behavior closely, for I still believe that everything should be transparent.

We also need to shorten the election schedule. This torture goes on way too long. We do need time to push the candidates and smoke out the bozos (read: Dean) but we don't need this much time. It only adds to the bile and the bill.

At the same time, we need to reform the primary process, for it disenfranchises too many Americans from the selection of candidates.

And, finally, I agree with those who say it's time to blow up the Electoral College, which also disenfranchises voters (see: 2000).

We need to rebuild the primary and election process around the principle of one person, one vote -- and mean it. Then the candidates will have to campaign to all citizens and won't be able to ignore those in "safe" states.

Finally, yes, I'll agree that we need to respect the free-speech right of Americans to put their money where their votes are. On principle, I do have a problem with limiting what we can contribute. That's why I'd prefer to see candidates and parties agree to limit on their own what they accept.

One more thing: Once upon a time, I might have argued that it was important to give candidates free airtime -- on "our airwaves" -- as a quid pro quo for the free spectrum we give broadcasters. But I'm not so hot on that idea today for two reasons: First, TV ads are turning into the most destructive bullets of campaigns and fringe groups. Second, the internet will overtake TV as an important medium for campaigning and it will offer more depth and diversity.

That's what I say. What do you say? (Other Issues2004 posts here.)

September 28, 2004

Issues2004: Experts speak

: Blog reader Dave Schuler got Lynne Kiesling, whom he describes as a genuine expert in energy policy, to repond to my Issues2004 post on energy policy. Read on.

Mighty Christian of them: II

: Worse than the brawling brothers below is the behavior of the Presbyterian Church.

The Presbyterian Church is flirting with anti-Semitism. The General Assembly -- the ruling gathering of the church -- voted to start divesting itself of investments in Israeli companies because Israel doesn't hug the Palestinians who send their children as bombs to murder their innocent civilians.

God's work, eh?

Are they also divesting themselves of investments in nations that support the Palestinian murderers? Are they divesting themselves of investments in nations that support terrorism against America? Are they divesting themselves of investments in nations that support tyrannical Arab dictatorships?

The Presbyterians also opposed the building of security barriers -- giving no other solution to the terrorist murders in Israel -- and supported a shameful sham temple in Philadelphia whose sole purpose is to convert Jews (my sister has fought that from within the church there).

I left the Presbyterian church because of its homophobia. Now this. For shame.

An

Good-bye Dollies

: BestWeekEver reports that Dolly Parton is going to get rid of her breast implants. I never heard her actually admit she had them. Yes, I know, it was obvious. But it was a "secret" not unlike Liberace's for years.

: Rex Hammock says tah-tah to the tah-tahs with a musical tribute.

: Let me add that when I was a columnist in San Francisco, I met Dolly a few times covering concerts. And I new a guy at the old UPI who went to high school with her. The honest-to-goodness truth is that she is that nice. She really is.

Tina, you snob - Chapter II

: The other day, I snapped back at Tina Brown for being snotty to bloggers. I did it again on her very own air, when I was interviewed on CNBC. And now I see that she's still at it, so I'll continue. Today Rush Limbaugh gives us a partial transcript [via IWantMedia] of Tina's CNBC show, in which she continues the non-sequitorial attack on bloggers.

What bothers me slightly, though, about the way the bloggers have almost become like the media Mujahideen, you know. I mean, in a sense it's like everybody feels so chased by them. I mean, look what happened in a sense: CBS had the same kind of campaign for that -- for their Janet Jackson Super Bowl debacle and for their Ronald Reagan miniseries. I mean, it's the third time, in a sense, that CBS management has been completely kind of, you know, harassed.
She's treating bloggers like filthy masses, like fringe nuts. And she's ignoring that what they attacked CBS for in the Rathergate case was a horrible journalistic error, not a titanian tit.

Spirit of America success stories, a brick at a time

: Spirit of America, the charity that helps Iraqi citizens, has sent a big batch of tool kits to Iraq for students trained by the SeaBees and Marines. They want to send another large batch. Read about it -- and contribute -- here.

Go West, young blogger

: I have signed on to join in a workshop on RSS and to blog the entire conference at John Battelle's and O'Reilly's Web 2.0 confab in San Francisco next week. If you're around, come! The RSS workshop is on Tuesday; other good events the following two days. I haven't been to California in years (amazing for an internet guy, I know) so let's get together and conspire on the future of the net.

Good news

: Kidnapped CNN producer has been released.

: MORE GOOD NEWS: The two women from Italy, aid workers both, who were held hostage have also been released.

What's going on? Is hostage-taking out? We can only hope so. And we can only hope that the British hostage is next. No, we can only pray that the British hostage is next.

Nethead/Bellhead/Ushead

: David Weinberger is blogging Susan Crawford's Nethead/Bellhead conference at the Cardoza School of Law in NY; I just got here (and probably won't understand much of what is happening, which is why I begged out of a panel here). David has this gonzo, socko summary of what David Isenberg said in a panel I unfortunately missed (my emphases):

Isenberg says that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of the press. Suppose Congress makes a law that makes it a million times more expensive to own a printing press. Maybe the hypothetical law regulates press prices directly, controls the price of paper, etc. Doesn't matter. It'd be unconstitutional. Suppose the law made presses only twice as expensive...Now that we've established what telcom regulation is, we're just arguing about the price. "So, when I see Americans struggling with crippled kilobit systems when gigabit is available, I want to call the police." Likewise, spectrum that is owned when it doesn't have to be owned, broadcast flag, deep packet inspection without a warrant, I want to punish the criminals who are denying me my constitutional right. The Internet puts a printing press in everyone's house. But it's more than that. It's freedom of assembly: The Internet is group-forming...The duty of the Congress and the FCC if they take the First Amendment seriously is to remove whatever" stands between the user and the use of the Internet. "We're rapidly becoming a third world connectivity nation." [Whooo! Go David!]

Blog farewells

: Two newspaper people just wrote farewells to their blogs.

Doug Clifton, editor in chief of the Cleveland Plain Dealer (a work colleague), has decided to give up his blog because it was too demanding to try to keep up with it. He wasn't blogging to blog so much as he was using the form to try to find another way to converse with readers.

It wasn't free-form, it wasn't filled with links to other sites, it wasn't particularly chatty, it wasn't purposely provocative, and it certainly wasn't frequent....

Still, it served a purpose. I did get some insight into reader perspectives. And it forced me to spend more concentrated time thinking about what we do and why -- and explaining it.

I hit the wall in June when I took a week of vacation. Freed of the blog's obligation, I felt liberated. On my return, the press of daily business made it easy to postpone the blog's reawakening.

I've never been one to insist that everyone should blog or even that everyone in Big Media should blog (as I say everytime I can so pardon the repetition: We in Big Media have owned the printing press for centuries and now that the people own the press, they are speaking and our first response to blogging should be to listen). I'm always sad to see a blog die (doesn't a star go out in the heavens when that happens... or am I thinking of something else?). But I also fully understand the crush of being expected to fill this blank screen.

: At the same time, Doug Harper, an editor at a paper in Pennsylvania, quit his blog because his employers issued a rather draconian decree on blogging: It's OK to blog if you must, but make sure you don't get any on us, the bosses said. The most ludicrous part of the order:

Editorial staffers who operate their own Web sites, blogs or chat rooms are not permitted to trade on their newspaper positions. They may not lingk their personal sites, blogs or chat rooms to the ----- Newspapers' Web site nor to ------ Newspapers' articles. Personal Web sites, blogs or chat rooms may not use column names or any other identifying information or wording that connects the writer to ----- Newspapers.
I also understand the need to set the rules. But the tone of this -- yuck, we don't want any blog cooties -- is pathetic.

