What will we think of Snowden in one year?

A few days after he leaked news of a National Security Agency program that collects information about Americans’ phone calls and emails, Edward Snowden told the world he was responsible for the leak. He gave a video interview to Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian.

Before the interview hit the web, there were three general reactions to the leak from our esteemed Congress:

This is terrible!

We knew this was happening! What’s the big deal?

We knew this was happening! We think it’s terrible and tried to stop it!

Clearly Congress knew about it and had different comfort levels (read: re-election needs) where government surveillance and personal privacy were concerned. The truth is we all knew there had been some Orwellian stuff going on for years thanks to the Patriot Act. The question really is why was the government being so secretive about the details?

Right on cue, the partisan noise began. There are Republicans who ten years ago were saying that information gathering was crucial to national security but are now appalled and violated. There are Democrats who are now saying it’s just fine but ten years ago were having aneurysms in response to Bush’s intelligence policies.

Beyond the polarized rhetoric are deeply troubling questions raised by Snowden’s leaks. First off, why does someone who is no longer even working for a federal agency, but a government contractor capable of scooping up all of this information about the government’s practices and making it public? Why did he, a relatively low-level employee, have all the capabilities he describes in the interview? (If he did, there are countless others who do.)  Perhaps the biggest question of this whole story, why is the government not being forth coming about its security practices when it directly involves the privacy of its citizens?

When the story first broke, I understood on the surface why Snowden wanted the public to know that the government is bending the rules to get the information that they need/want/think they need. But I didn’t initially see what the big deal was.

Call me a cynic, but I have always assumed that the United States government has a habit of bending the rules. It’s a superpower. It’s the biggest, most influential government on the planet. With that kind of power comes some level of corruption. If you’re uncomfortable with the word corruption, call it misuse of power. But is it really new?

After a little thought, I realized it is. Although I think there has always been some level of shadiness within our government, this kind of sinister invasion is new because of the nature of the internet and technology. This kind of data mining was never possible in other eras.

The reason Snowden left his cushy home and job was to tell the world that the American government has a penchant not only for working in the shadows but secretly being where it does not belong. Snowden’s core problem with the government is that it routinely grants itself rampant and unilateral powers.

Unless I’m giving him too much credit, I think Snowden’s goal was to create a public discussion about what we as a society are willing or not willing to give up in terms of privacy in the name of security. It’s a topic that comes up again and again since 9/11 and yet we still have not managed to come up with any definitive decisions. The concept gets volleyed around from time to time and then gets dropped in the next news cycle.

Everyone is now trying to label Snowden a hero or a villain. I certainly wouldn’t call him a villain, but I wouldn’t go as far as hero either. Just one rather shallow reason is that there are much cooler ways he could have broken this news. Staying anonymous would have automatically made it cooler for me. But I do think that he did this for reasons outside himself – for what he perceives as the greater good. I suppose there is the possibility that he could make a sweet payday on this…there always is nowadays. But for right now, he’s in some pretty serious trouble. There’s a greater possibility that he’s going to jail for a long time. Now we have to wait and see if this dramatic act of Snowden's will actually make a difference.

Another interesting facet of this story will be watching how aggressively an administration so fond of the idea of transparency will be with its most high profile whistle-blower.  Just like there was no way Anthony Weiner could post ridiculous pictures of himself online or Mark Sanford could go “hiking on the Appalachian trail” without being found out, the government as a whole is no longer immune to news in real-time. Let’s see how they deal with it.

Staying Connected - for Better or for Worse - After Sandy

As Sandy’s monumental storm surge ebbed away, there were lots of reasons to be hopeful for the future of humanity. By my count, there were almost as many reasons to make going the way of the apes and hashing it out in the actual jungle seem like a feasible option.

First of all, to all the insane producers and journalists at every network who think they get more street cred for sending people to/standing in the middle of an evacuation zone - go inside! We all know it's windy out there. Don't rebuke the morons behind you calling their BFFs on their cell phones so that they can tune in and see their moronic friends in the background of the report, if you are going to point a camera at them! If you want them to go home, turn off your floodlight and live feed!

Okay, I just had to get that out of my system. On to my points.