Issues2004: Responses

: Fred Wilson has the best response to an Issues2004 post today: He quotes liberally (uh, I mean generously) from the comments to the original post. Fred says that original post was just "OK" and he's exactly right about that; this isn't about my posts (in which I keep reminding everybody that I'm the farthest thing from an expert; I'm just another voter); it is about the discussion, when in the comments or in their blogs people who know a helluvalotmore than I do (see: Gillmor) come in to share what they know. That's what the medium is all about. And this is the proof. See: Given half a chance, we will discuss issues. (And we don't have to join the League of Women Voters.)

: ALSO... A reader asked me to put up a sidebar list of links to all the Issues2004 posts. I'll try to get to that; busy right now; in the meantime, the category page will get you all the posts and links to all the comments here.

Fred Wilson also suggested that Technorati set up a page of links to posts here and elsewhere that use the Issues2004 headline. I passed it onto Dave Sifry but, well, he has been a bit busy this last week literally fighting fires.

Issues2004: Foreign Policy

: Here's the toughest one -- not just because the problems frequently look unsolvable and because the relations are often acidic but also because I don't know enough about foreign relations.

I follow the news like a responsible citizen -- though I'll admit that I tend to wait until a part of the world heats up before I catch up. I've warned in all these Issues2004 posts that I'm not an expert and I'm writing these merely as a voter and a citizen but in this category I want to add an extra cup of caveat. So now to the point...

Neither side has yet devised a doctrine of foreign policy that works for the world today.

I don't object to the words "preemptive war" (now that I'm a liberal hawk and I'm rather intense on the topic of terrorism). But the problem with that Bush doctrine is that you put yourself in the position of proving that you're preempting something. You're buying the WMD problem. And you're fighting a hypothetical. Nonetheless, if people believed that a nation or those that nation supports could or would come after us, they would support a war of preemption. But the standard of proof his now nearly impossible to find.

I have supported the war in Iraq on different justification: essentially the Tom Friedman doctrine. I believe it was a proper -- and liberal -- humanitarian goal to liberate a people from their tyrant. I stand by that justification. I now see that knowing what we knew, we should have gone in to liberate Germany and Europe and the Jewish people far sooner than we did; what suffering we could have ended. But I also clearly see the problem with this doctrine: Who plays God? Who's the devil? Which tyrants do you choose to take out? Shouldn't we liberate North Korea? Shouldn't we be shuttling to Africa when wars and tragedy break out? Is Saudi Arabia oppressive enough to liberate? And isn't there a danger -- a history -- of using this doctrine not to liberate but to overturn for political convenience (pick your own examples of that)? This is not, as we say today, a doctrine that scales. That's not to say it is bankrupt; there are times when we must liberate a people or take the responsibility for their suffering. But this becomes a know-it-when-you-see-it policy and it's tough to manage that.

The second half of the Friedman doctrine is that we needed to establish a beachhead of democracy (and modernity, capitalism, education, and prosperity among citizens) in the Arab Middle East. This comes closest to my view of a winning worldview. I don't mean that we invade every country that is not a democracy. But I do mean that we set democracy and freedom of choice for every citizen as the expected standard of nations. We must use economic and diplomatic means -- and, yes, sometimes military will -- to secure demoracy. It's enlightened self-interest. Every human deserves a vote (I do not buy for one second that some nations are not ready for democracy; that is abhorrent political snobbery). And democracies are far less likely to be a threat to the rest of the world. We should expect the United Nations -- of all political bodies! -- to support universal democracy as a goal and hold it and its member states to that standard.

Finally, there is what I'll call the Kerry doctrine of cooperation. He wants to get other nations and the U.N. into Iraq (but I agree with those who say there's a snowball's chance in Baghdad that will happen). He thinks we should work harder to gather consensus among nations. That's a fine goal, by the sound of it, but we cannot set that as the standard or else we find ourselves hostage to the French et al. We have to face up to the fact that we are the remaining superpower. Nations do look to us to take an active role in the world and we should. Of course, there will be no agreement about every case (we had people screaming at us to get into Liberia and we had people screaming at us to stay out of Iraq). So we have to set our own standards.

So what are those standards? In foreign policy, they are never clear cut. That's why diplomacy is diplomacy: It's politics without laws.

But I think when we turn foreign policy around and look at it from the rights and needs of the individual worldwide, we at least have a clear starting point:

1. We must support the growth and strength of democracy. The vote and control of the governed over government must be seen as a fundamental human right. In this age of worldwide person-to-person communication, the internet will begin to tear down dictatorships. We need to help. We should support democracies with economic relationships and, when need be, military protection. We should reward moves toward democracy and shun leaders who resist.

2. We must protect our citizens -- our children and the children of other nations -- against the demonstrated and growing threat of Islamic fascism and so we must use the means at our disposal -- economic, diplomatic, and military -- to root out the terrorists and bring down those who support them. They didn't say it this way, Lord knows, but that's the inevitable conclusion of the 9/11 Commission: If you fail to prevent the next attack, you will be blamed.

3. We must respond to human suffering under tyrannical regimes. That response clearly will vary but it is a justification for action.

I'm writing these Issues2004 posts to put my bandwidth where my mouth is. I want us to talk issues, I need to start the ball rolling. But, again, I emphasize that I'm no expert on these topics; you can see why I'm not likely to replace Condie Rice! Still, that's where I start the discussion. Over to you.

Balls

: MeetUp presents the Great American Bowl-Off: Red teams vs. blue teams trying, for once, to say out of the gutter.

Kill TV

: I don't know much about spectrum and all that (and at last night's Dan Gillmor, event, I saw someone who really does: David Isenberg) but on the way home I read in Wired that only 12 percent of Americans now get TV through an antenna. Could that be: Just 12 percent?

So I wondered: Shouldn't we just kill off broadcast TV soon?

Imagine what we could do with all that friggin' spectrum, no?

We could provide wires to that 12 percent (or they'll die off by then).

And TV -- along with any other form of communication, entertainment, content, or media -- will be delivered by high-speed wireless bandwidth to any number of devices, set in the home or mobile.

Today, kids don't know that difference between broadcast and cable. Soon, they won't know the difference between wired and wireless. Everything will be delivered on demand.

And by the way, there goes the problem with the F word and titanian tits: You pick what "comes into your home" to watch and you don't have to worry about being corrupted by broadcast radio or TV.

Mighty Christian of them

: Fistfights break out among monks at the site of Christ's crucifixion.

September 27, 2004

Dan Gillmor in New York

: I'm in New York now at the Markle Foundation; had the honor to intro Dan Gillmor for a talk he's giving here on his book, We, the Media.

Isenberg is here. Ditto Weinberger. And Blaser. And Spiers. And Weiss. And Sifry (Micah).

Dan is telling a very personal story about his experience with citizens media starting with the 2000 election and how online gave him a better perspective online than TV would give him, up through 9/11, up through Lott and today.

The kidnap weapon spreads its deadly cancer

: Danny Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded in Pakistan. Foreigners of many countries and jobs are being kidnapped and held for ransom of all sorts and killed in Iraq.

Now a CNN producer has been kidnapped in Gaza.

I fear this weapon of terrorism will spread everywhere.

Mud v. substance

: It's so nice to hear one's own stands echoed in Big Media. First Safire (below), now Adam Clymer (an ex-neighbor) on today's Times op-ed argues that mud-slinging is distracting from the real work of the campaign and those covering it. The upcoming debate, he says, is not only a test for the candidates but also for journalists:

Phony documents and dishonest advertising have captured more attention than the facts of the candidates' competing claims about health care, or whether either has a plan - a plausible plan - for Iraq....

The test for journalists is whether they can appreciate the importance of the event and help voters make sense of what is said, checking the accuracy of claims about the past and the present and the plausibility of what is claimed for the future. It won't do to say, "We covered that in August."

So if Mr. Kerry says he will solve the situation in Iraq by getting other countries to send more troops, the press needs to examine whether this could happen if he should win. And if Mr. Bush says he is going to solve the health insurance crisis with more community health care centers and fewer lawsuits, then journalists have to help voters determine whether Mr. Bush is offering cures or Band-aids.

Exactly. That is the job of the press. And, let's add, an army of fact-checking bloggers can help.

The kidnap weapon; the media target

: William Safire said today just what I said Saturday about examing our role and responsibility in media giving terrorists publicity for their atrocities. He also said that candidates and government leaders (read: Kerry) have an equal responsibility not to be manipulated by the enemy. I agree.

Nobody should order reporters and editors to "downplay" a gut-wrenching human interest story involving cruelty, violence and death. Nor should the media flinch from covering casualty counts or honoring the fallen. War involves sacrifice.

But responsible journalists should consider the wisdom of allowing media-savvy terrorists to play them like a violin....

Do we have to become conduits for this grisly, real-death kidnap choreography? We are obliged to report it, but we need not go along with the terrorist propagandists in milking the most horror out of it.

We know that the primary purpose of the kidnap weapon is to drive the coalition forces out of Iraq and to prevent a free election there.

We know, too, that the kidnap weapon is aimed at the U.S. election....

John Kerry, who has evidently decided to replace Howard Dean as the antiwar candidate, last weekend helped to magnify the terrorists' kidnap weapon. In a scheduled commercial Kerry personally approved, just before charging that George Bush had no plan to get us out of Iraq, the Democratic campaign underscored the message Zarqawi has been sending: "Americans," said Kerry's announcer, "are being kidnapped, held hostage, even beheaded."

Though undoubtedly accurate, that paid evocation of horror by a political candidate is a terrible blunder.

Say goodnight, Jay

: Conan O'Brien to replace Leno. It could only improve.

: The NBC press release here. [via Lost Remote]

Sprawl is good for you

: A new "study" argues that suburban sprawl is bad for your health.

What a hock of hooey. It appears to be another of those coincidence-of-statistics "studies" that confirm somebody's desires for the truth.

They found that people in the suburbs complain of more ailments. Could it be that people in the suburbs are more likely to have health insurance and they can afford to complain of ailments more often? Could it be that people in the suburbs have jobs that are stressful and, in fact, their homes are what make life better for them? Could it be that the jobs and competition in bigger, more crowded, more central locations are frequently more stressful than the jobs in out-of-the-way places? Could it be that people in the suburbs grow old out there and get sick more often than young yuppies? I think it could.

Here's the Washington Post report on the "study."

The real problem I have with this is that "sprawl" is such a dirty word. Hey, yesterday's "sprawl" is today's "preservation" project. The house you're living in was sprawl when it's built but now that you're in it, it's not sprawl -- but the new one going in next door is.

My town is wasting millions buying land by the Interstate that no one should want to build on -- and if they wanted to build, who'd care? -- in the name of "open space" and its moral opposite, "sprawl." It's a waste of good land and good money and doesn't really serve the interests against "sprawl" because it only forces people to move farther and farther away from their jobs and communities.

"Sprawl" is a boogyman for the age.

Technorati's ills

: Dave Sifry explains why Technorati has been down all weekend: a fire in the hosting facility caused one mean game of dominos. I have complete sympathy, having been hosed similarly by the big New York blackout a year ago. And I also see that Dave is going to the obvious next step already: new disaster and back-up plans (we've just finished implementing ours). I'm utterly addicted to Technorati and I've been shaking and quaking with chills and sweats without it.

: UPDATE: It's back. The data appears to be a little out-of-date; I'm guessing it came from a back-up. But that should catch up soon.

Credibility gaps everywhere

: The other day, I posted the momentous news from Gallup that trust in big media has declined markedly. Tor the first time in recent history, more people distrust than trust big media. That is big news (which, no, we haven't seen prominently displayed on the news).

But big media isn't alone with declining trust.

In the post below, I quoted results of a USC/Annenberg Center for the Digital Future study on Internet v. TV time and when I went to the original study, I found some sobering stats on the public's trust of the internet -- and particularly of sites created by individuals -- which, of course, includes blogs.

Now this could just be the general cooties attached to the internet and to personal home pages from the start. But I think it's more than that.

First, I do fear that the tone of much of what comes from the internet and blogs contributes to this; thus my sermonizing on mud-slinging. I doubt that contributes much to this decline in trust, but I will say that we'd better watch out, or it will.

I also think that there's a new skepticism rising in the land (and it's not necessarily a bad thing): Just as we come to distrust big media more, and just as we come to realize that we can go to the source of news ourselves and judge for ourselves, we have to wake up to the notion that making that judgment isn't easy. We're not sure whom to believe. Call that mistrust. Or call that cynicism. Or call that healthy skepticism. When every citizen becomes his own reporter, every citizen becomes as skeptical as a reporter should be.

I actually think that the Rathergate case will improve the reputation of internet (and individual) media. If this survey were taken again today, I'd just bet that among those aware of the Rathergate story and of the internet's and blogs' role in it, we'd gain a few points. But that's only a bet.

uscchart.jpg

The USC study says:
Web sites mounted by established media (such as nytimes.com) ranked highest in perceived accuracy and reliability; 74.4 of users say that most or all information on established media Web sites is reliable and accurate.

Government Web sites also fared well with users in the current study; 73.5 percent say that most or all of the information on government Web sites is reliable and accurate.

Information pages posted by individuals have the lowest credibility; only 9.5 percent of users say the information on Web sites posted by individuals is reliable and accurate.

Even though large percentages of users say that most or all of the information on Web sites posted by established media and the government is reliable and accurate, it is worth noting that significant numbers of users believe that only half or less of information on these sites is reliable and accurate; 25.7 percent of users say that about half or less of news sites posted by established media are reliable and accurate, while 26.5 percent of users judge that about half or less of government Web sites are reliable and accurate....

Of very experienced users, 83.5 percent say that most or all of the information on news pages posted by established media is reliable and accurate, compared to 49.1 percent of new users who provide the same response.

When asked about government Web sites, 81.4 percent of very experienced users, compared to 50.1 percent of new users, say that most or all of the information on those sites is reliable and accurate.

New users and very experienced users agree about the low credibility of information posted by individuals; only 9.2 percent of very experienced users and 7.5 percent of new users say that most or all of the information on pages posted by individuals is reliable and accurate.

The bottom line: Trust is something you earn every day and can lose anytime. Little media has to work just as hard -- no harder -- at gaining trust than big media. And you know how hard big media has to work at it.