This storm created extremes on every level. The beautiful and the ugly came through loud and clear via all sorts of media outlets… at least for those of us who were lucky enough to have power and an Internet connection. People in Breezy Point, Queens lost everything they did not have on them. Some who live 10 miles north of them didn’t lose a thing – not even power. Some people worked tirelessly to gather donations for the relief effort, in some cases filling donation sites to capacity, while some looted copper piping from inside the walls of the most devastated homes so they could sell it for scrap. Companies, corporations, and small businesses gave money, time, and effort to help those hardest hit. Some gouged anyone they could for the items they desperately needed like water and gas.

As different ends of the humanity spectrum duked it out, the storm also acted as an equalizer for the victims. Those of us living in the Northeast realized that we are not immune to the kind of epic disaster we have previously only witnessed in pictures and on video. With that, people on all levels of the economic ladder were thrown the same set of humbling circumstances – no power, no heat in an unforgiving mid-autumn, having to rely on others for everything. Then there was the basic human need to connect, which is where social media became the virtual hero of the day.

When I think about the landscape had Sandy hit 15 years ago, it’s another set of extremes. Safe havens, gas, resources, security – these all became exponentially more accessible to those with magical pockets of wifi because of Facebook and Twitter, not to mention email and text. If not for these lifelines, so many more would have been in the dark in more ways than one.

Those who did right by their fellow humans were promptly rewarded, thanks in large part to technology. Several times in the days after the storm I read updates by people waiting in lines at certain stores and gas stations because they had heard about huge donations made by them to the relief effort. Others posted and tweeted about their positive experiences with specific merchants when store owners and managers found out that the raid on the cleaning supply and baby food sections was for the hurricane victims. For me, whether these groups donated on a human level or in a calculated maneuver to reap a plethora of PR benefits doesn’t even matter. They gave. At a time when so many people had no choice but to take, that’s what matters.

The people and companies who screwed people over will undoubtedly pay the price for their greed. The people who became the most vulnerable at the hands of Sandy won’t quickly forget who was there to pick them up and who kicked them in the head when they were down. Or, I suspect, who attempted to have 40,000 runners trample them 6 days after the storm pounded them.

Maybe it’s because Bloomie has no plans to buy himself a fourth term, but what was up with trying to go ahead with the marathon?! There have been some times I have agreed with Bloomberg and some times I haven’t, but this was one big, permanent strike against him for me. He’s a money guy. I get that. He’s spent his entire life focused on the bottom line and he’s a bazillionaire because of it. Fine. But he’s also human. And that wasn’t quite as apparent in the days after the storm when he repeatedly and nonchalantly declared that the marathon would go on as planned. Thousands of people running a race miles away from a densely populated, now completely devastated coastline is just a bad idea.

Storm victims tossed out of hotel rooms so that runners could take them – BAD. Generators allocated for the marathon tents (albeit supplied by the Road Runners Club and not the city) when they could have been helping the hardest hit – BAD. The thousands of already-spread-thin police officers that would have had to man the marathon route instead of keeping the peace in the outer boroughs – BAD. There was a silver lining, at least, to this really bad move. The marathon was called off so late in the week that most of the runners where already in town. Many paid for their hotel rooms and donated them to flood victims. They also went out into the city that hosts them every year to do what they could to help – GOOD.

In the face of something the scale of which this area has never seen, those who were good to their neighbor, and the tools that connected them, won the day. But what do all the myriad reactions to the circumstances, brought to us instantaneously courtesy of social media, say about us? Sure, we have never seen anything like this so it’s understandable that people became a little unhinged after a few days without power. But at the same time, we have never seen anything like this. This was a big deal. We’ve been so lucky in the Northeast that even ancient people don’t remember another storm of this caliber in their lifetime. With the exception of the people along the NY and NJ coast that redefined the term “taking one for the team”, I was left wondering why people couldn’t keep it together a little better. I mean, syphoning gas out of cars in their owners’ driveways? Come on people! Go donate some old clothes. I bet you can find a relief site within walking distance on twitter.

HuffPo gets greedy...and lazy...and stupid...again

The Huffington Post is once again being criticized for “over-aggregation”. It’s not the first time, and surely won’t be the last. A piece written by a now-suspended Amy Wise for HuffPo was deemed by the original writer, Simon Dumenco, to have gleaned much too much from his Ad Age piece, "Poor Steve Jobs Had to Go Head to Head With Weinergate in the Twitter Buzzstakes. And the Weiner Is ...". Dumenco accused the HuffPo piece of summarizing all of the key points of his June article before placing a “disingenuous” link to his piece at the bottom of the page that resulted in less than 60 hits on his Ad Age story.