: UPDATE: Ken Layne doesn't buy the huge decline in media trust.

TV and me

: I came to a shocking realization over the last few days:

I don't watch broadcast TV anymore.

Now that's shocking because I love TV. I was the TV critic for TV Guide and People magazines and I created a damned entertainment mag and appeared on TV and watched TV. I kept four VCRs going at once almost every night. I knew what was happening in every corner of prime time. This weekend, when I took my son on the NBC studios tour in New York (our clever avoidance of a visit to the American Girl store with the women of the house), I was the only person in the group who could name every founding cast member of Saturday Night Live. TV was my life. Was.

But here comes the new fall season and, frankly, I couldn't give a damn. I'm not watching any new series. I'm not following old series. I'm not watching broadcast TV. Three reasons:

1. The internet and the distraction of blogs. I spend a great deal of my day doing just what I'm doing at this second: reading and writing on the internet. I don't consume media anymore; I live it.

2. Cable is so damned good. There are great shows on cable, especially on HBO, and I watch them with the same devotion I used to give to Cheers or Hill St. Blues and Seinfeld. But The Sopranos and The Wire and Curb Your Enthusiasm are better and more addictive. And even when I'm not watching them, I'm watching niche TV: We love do-it-yourself home improvement shows, for example. As with all other media, one-size-fits all is dead; nice programming -- quality niches, special-interest niches, audience niches -- are taking over.

3. Broadcast is getting so damned bad. I am not now and never have been and never will be a snob about TV. I look down my nose at people who look down their noses at people who watch TV; I distrust anybody who brags to me that they don't own a TV or just watch PBS. Bull. But I do have to say that I have not become a regular with The Apprentice or Survivor or American Idol and I do believe that -- as with all other trends that threatened to eat TV -- these, too shall pass. And then where will the networks be?

All of this is to say that the studies showing a decline in TV viewership tied to an increase in internet usage are right. I'm the damned poster child.

A greater percentage of the Internet households surveyed by the Digital Future Project indicated that they spent less time watching TV in 2003 than previous years. Nearly 38 percent said they spent less time watching television in 2003, compared to 31 percent in 2002, and 33 percent in 2001.

The greatest impact on television viewing was seen among veteran users with 7+ years online, with 45.5 percent saying they watched less since they started using the Internet. In 2001, just 35 percent said the Internet caused them to watch less TV. That swelled to 38 percent in 2002.

Just wait until TV explodes with alternate means of delivery -- via the internet -- and alternate sources of programming -- the citizens. The death of the network age, so often predicted, is upon us.

Issues2004: Energy police

: This is an easy one, right?

We want to end our dependency on foreign oil, right?

Then why the hell have we not made one damned inch of progress toward that goal?

My big break as a cup reporter came in '73-'74, when I worked for Chicago Today (a paper that had no tomorrow) and ended up covering the energy crisis. I lucked into covering gas lines and ended up on the front page day after day because -- if you're old enogh to remember, you will remember -- we were caught in a national gasoline panic. There were shortages and lines everywhere. Prices skyrocketed. Price controls hovered. We vowed we would get out from under the thumb of the Arab oil oligarchy.

How soon we forget, huh?

We're just as dependent upon foreign oil today as we were then. And, no, I'm not going to go blaming SUV drivers (who often buy for the four-wheel-drive, not the extra ton). It's bigger than that.

It's a failing of government policy and business innovation and national will at every level.

And now we are paying the price. Oh, boy, are we. So what should we do about it? Well, as I emphasize in all these Issues2004 posts, I am no expert. But I'll start here:

: Gasoline: We must reduce our driving dependency on gasoline. Hybrid engines are a start, at last. So let's find every possible way to encourage more gas efficiency. I suggest a self-liquidating, Peter-Paul tax that gives rebates to efficient car buyers paid for by inefficient car buyers. It's not a tax. It's a transfer of wealth and energy ethics.

: Nuclear power: I would far rather deal with the devil atom than the devil Arab. I'm as freaked as the next guy at scenes from China Syndrome. But it's time to get over our nuclear jitters. I now (suddenly) believe that the more we can generate energy with nuclear power, the better. Let's be smart. Let's be safe. But let's not be stupid and let our fears of nukes prevent us from using this using this powerful energy source.

: R&D: We have to cut through all limitations to create a Manhattan Project for energy independence, bringing together academics and corporate scientists -- antitrust be damned -- to find new ways to reduce our oil addiction. This includes reducing regulation and increasing tax advantages for R&D and even creating the means for scientists to communicate openly. You want to have a 9/11 Commission that actually accomplishes something meaningful for our future and our safety, start the Energy Commission and put former Presidents on it along with CEOs of energy and auto companies and energy utilities.

: Reduce Arabs' dependence, too: As we cut the Arab world off from dependence on our oil dollars, we must replace it with new economic relationships not with Arab governments but with the Arab people: That is, we must create jobs via commerce and, yes, outsourcing. Otherwise, we'll only create more desperation and anger. If we do this properly, we transfer prosperity and economic power from corrupt Arab governments to the Arab people.

Your thoughts?

September 26, 2004

Excited

: Just found that Joe Kraus, a founder of Excite (and its predecessor concept-based search company, Architext, about which I was always far more excited than about Excite), has started a blog. He tells stories inside the funding of Excite with Kleiner Perkins venture god Vinod Khosla (avoiding the sad end to that tale, however). Kraus is now working on a new company in stealth. What's nice about this is that it comes from the other side of the table than all the many good VC blogs out there. [via VentureBlog]

Ready for his close-up

: Bill O'Reilly did his 60 Minutes interview tonight and did a masterful job of coming off as Mr. Reasonable.

Whew

: I love the understatement of the cosmology beat:

Astronomers have spotted two monster galactic clusters slamming together in one of the biggest collisions ever recorded.

The smash-up poses no danger to Earth -- it is about 800 million light-years away, and the galaxies involved tend to speed by each other without crashing -- but the Milky Way could be on a similar collision course in a few billion years.

It's happening 800 million light-years away. Yes, I'd say we have little cause to worry.

Ms November

: It's obligatory to link to the New York Times Magazine discovery of blogs today. My reaction:

It's time to create the bloggers' pin-up calendar. In pajamas, please.

: Glenn Reynolds gives the NYTMag story a very gracious link, not being concerned about the focus on liberal bloggers; he says that conservatives have gotten their ink, too. What amuses me is that he still bristles, though wearily now, at being called a conservative himself, still wondering how the label has stuck to him, being that not all his positions are conservative. Well, I'd say that incessant and angry Kerry-bashing might have something to do with it, no? Or maybe not. Glenn still categorizes Andrew Sullivan as a conservative (properly) even though he is now a Kerry backer.

Tony Blair on terrorism and modern media

: Tony Blair calls for firm support of the work in Iraq and the war against terrorism in an interview with The Observer. After talking about the terrorists' kidnapping of a Briton...

However, he hoped the public would understand that terrorism in Iraq 'is to try to stop the country getting better, to murder anybody who tries to help its reconstruction and its democratic process. And our response, surely, has got to be to stand firm'.

Blair called on those divided over the war to rally behind a fresh battle for the control of Iraq: 'I can understand why people still have a powerful disagreement about the original decision to go to war. But whatever that disagreement, surely it is absolutely clear we have to stay and see it through. Because the consequence of not doing so is that global terrorism will get a tremendous boost.'

Downing Street has been privately alarmed by the sophistication with which hostage taker Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has played on western public opinion. 'What these terrorists understand is that they can use and manipulate the modern media to gain enormous publicity for themselves and put democratic politicians in a very difficult position,' he said....

Asked if the war on terrorism had really delivered a safer world, Blair suggested things were often darkest before dawn: 'There was more bloodshed in 1941 than in 1938.' The intensity of the insurgency showed, he said, how much was at stake.

He's right about staying the course (and, yes, I wish I could vote for him in November).

He's also right about the terrorists' ability to manipulate modern media -- and modern media should be grappling with what to do about it. Playing the hostage videos, one after the next, is not necessarily the responsible or moral choice, for it gives the terrorists what they want: publicity. If Hitler released a press release, would you print it verbatim? Just because the terrorists in Iraq put out their press releases on video, that doesn't mean you need to air the images on TV. Video is the ideal format for manipulating video media; the terrorists have learned that.

We are also entering an era of unfiltered media and that, too, is an issue. Back to that Hitler PR example: In the days of filtered (that is, published, edited, time-delayed) media, what Hitler had to say would have been cut up and quoted in stories. Today, in the age of go-to-the-source media, you can put your message on a web site and it can be quoted in the same media (TV on TV) and linked to directly.

On the one hand, some bloggers and some on cable news have said that we need to see the full horror of what these terrorists are doing and so they argued that the threatening and beheading videos should be seen.

But you also have to be aware that when you do that, you play into the hands of the terrorists; you give them just what they want: publicity. Does that make you complicit?

All this is quite counterintuitive -- you'd think that the terrorists would realize that this should hurt them, make them look like the murdering slime they are. But this is a counterintuitive world with the most countercivil people: They don't care about bad PR. They don't care if we hate them for they hate us; in fact, if we hate them, it's a badge of honor. So the worse we think of them, the better it is for them. And playing their videos accomplishes that goal.

But playing their videos too much eventually desensitizes us to the horror of their crimes. The sameness of the videos and of the reports of terrorist bombs killing civilians in Iraqi marketplaces or outside Iraqi police stations is becoming numbing. And that, too, suits the terrorists just fine; it dilutes our resolve to fight them.

We need to be aware of how the terrorists are manipulating modern media, as Blair said. What exactly we should do about that, I'm not yet sure; I invite discussion.

But I do know one thing: We start by calling terrorists terrorists.

September 25, 2004

Quiet day

: Heading into the city for a day of fun with the family: Lion King, at last, plus the joys of overpriced parking. See you this afternoon.

Voting against

: Have we ever seen an election in which so many people are voting against rather than voting for a candidate? Sure, we've seen many when voters lament they'd rather vote for "none of the above." We've seen a lack of enthusiasm. But how long has it been since we've seen this much antipathy toward each candidate in turn. The left has been in full anybody-but-Bush swing for months; MoveOn has made that its rallying cry; even the DNC put people on the street not to push voting for Kerry but to push voting against Bush. And similarly, on the right, we've seen an often vitriolic effort to get people to get out to vote against Kerry. This is not a campaign of what we used to call constructive criticism. It could be that these two candidates bring out the bile in us. Or it could just be that this is close, so people have more reason to fear the person they don't like will win (though they could just as easily have the hope the person they do want will win). So here's my question:

Is there a poll that indicates whether voters are more motivated by voting against a candidate rather than for a candidate?

September 24, 2004

Elevating the debate

: Catching up with Virginia Postrel's on-target response to Glenn Reynolds' post -- she calls it "a bit defensive" -- about whether blogs elevate the political debate... or not.

It's true that many bloggers, including Glenn, do a lot of media criticism. Media criticism is relatively easy, and Web links are ideally suited to it. But it's hardly true that "the political blogosphere isto a large degree about media criticism." Many of the best policy blogs have almost no media criticism, nor do they go looking for political scalps. They don't even constantly write about the superiority of blogs. That's why you almost never read about them. Reporters and media critics are bored, bored, bored by the very sort of discourse they claim to support (a lesson I learned the hard way in 10 long years as the editor of Reason). They, and presumably their readers, want conflict, scandal, name-calling, and some sex and religion to heighten the combustible mix. Plus journalists, like other people, love to read about themselves and people they know.

Hence, newspapers don't writes stories about how blogs like Volokh Conspiracy elevate the debate over legal issues or how blogs like Marginal Revolution improve the public's understanding of economic scholarship. You won't read any articles about comparing the military policy discussions on Intel Dump and Belmont Club. Education blogs, science blogs, and foreign-policy blogs all engage in excellent issue discussions, but you'll never, ever hear them held up as examples of the blogosphere at work. Even Glenn forgets they exist.

And more....

lwv.jpg: I may be accused of being a member of the League of Women Voters (do you like my new hairdo?) but I'll carry that card proudly. The Issues2004 posts demonstrate that given half a chance, you all will read and comment on and blog and link to posts about issues just as you do to the sexier topics of mud-slinging. If I didn't have faith in that -- in the citizens -- then I wouldn't be a believer in democracy. But I am.

I'm no expert on any of the issues I have posted on or will post on. And so I again encourage you to post links to the kinds of blogs Virginia writes about. The experts are among us. I want to learn from them.

That's what I call elevating.

Just vote
:
: Halley is blogging voter registration deadlines to make sure we don't miss any of you.

More blogcasts: Updated

: More broadcast appearances on blogs and Rather and all that...
: Brian Lehrer's WNYC show Friday at 10:40a.... Done this morning. Enjoyed it. I'm a fan of Lehrer's. He runs a smart show.
: Capital Report on CNBC at 7p ET on Friday.
: FoxNews between 1-2p ET on Sunday. Preempted by the next hurricane, they just told me.
: Possibly Aaron Brown's show (minus Aaron) tonight on CNN at 10 ET. Preempted too. Or maybe it was something I said....

Unspun

: FoxNews' Bill O'Reilly gives an interview to 60 Minutes -- matter meets antimatter -- and says:

Long a favorite of conservatives, O'Reilly's stances on big issues came as a surprise to Wallace, as did his answer to whether he would vote for George W. Bush.

O'Reilly states he is pro-gun control, against the death penalty, for civil unions, for gay adoption (as a last resort instead of state custody) and mindful of the environment.

But when asked if he would vote for President Bush, O'Reilly left open the possibility he would vote for John Kerry.

"I've known Kerry for 25 years. He's a patriot. I'm listening to what he has to say," he tells Wallace.

Bill O'Reilly, undecided voter?

Blogs bring relief

: NJ.com blogger and colleague John Shabe tells a story about how, indeed, "Turns out we can change the world one blog at a time."

: In unrelated news, Shabe finds that lobster-lovers prefer Bush.

Scoop

: Note that Gawker scooped the tabs on Cynthia Nixon's sexual flip-flop. And who says this isn't real journalism with real reporting, eh?

The advantage of bias

: Getting ready to go on Brian Lehrer's show, I was thinking about the advantage of bias.

We're always painting a refusal to admit bias as an underhanded secret, a lie of omission, as I've called it lately.

Well, partly that's because "bias" is loaded; it's a perjorative. So let's call it "perspective" instead.