Although these tactics may technically cover aggregators, they’re a pretty lame way of making things legit. As reported by Mathew Ingram at gigaom.com, Dumenco accepted the apology of Peter Goodman, the new Exec Ed of HuffPo, but said “unethical aggregation is essentially embedded in the very DNA of The Huffington Post.”

Ingram goes on to point out that much of journalism is based on aggregation. Indeed it is. Unless you are writing about an insanely well-guarded scoop (and let’s face it, that’s pretty much non-existent today), you are going to rely on some degree on what has been written about your topic in the past. There is nothing wrong with that. I do it all the time. I think the problem comes when writers have nothing original to say about their topic. Does the word “angle” mean anything to anyone anymore? Better yet, does plagiarism? That almost feels like a defunct word these days - kind of like anvil or outhouse. It looks like the HuffPo writers are treading dangerously close to the ‘p’ word, if, in fact, that word still means anything in these days of non-stop news cycles and hyper-aggregation.

Any doofus can cover the same old story over and over by poaching a little from here, a little from there. The point is to have an original voice, to do something new and interesting with the same old information. I understand this might not be the most profitable way to spend time when you’re trying to churn out hundreds of stories a day, but if this isn’t your goal, then you’re not really a writer. You’re just a regurgitator of someone else’s thoughts.

One of the more interesting facets of the story for me is that Wise (such an ironic name) seems to have poached only from Dumenco. She paraphrased ONE other story. Come on, sister! Put a little effort into it! If you’re not going to have any original thoughts of your own, at least vomit up several other peoples’ thoughts. And that’s not to say that the only problem I have with this is that she only cited one other piece. But it’s definitely a big part of the problem.

Erik Wemple from the Washington Post said in his opinion piece last week that HuffPo has a “standard” of linking to at least three other news sources for their stories. That’s great and all, but clearly some of these writers are slapping links into their stories just for the sake of meeting that yardstick. And the writer should give the reader a reason to click on those links. Otherwise, what purpose does it serve other than meeting HuffPo’s (and other such aggregators’) Herculean “standards”?

In his response post to the HuffPo debacle “What It’s Like to Get Used and Abused by The Huffington Post”, Dumenco poses the question, “What constitutes unfair – unethical – aggregation?” That really is the key question here, and one that Goodman did not attempt to answer in his response to Dumenco. “We should have either taken what you call ‘the minimalist approach’ or simply linked directly to your story. That is how we train our writers and editors to handle stories such as this…this instance is entirely unacceptable and collides directly with the values that are at work in our newsroom,” wrote Goodman in an email to Dumenco.

Really, Goodman? Let’s just see how fast the next, basically identical story about HuffPo surfaces. It’s only a matter of time.

Twitter for Newsrooms

Twitter for Newsrooms (#TfN) was launched last week. Although I’m still skeptical about Twitter as a global newsroom and how some use it for dissemination of real news, I’m hoping this site will go a long way in legitimizing it. The site highlights best practices and streamlines resources with the goal of making it a more efficient news-gathering tool. This may also make some or most of the info offered here redundant for reporters who are already well-versed in using social media in their reporting. Ideally, it will ensure that if Twitter is to continue being taken seriously by news consumers, certain standards need to be upheld.

Broken down into four areas, TfN covers Reporting (effective search methods, setting up a search for up-to-the-minute updates on a certain topic, an archive of older Tweets), Engaging (examples of how veteran reporters and journos are sharing news through Twitter and connecting with their audience), Publishing (a plugin that allows reporters to embed Tweets in HTML, how to document Tweets in your story), and Extras (links and resources).

Who knows, the site might just surprise some of the reporters who think they’ve got Twitter all figured out. Included on the site is an Advanced Twitter Search that allows you to search by sentiment, a specific location, and time period, etc. According to gigaom.com, it had been possible to search by sentiment, but the tool was not readily accessible prior to the launch of TfN. Examples of reporters who are doing it right on Twitter are especially intriguing to me. Ann Curry, John Steltner, and Katie Couric are designated as Twitter superstars and TfN tells you why.

Justin Ellis at the Neiman Journalism Lab made an interesting point last week: “Twitter for Newsrooms has some commonalities with Facebook + Journalists, which similarly is a resource for helping reporters and editors navigate the new world of social-assisted journalism. But the two resources also seem to share a common wisdom: that it’s time to take back control of the expertise and resource market.” If that works, I’ll be much more confident about journalists coming to rely more and more on social media for their news-gathering. But that hinges on reporters doing due diligence and not getting sucked into a warp-speed news cycle. Standards need to be high, and most importantly, sources need to be credible.

Another positive aspect of this site is that it will be open to suggestions from users. Love that.

The real-time erosion of journalism

At a social media summit held by the BBC last week, the news outlet posted the process it follows for verifying user content at their user-generated content (UGC) Hub in London. Matthew Ingram wrote about the process at gigaom.com last Friday. Ingram says there is a desk in the middle of the BBC newsroom with dedicated staffers pulling reports from social media outlets and verifying them.

These staffers sometimes spend hours conducting journalism-style forensics to figure out if a certain photo was taken where and when the photographer claims, if a Twitter post holds water, if a video was really taken minutes earlier at the nexus of a revolution. They do this by studying shadows to verify the time of a photo or video, checking locations based on what is visible in the background, identifying accents and dialects to determine whether a video was recorded at the specific location claimed by the person who submitted the piece.

Now, the BBC has an immense wealth of resources. From what I read about its verification of social media leads, the resources are well-used. Staffers can verify accents, dress, locations as easily as emailing or calling a colleague somewhere else in the world and sending them the video or photo. Throughout the Arab Spring of the past few months, individuals or makeshift news teams have been taking the initiative and creating a narrative that would not otherwise be known to the rest of the world. It’s amazing that people in other countries have had access to this information. And if everyone were approaching real-time news reporting like the BBC, it would be great. There, it seems as though nothing hits the presses or airwaves without having met a rather rigorous test of veracity. That is news. But will all news outlets dive into these uncharted waters with equal integrity? Will other outlets hold citizen journalism to the same standards as traditional journalism?

Did you guess ‘no’?

Andy Carvin has sort of been doing the same thing as the BBC over at NPR during his coverage of the Arab Spring. He’s the guy who “tweeted the revolution”. Carvin starts his reporting process with a non-stop onslaught of information coming in through social media. He also has a stable of reporters or sources that he has worked with and trusts. That’s great. What bothers me is that he sometimes retweets unverified information and asks the “crowd” to help him verify it.

Maybe it’s just me, but Carvin seems like (a potentially legit journalist in other realms, but in this one) a big gossip. How does he know the verification that he’s getting from people besides his trusted group is for real? Who is it coming from? Other people steeped in the revolution? The opposition? Either way, I’m guessing it’s not the most unbiased info.

I know a huge shift in journalism is happening, and it is a necessary one. Given social media and new and better technology, journalism cannot be left behind the curve. It should be ahead of it. But this just seems irresponsible. There are growing numbers of people who applaud Carvin and think he’s at the cutting edge; that news is happening and must be reported in real-time. Personally, I’ll take a two-hour lag in reporting any day if it means I’m getting the most accurate information possible and not something that may or may not have happened…can anyone out there verify?

Ingram says that Carvin is not the only newsmaker that uses crowd verification. Mark Little, founder of Storyful, a tool allowing journos to collect video and content on a specific topic, says that the “human algorithm” is the future of media. The human algorithm is a cool idea, but it’s not news.

It’s true that even if expansive foreign news bureaus still existed, they couldn’t be- and never were - everywhere at once. They could not possibly always be everywhere something interesting is happening on the ground. They could not report the kinds of things that were reported by Egyptian youths during their revolution early in the year. But does that mean that we should move to a model of journalism where the standards are so low? Where everyone is a journalist? I hope journalism still requires a lot more finesse than that.

Ingram argues that twitter news is being disseminated in the same way news has always traditionally gotten out to the masses – a report comes in over the wire, it’s fact-checked, then goes to print or air. It’s then updated as necessary when additional information comes in. He calls Twitter the “real-time news wire for the world”. Well, it’s not exactly like the days of yore, Matt. Back in the day, you know, five years ago, news stories consisted of more than 140 characters. There may have been a news flash as soon as a story came over the wire that could be akin to today’s tweet, but then it was followed with a real, in-depth story with some meat to it.