I've been saying that transparency about your perspective is a good thing. Hell, I said it yesterday about FoxNews on FoxNews. It's a refrain I've sung in this blog often but it was fun to blurt it out on Fox: Not to suck up to the air on which I'm appearing, I said, but FoxNews is No. 1 because it has a perspective -- label it what you want -- and the audience wants to see that perspective, to know what it is and judge what is said accordingly.

Perspective is context.

This morning I thought of another example: A few days ago, I praised Ira Glass' This American Life on NPR (PRI) for a surprising show about the Republican Party as the party of the big tent.

Now I don't know that Glass is liberal. But I think it's a safe assumption he is. And even if he's a closet McCain supporter, you can bet that a lot of his NPR (PRI) coworkers are blue-staters.

So that's what makes the story they did praising the Republicans' efforts to open their tent -- and criticizing the PC Democrats for closing theirs -- all the more noteworthy. If I heard Bill O'Reilly talking about the GOP tent, I'd discount it. But hearing Glass go on about it, I said: Wow, there's a real story here. This is something I should pay attention to; this perception (or reality) is why the Republicans are winning right now. Thus this is something the Democrats listening to certainly pay attention to.

My point is that Glass'/NPR's perspective (bias) added a lot to that report. I judged what they said in that context and it helped the story; it gave it more credence and importance.

My colleagues in journalism mostly act deathly allergic to the notion of revealing their own perspective. I say they shouldn't be. Being transparent about your perspective, when you have one, adds to the trust and credibility of what you say; it respects the audience and gives them more information to let them judge what you say. It's about telling the truth. And isn't that supposed to be what journalism is supposed to be about?

Are you listening, Dan Rather?

The Daily Stern

: Be warned: The Daily Stern is about to rise again. Congress is about to send its indecent indecency bill to Bush's desk. So if you are on TV and say "F Bush," you could be bankrupted. Well, let me get this in while I can: F Congress.

On Howard Stern yesterday, they recounted a Dr. Phil show in which the quack put a 9-year-old boy on, showing him smearing feces on a wall, and said he had most of the warning signs that said this kid was going to be a serial killer. Now I call that obscene (and irresponsible and inhuman). But Congress -- and, apparently, the American psychiatric governing body -- won't go after that. But Congress and the FCC will rule that a four-letter word and a breast are obscene.

I'm just getting revved up.

September 23, 2004

Issues2004: On radio

: Brian Lehrer's WNYC show in New York is covering 30 issues in 30 days leading up to the election.

The snob's response

: There's no greater snob -- and I mean that in only the nicest way, of course -- than Tina Brown. She imported snobbery into the U.S. the way the Beatles imported rock music.

Today, she exudes snobbishness about journalism. I won't call on my usual preists-and-cathedrals image; this more the has-been queen sniffing in her castle at all the riff-raff out in the streets, typing fast.

Now the conventional wisdom is that the media will be kept honest and decent by an army of incorruptible amateur gumshoes. In fact, cyberspace is populated by a coalition of political obsessives and pundits on speed who get it wrong as much as they get it right. It's just that they type so much they are bound to nail a story from time to time.
This isn't Brown sniffing at bloggers; it is Brown sniffing at the audience, the great unwashed. Too bad you have to get commoners to watch your TV show to be successful, eh, your highness? She continues:
The rapturing about the bloggers is the journalistic equivalent of the stock market's Internet bubble. You can see the news chiefs feeling as spooked as the old-style CEOs in the '90s who had built their companies over 20 years and then saw kids in backward baseball caps on the cover of Fortune. It finally drove them nuts. It was why we saw Time Warner's buttoned-down corporate dealmaker Gerald Levin tearing off his tie and swooning into the embrace of AOL's Steve Case.

The equivalent today is when news outfits that built their reputations on check-and-double-check pick up almost any kind of assertion and call it a "source." Or feel so chased by the new-media mujaheddin they start trusting tips garnered from God-knows-where by a partisan wack job in Texas.

What a crock of caviar. So now she is blaming bloggers for making Dan Rather and CBS panic and air a forged memo from a nutty Texan. Can somebody diagram the logic of that paragraph?

Damn, I guess Gawker has gotten under Tina's skin.

: Tina is fooling herself not only about the Rather story and the fate of news media and the role of citizens but also about the campaign:

Documents or no documents, everyone knows Bush's dad got him out of Vietnam. Everyone knows he thought he had better, funner things to do than go to a bunch of boring National Guard drills. (Only a killjoy like John Kerry would spend his carefree youth racking up high-minded demonstrations of courage and conscience, right?) Like O.J. Simpson's infamous "struggle" to squeeze his big hand into the glove, the letter was just a lousy piece of evidence that should never have been produced in court. Now because CBS, like Marcia Clark, screwed up the prosecution, Bush is going to walk.
: UPDATE: See also Wonkette's simultaneous translation.

Declining trust in media

: A new Gallup survey says that trust in media has taken a dramatic decline.

This survey was taken after the start of Rathergate but before the denouement. Gallup doubts that Rather is the primary cause. We all can -- and certainly will -- speculate about what the real causes in this decline are. You can predict that I'll say the focus on and exasperation with mud-slinging is a factor. Some will say it's the lack of coverage of the Bush and Kerry military stories; others will say it's the excessive coverage. Whatever. I think that looking for a cause of this decline is as short-sighted as CBS appointing a commission to look just at the forgeries, not at the network.

This is a bigger story, of course, is the future and fate of journalism and news media. Trust and credibility are the only real assets of this business and Gallup says they are eroding, though we didn't need Gallup to tell us that, eh? (See Tim Oren's related post.)

So journalism must reform its relationship with the people formerly known as the audience (aka us). It must face us eye-to-eye and become transparent to rebuild trust. It must recognize that the internet allows people to go to the source sometimes -- they report, they decide -- and to talk back. It must admit the problems and failings it has. It must involve the citizens in that rebirth as equal partners, or they may as well not bother.

gallupchart.gif

Can you hear that ringing sound, journalists? It's another wake-up call from Gallup.

The Sept. 13-15 poll -- conducted after the CBS News report was questioned but before the network issued a formal apology -- found that just 44% of Americans express confidence in the media's ability to report news stories accurately and fairly (9% say "a great deal" and 35% "a fair amount"). This is a significant drop from one year ago, when 54% of Americans expressed a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the media. The latest result is particularly striking because this figure had previously been very stable -- fluctuating only between 51% and 55% from 1997-2003.

Conversely, 39% currently say they have "not very much" confidence in the media's accuracy and fairness, while 16% say they have "none at all."

Clearly, something new has happened to shake public confidence in the media, but whether that "something" is the recent CBS News controversy is a matter of speculation. One might assume that if the CBS News story were the culprit, that this would be reflected in a disproportionately large drop in confidence in the media among Republicans. However, the data on this is not conclusive. Trust in the news media is typically lower among Republicans, but all three partisan groups show a significant decline in confidence in the media since last year. It did drop by a somewhat greater degree among Republicans than Democrats, however.

My emphasis.

The blind blogging the blind

: Who knew that Jayson Blair had a blog? (Does this singlehandedly dilute the credibility of all blogging?)

Rathergate.com cleverly asked Blair his thoughtson the Rather story. I'm not sure we should give a damn what Blair says, but it's interesting in a ship-of-fools way. [via Instapundit]

Canyouhearmenow?

: The second I get off FoxNews, I get email from a lady telling me to slow down. I thought I had. Oh, well. Too late.