There was a perfect example of this with the raid on Osama’s compound last month. There was a firefight, firefight, FIREFIGHT!! Two days later, we learn there was never anything coming close to a firefight. The whole thing was eerily non-combative. Who ever said anything about a firefight? How did that ever become part of the story, considering it was pure fiction? Why, in the middle of the biggest U.S. security-related accomplishment in years is the White House having to walk back the story of how everything went down?

I truly loved the concept of citizen journalism when I first read about it. I still like it in theory. But I think it needs to be harnessed. If, as Little suggests, anyone can become a reporter and start producing news, who is going to be consuming it? Is the future of media going to look like a room full of demanding children all jockeying for attention? Wait a minute! That’s already what media looks like. And just like that room full of children, it’s a nightmare.

Little’s human algorithm reminds me of some flash mob videos I’ve seen on youtube. Sometimes there are so many people involved in the mob that when everyone is finished revealing themselves as participants, there’s one schmo left in the food court to watch. What’s the point? And was that guy meant to be left watching, or did he just forget to check his email that morning?

Where does media and journalism begin and end in this new model? The line should be a little blurred, a little amorphous. Technology - for good and bad - has made that unavoidable. But I think there should be a set of people expected to reliably deliver a set of facts and a set of people who can confidently consume that information.

Inherently, there’s nothing wrong, and nothing stopping a citizen journalist from creating a news stream. Part of me can relate to the excitement that approach breeds – the wide open possibility of covering a story, and the possibility of reading about something like the Arab Spring from participants definitely has a certain allure. And maybe that is the kind of situation to which Carvin’s approach should be confined – breaking news, one-of-a-kind, you-had-to-be-there-to-get-it kind of stories. But journalism in general is all about having standards and sticking to them. The general public posting “news stories” willy-nilly as it encounters them and legions of staffers going nuts trying to confirm and verify them has the potential to be chaotic and confusing.

I suppose this dumbed-down, inaccurate coverage may well be the future of journalism. Some see that as exciting and cutting edge. I think it’s unfortunate.

Citizen what?

Mayhill Fowler has been called a poster child for citizen journalism….may God help us all. Fowler wrote entries for OffTheBus, a forum on HuffPo for amateur journalists who followed the 2008 presidential campaign. And I mean literally followed – she traveled around the country on buses covering her man Obama during 2007 and 2008.

Fowler heard Obama’s “bitter” Pennsylvania voter comment at a San Francisco campaign event in 2008 - an event to which mainstream media did not have access. Of course, the mainstream outlets were pissed that they didn’t get that info for themselves. To that I say: Suck it up kids. Like it or not, that’s the nature of new media. And to anyone running for any kind of public office I say: Just because an event is closed to the “media”, does not mean that something you say at said event will not go viral...really fast.

Of course, now, two years removed from the fracas, no one wants anything to do with Fowler. And that could be (one of) the ugly flip side(s) to citizen journalism. She had her 15 minutes of fame, and got burned for it – accusations of being in cahoots with Hillary were predictably thrown around after she posted the quote. And that’s fine on a personal level. If you’re going to walk into the fire, you have to be prepared. Honestly, I don’t really care if Fowler ever gets paid to write. I’m more interested in what her story as a citizen journo means for the bigger picture.

A few days ago, the LA Times reported on an interesting caveat to the San Fran story of which I was not aware. Fowler almost didn’t include Obama’s bitter comment in her post about the evening knowing how damaging it could be to the candidate. She only decided to include it after an OffTheBus director encouraged her to disclose all she had heard. What I find so troubling about the heat Fowler caught for including the quote in her post was the fact that as a “journalist”, she absolutely should have included it. In fact, she was - dare I say - ethically obligated to include it. That’s not the kind of comment that a candidate should get away with at a public event.

The fact that the mainstream was pissed to be scooped by Fowler proves that they wished they had gotten the quote themselves. I mean, that’s good stuff, whether or not you’re in the tank for someone. If you are running to be the POTUS and you say something dumb, you should be quoted on it as eagerly as when you say something smart. That’s a journalist’s job.