Calling Kerry's brand manager

: We often say in blogs that the wise company will spot somebody complaining about its product or brand in a blog and respond directly to serve that consumer and win him back.

Well, perhaps Kerry's brand manager (yes, if only he had one) should respond to this post from my friend, colleague, and fellow blogger Joe Territo, which ends:

I'm starting to question my own, somewhat recent decision to vote for Kerry. Can somebody who is running what appears to be such a weak campaign possibly be a strong and effective president? I am starting to buy into the Republican argument that even though I don't agree with Bush, it's better to have a leader who is clear and straightforward than one whose message is muddled. Please, somebody, talk me out of this spiral back into Bush's corner.

All Dan All The Time

: Andrew Tyndall -- who publishes a respected report on network news coverage -- posts this in a comment below, reacting to my reaction to Glenn Reynolds' post about blog (and thus media) coverage of scandals v issues. He starts quoting Glenn:

"If the Big Media were talking more about issues, and less -- to pick RatherGate as the example which I think inspired this conversation -- about Bush's National Guard service, probably bloggers would be talking about issues more, too."

As big a story as the 60 Minutes memos are in media circles and the blogosphere, it is flat out untrue that it has dominated campaign coverage in the aforesaid Big Media.

Last week on the three networks' nightly newscasts combined (including CBS, which spent extended time to defending its own reporting), the memos accounted for less than one quarter of all Campaign 2004 coverage (14 minutes out of 61). The previous week--when the story broke--it was a similar small proportion (17 minutes out of 68). Our tracking data on campaign coverage is archived at http://www.tyndallreport.com/campaign.html.

Valuable data. Is one quarter a lot?

Oh, Danny boy

: Dan Rather is throwing his boss, CBS News President Andrew Heyward, to the wolves in today's New York Times:

"This is not verbatim," Mr. Rather recalled. "But I said: 'Andrew, if true, it's breakthrough stuff. But I need to do something unusual. It may even be unique. I have to ask you to oversee, in a hands-on way, the handling of this story, because this is potentially the kind of thing that will cause great controversy.'

"He got it. He immediately agreed.''

Nope, Dan. It came out of your mouth. You're responsible.

: It's also troubling that the Rather camp apparently tells The Times that he is opposed to the appointment of Dick Thornburgh to the baby-blue commission investigating him:

Mr. Rather considers Mr. Thornburgh a confounding choice in part because he served two Republican presidents, Mr. Bush's father, and Richard M. Nixon, with whom Mr. Rather publicly clashed, the colleagues and associates said.
Well, who the hell do you think they should appoint? Ted Kennedy?

Issues2004: Education

: My issue with education is that we keep attacking the bottom without pushing the top.

Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative is a fine thing. Kerry doesn't fight it on his site and vows to go enforce it. Fixing bad schools is vital. Nobody can disagree with that.

I have one complaint about the initiative: its reliance on testing. I say we already depended way too much on on testing, from standardized measures in elementary schools through the dreaded SATs. I know testing doesn't treat all students fairly or accurately. We all know that teachers and school systems reorder themselves to game the test: they teach the test rather than teach. And the industry that has popped up around gaming the SATs is an offensive waste of money and brainpower. Still, I understand that you can't measure whether children have been left behind without testing them. So fine.

I also understand the resource and effort put into mainstreaming children with educational difficulties of all sorts. It's good for those children and good for those around them. I'm not going to be politically incorrect about this. But make no mistake about it: The cost is tremendous. Every extra dollar a district can find goes into extra attention for children with problems of one sort or another.

At the same time, all across the country, we've worked so hard to level playing fields that we don't let the best stand out; it's damned near politically incorrect in some districts to be smart. In my day, we "tracked" students by ability and I believe that worked well for everyone; it pushed the best to do their best and it didn't intimidate the rest and allowed them to do their best as well. Tracking is out now.

Well, if fixing bad schools is all we do, and if extra resources mostly go to children with problems, and if we make everyone equal -- if we put all this effort into raising the lowest common denominator -- then we'll give short shrift to another important job: We also have to raise the nominator. We have to challenge the best and the brightest. We must nurture genius.

I would have hoped that Bush, as a Republican, as a business President, could have framed this properly: Great education is our best investment. The more we train students to innovate in science and technology and math and the arts (remember that entertainment is a huge industry and gigantic export), the more we inspire them to create, the better chance we have to profit and compete and grow. Education is not just a social issue but a business issue.

So what do we do about that? The problem is that whenever we talk about improving education, it means money. Special programs for children with special needs costs money. Special programs for gifted kids costs money. Funding research costs money. Voters -- and talk-show hosts -- everywhere complain about that. But teachers still don't earn much (and that affects the quality of teachers we get). Vicious cycle.

Look at Bush's plan or Kerry's and you'll find lots of proposals for lots of programs. I'm no expert, as I've emphasized in all these Issues2004 posts. So I can't really dig into all their suggestions and say what will work and won't. But I do know that many of us are frustrated with this vicious cycle; we want better education. I simply think that pushing the top is almost as important and beneficial as fixing the bottom.

Your priorities?

David Letterman's No. 1 way for CBS to improve its image

: "Oh, I dunno, stop making up crap."

What's not funny

: CrushKerry.com -- which, by its very name and mission, is hardly aiming to be fair and complimentary to John Kerry (they're hardly the League of Women Voters, after all) -- comes out in agreement with the Kerry campaign's complaint against the latest Bush commercial, which makes goofy jokes about the Democrat's wind-surfing and flip-flopping over the war in Iraq. Says CK:

Therefore, we feel the windsurfing spot was an unfortunate mistake.

And that’s not easy for us to say. A few days ago in a memo to Karl Rove, we urged the Bush team to begin to turn John Kerry into a joke. The windsurfing ad attempts to do that, but in our opinion it does so on the wrong issue.

The truth is, there have been 1,000 American deaths in Iraq. Kidnappings and beheadings have made American hearts scream for justice. Now is not the time to laugh about such atrocities, even if the joke is ultimately at John Kerry’s expense.

Good for them.

September 22, 2004

Triumphalism or mere triumph?

: A few times today, I heard people say that blogs didn't really triumph over Dan Rather and CBS and that other news organizations (notably, ABC News) were on the story just like blogs were, and that all this required was some couch reporting in Microsoft Word isn't real reporting.

All that misses the point.

The point is that bloggers were heard. They (we) were heard right alongside Big Media. They (we) pushed Big Media hard. Attention was paid. Respect is due. The citizens spoke and the nation listened. That's the point. Citizens' media has arrived. And it's not leaving.

Elevators go up and down

: Glenn Reynolds addresses the question of whether blogs are elevating the political debate.

I hesitate to get into this because I haven't enjoyed tangling with Glenn lately, since I sensed that he'd developed an obsession with Swifties and Cambodia and I'll quickly concede that I'd developed my equivalent obsession with campaign mud, decrying the Swifties and Mooreites, the supposed scandals about Kerry's and Bush's honorable service. I saw a real change in the character of his blog; I said so; he took issue, as well he should; and others had complaints, in turn, about my blog. It felt like two buddies drifting farther apart down the bar. I started reading a lot into a lack of Instalinks and was, frankly, relieved when I got one earlier this week -- not for the traffic, but for the communication. Christ, I was getting ready to send him flowers and a box of chocolates.

But this is what happens in a personal medium. It gets personal.

And all that is necessary background to Glenn's post today:

IS THE BLOGOSPHERE ELEVATING THE POLITICAL DEBATE? I just had an interesting conversation with a journalist who's writing on that question, and who pretty clearly seems to feel that the answer is "no."

If "elevating the debate" means a sort of good-government, League-of-Women-Voters focus on where candidates stand on health care, etc., that's mostly true, I suppose. But I think it misconceives what blogs are about. There certainly are bloggers posting on healthcare and other issues -- see, for example, Jeff Jarvis's Issues 2004 posts and this post by Ann Althouse on medical malpractice -- but the political blogosphere is to a large degree about media criticism. If the Big Media were talking more about issues, and less -- to pick RatherGate as the example which I think inspired this conversation -- about Bush's National Guard service, probably bloggers would be talking about issues more, too.

Actually, I would have thought that Glenn would have said the opposite. His complaint was that Big Media were not talking about Swifties and Kerry and Cambodia. Now he complains that they were talking about Bush and the National Guard. My complaint was the Big Media -- and bloggers -- were not talking about issues but were, instead, talking about both Bush and the National Guard and Kerry and the Swifties and Cambodia.

That is precisely why I started posting about issues, because I decided I should put my bandwidth where my mouth is.

I completely agree that blogs are, to a large degree, about media -- because they are media. But in fact, if all blogs do is criticize media, then that's damned limiting. I'd hate to see blogs get too inside baseball (on steroids).

If blogs are media, then they can and should talk about anything media talks about, including issues that matter to our lives and our future (with, I might add, a helluva lot more relevance and passion than any League of Women Voters).

Glenn continues:

Of course, what's striking about RatherGate is the absolutely incredible degree of ineptitude, arrogance, and outright political manipulativeness that it has revealed. In light of that, I can understand why members of the media would rather talk about other things.
Cheap shot and not really right. Media's going mad talking about Rathergate; I've had tons of media calls and so have many other bloggers. And on those appearances, I -- as both Media Man and Blog Boy -- have been attacking the ineptitute, arrogance, and political mucking of Rather et al -- and I've not been alone among media men. Glenn goes on:
But, all blogger triumphalism aside, the media criticism matters. And it matters because Big Media are still the main way that our society learns about what's happening, and talks about it. A serious breakdown there, which seems undeniably present today, is very important. In many ways, as I've said before, it's more important than how the election turns out.
I agree with most of that (I do not think that media matters more than terrorism, homeland security, health care, education, and such). But cut away the brush and vines and that's a fine tree there. If he'd ended there, we'd stand in agreement. But the snark gun fires once more:
Meanwhile, I don't recall much tut-tutting about bloggers focusing on Trent Lott's racial remarks, instead of his position on national health insurance. Were we elevating the tone then, but not now?
Cheap rhetorical trick. Lott's statement was a present-tense story and it wasn't in the midst of a presidential campaign and it didn't blot out other discussion.

Bottom lines: Big Media and bloggers can and should talk about more than media because all media and no issues makes Jack a dull boy.

Media's important. But so are homeland security, Iraq, health insurance, education, energy, and all the other issues that affect our lives and about which we have opinions and about which we -- bloggers as well as Big Media -- should be debating. We can talk about all this at once. Pixels are cheap.

As I have said here often lately, I had hoped that blogs would push Big Media to do better on the issues that matter to this nation and its future, not just about mud from the past. That's how I hoped blogs would, indeed, have helped elevate the political debate.

I believe blogs can do both. Blogs can criticize and fact-check and dog -- and, here's the point -- improve Big Media. Blogs can also debate and inform and push and prod both media and politicians on issues that matter to us. I wouldn't want to limit them.

Blogs can do all that -- and make pajama jokes, too.

: And let me add this... The reason that I went ahead and posted this is because if we in blogs criticize Big Media, we also should be prepared to examine ourselves. So I think it's good that Glenn posted what he did; he tries to boil us down (ouch) to our essence. And I think it's best if we then continue to discuss that. We're a new medium. We're figuring out what the hell we are. So long as we don't get caught in (a) navel gazing or (b) triumphalism or (c) boring self-indulgent droning (each a disease of Big Journalism, Lord knows), then the discussion is good. So discuss....

: UPDATE: Patterico says I missed the point of present-tense vs. past-tense. I didn't. But I did shorthand what I said too much so here's his post and see my repy.

Also see my earlier post arguing that blogs should be judged on how we try to affect the coverage and conduct of this election.

: Think of the next 11 weeks until the election as a challenge: as a test of weblogs' real value:

When we wake up after the election, will we be able to point to the ways and posts in which this new medium contributed, or at least tried to contribute, to improving the coverage of the campaign and the policies of the candidates and the wisdom of the electorate? Will we have made a difference at all? Or will we have made it worse?

Did we push the coverage and the candidates in ways that mattered? Or did we wallow in mud?

Now is our opportunity to show what we can do. So what can we do?

National pundit shortage!

: I'm supposed to be on FoxNews Thursday between 9 and 9:30 a.m. (my virgin voyage into their air). This must indicate a dire shortage of pundits!

: I apologize for the lack of posts since this morning. Real work, real life, you know how it is. And now I have to get out early to make sure I make it to FoxNews on time. Then more meetings. More real work, real life. But I blog when I find a breath....

Two little

: CBS is doing as little as possible with its Rathergate commission: It appointed only a two-person commission and though they are respected -- former AP head Louis Boccardi and former PA Gov. Dick Thornburgh -- they aren't TV and they don't represent the various constituencies and thus viewpoints I think are important. But far, far worse: CBS is charging them only to look into how the forged docs got onto the air, nothing after, nothing more. Big mistake. Muffed opportunity. Frightened and frightening lack of vision.
My view of what they should have done here. CBS' announcement here. See Ernie Miller's parallel reaction here.

Issues2004

: Fred Wilson has posted two more good replies to my Issues2004 posts on health insurance and homeland security. If you've posted replies on your blogs, please leave links in the comments; the point of this is to discuss the issues so let's discuss. (And now I feel guilty I haven't posted the next one, having wasted time on Dan Rather and all that. Shame on me.)

Email hell

: Rafat Ali is having the same problem I'm having: Some spam virus is spoofing my email address sending more virus spam everywhere with fake mail-bounce messages. As those get slapped into spam folders, our domains are getting black marks on black lists (even though it's not really our domains sending them; our addresses are only being spoofed). It's affecting Rafat's business and he's asking for expert help. Go here to help.

He's being followed by a moon shadow...

: Cat Stevens' (new) name, Yusuf Islam, is on no-fly security lists, so when he was allowed to board a plane and it was discovered, the jet was diverted to Maine.

"He was interviewed and denied admission to the United States on national security grounds," said homeland security spokesman Dennis Murphy. He said the man would be put on the first available flight out of the country today.
: OK, let's start in.... Maybe they feared he'd say, I'm Gonna Get Me A Gun or just that he's on the wrong side of this Wild World. He's just Cat Stevens, but now he looks like a Foreigner. At any rate, it was A Bad Night last night and you could pretty much say that Tuesday's Dead and When Morning Has Broken he finds himself in the land of L.L. Bean. And you know where this is headed. Yup, next time, Cat/Yusuf, better take the Peace Train.

The anti-Reuters machine

: Maarten Schenk created a Movable Type