Now OffTheBus was not a one-time phenomenon. There are citizen journalism sites popping up all the time. Demotix, for example, reviews content and image entries from international Joe Schmos all day. The ones that are up to snuff get pushed to the U.K.-based company’s news feed. The major outlets can then buy them, allowing Schmo to get published in The New York Times if he gets lucky. Demotix gets a 50% cut and the writer or photojournalist gets 50%.

The great thing about Demotix is that it offers hyper local news from around the world, written or filmed by natives from the area – not an old white dude working for the BBC. The down side is that I don’t yet see how this model works to fill the most important role of journalists – investigative reporting. Not that Demotix claims to do this. The site knows its place as an event-based news outlet.

It could be that with the simple passage of time citizen journalism and maybe crowd sourcing will yield powerful insights into the most troubling aspects of society. (Just consider how much a news story written by lawmakers about their initiatives might differ from a collaborative story written by a cross-section of constituents about how the initiative would affect their everyday lives.) Journalists often work with a similar handicap – trying to capture the sentiments of Everyman by speaking with three of them.

But alas, considering how the craft of investigative reporting has been languishing even in traditional media, I have a hard time believing that it will flourish among people who woke up this morning and decided to change the world. Of course I’m wildly oversimplifying the concept, but I feel good about the point I’m trying to make.

The founder of Demotix, Turi Munthe, says that his idea for the site came out of the belief that when a society is open and enjoys free speech, its propensity towards radicalizing decreases. I’m all for that. I’m just leery of a future where the onus for real journalism is placed on a system that is incapable of supplying it.

"Game Change" plays by the rules

As a reporter, I’ve had plenty of off-the-record conversations. Some juicy, some not so much. I have never, however, had the delicious pleasure of interviewing on the basis of “deep background”. This is the reporting method used by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their new book “Game Change”.

Basically, operating on the understanding that all sources are providing deep background means that the authors do not have to reveal any of their sources in the finished product. It is an ideal method of gathering a huge amount of information and creating a sweeping omniscient narrative.

I have not read the book yet, only an excerpt in New York magazine. (As a result of reading that excerpt I cannot wait to get my hands on it.) In this instance, writing a book from an omniscient point of view is akin to the reader being transported back in time to be a fly on the wall in some of the most fascinating, infuriating, disastrous, and amazing meetings and gatherings that occurred during the 2008 presidential election. Who wouldn’t love to take that ride?!

The beautiful thing about the crafting of “Game Change” is that the authors got everyone to dish post-election under the agreement that their name would never appear in print…not exactly what the average reporter can promise. As a result, they got the dirt. Some say it’s too dirty – that the authors may have let angry ex- aides and staffers have free reign. The authors rebuttal is that they were very careful with sources and never relied on one person to shape the telling of an event.

Once I do finally meet all imminent work-related deadlines and get the bookstore to buy this gem, I am anticipating a riveting read. I’ve always been a big fan of the omniscient point of view in all kinds of literature. And surely this, of all books, will be intriguing considering that all of the characters are so well-known and have (or had) such carefully crafted public personas.

Now I have to confess, something that has always irked me is “journalism” that is an endless parade of information gathered from unnamed sources. I think there is without a doubt a need for off-the-record conversations, but when they overwhelm an article it begins to read like a flimsy, disposable set of quasi-might-not-actually-be-facts. Writing like this makes my skin crawl. Unfortunately, I’m seeing more and more of it all the time.

“Game Change”, I suppose the argument could be made, is one of these wannabe pieces – full of “facts”, but no substance to back it up. But in this case, that argument does not hold water. I think writing the book in this way was a necessary evil if Halperin and Heilemann wanted to tell the raw, uncensored, gritty truth. And is it really the truth? Do the authors know for sure that everything in the book is completely accurate? I don’t think they have any way of knowing that, but I am convinced that neither of them have any reason to believe that anything in the book is false.

So when all the fuss got kicked up over the Harry Reid comments, I did not find it to be completely unseemly. Some did. But not only did Reid’s staff admit that Reid made the comment to the authors, Halperin and Heilemann probably verified Reid’s feelings through another source as well. Now, should they have written the comment as a direct quote? Well, Reid’s people also never attacked the authors alleging that they violated their sourcing agreement, so it looks as if they didn’t actually do anything wrong.

The excerpt I read from New York magazine was about John and St. Elizabeth Edwards. What I found so fascinating about that part of the story is that no one knew anything about it during the campaign. Stories of John McCain aides being frustrated by Sarah Palin’s lack of intellectual rigor were swirling while the campaign was still going on. Not so with the Edwardses. They fairy tale was definitely unraveling well before Edwards conceded, but the extent of the turmoil reported in the book is staggering – mostly because there was no hint of it in the mainstream media at the time.

Did the Edwards camp just have that tight a grip on what got out to the press? Was the staff so deluded by the promises of their candidate that when he morphed into a woman-crazed narcissistic lunatic, they didn’t have the heart to blow the whistle? Did they actually feel bad for an ill Elizabeth even though she’s portrayed as a raving banshee? So many questions! If the rest of “Game Change” is as good as the excerpt, and lives up to all the hype, I’m in for one awesome winter read.

Tweeting vs. Spending: Which is more universal?

If Time magazine cannot come up with one interesting-enough person in this big, wide, interesting world to name as its person of the year, then they should at least choose the Economy over Twitter.

In what can only be perceived as Time's position that there is currently an absence of news-making, attention-garnering people gracing the world stage, the pub has apparently tossed out the concept of a person altogether and has narrowed the field down to two inanimate contenders. Baffling? Yes. What would make this worse? Picking a thing that lots of people don't care about. Do I personally think that Twitter is inconsequential? Far from it. But the title should go to someone or something that registers with as wide an audience as possible.

After 2006's kitschy cop-out (You), it seems the Editorial department over there needs to step up its game and get back to the roots of its annual POTY story. The You choice was the perfect compliment, time-wise, to what has become the train wreck of blogo-journalism. Sure, technology has exploded and is allowing people to connect and share ideas in ways and in time spans never before imagined. But to make You (Designers, Users, and Keepers of the Information Age) the person of the year? Come on, Eds! Why didn't you just give "The Passage of Time" the honor and call it a day? The You story should have been a feature inside the book and someone good should have been on the cover.

Historically, the person (most usually a man...maybe they should re-think that strategy as well) is a well known, sometimes polarizing figure. (Personally, I think choosing a controversial name is more fun.) In regard to one of the top possibilities for this year, Twitter, I've heard way too much of this over the past two years: "twitter? I've never used it" or "I don't get it" or "it's only for narcissists" for it to be considered Thing of the Year. Hmmm, that just doesn't quite have the same ring to it...

Now the economy on the other hand, affects everyone, very personally. No one can take the 5th on the economy. You will never hear someone say, "the economy? I've never used it."

"The economy? I just don't get it." Now that's something people say, and that's why the story would be so good. If people don't get twitter, they just ignore it. Few people have a tight grip on how the economy works and doesn't work and yet everyone has to use it every day, like it or not. A story about the economy (provided it is handled correctly) will be way more confusing and harder to write than a twitter piece, and I guarantee that will make it a more interesting read and it will have a resonance with a much wider audience.

Dan Plus Jon Plus Kate

Well, the courts have dismissed Dan Rather's case against CBS News. I guess we're not going to get a glimpse into the deep, dark abyss that is network news after all. I was really gunning for it, I have to say.

CBS does not exactly come out of this smelly rosy, but at least they don't have to open their confidential emails and correspondence. I bet that's a pretty enormous relief for them. The big question I have left after this fracas is: Where does Dan go from here? Although I think he had a valid argument, the dismissal of the suit does not bode well for the future of his journalistic career. It will be interesting to see in which direction he decides to go. Can he still draw enough viewers as a correspondent to make it worth his time, or is he better off moving into retirement? Only time will tell.

And in not so surprising...or interesting...news, Jon Gosselin halted production of Jon & Kate Plus Eight, or Kate Plus Eight, or Kate Plus Eight Plus a Shrink and a Life Coach...whatever name it was going by these days. Gosselin stated in a handwritten note that camera crews were not allowed on his property to film. He allegedly feels it is time to get the kids out of the spotlight.

Now whether this is a PR ploy to end up looking like the good guy, or if he has has actually stopped eating brain tumors for breakfast is anyone's guess, but I'm relieved the madness might actually stop. Kate has plenty of other ways to make enough money to send all the little mini Gosselins to fine institutions of higher learning. And maybe they'll even read about themselves
in a Mass Media class in college someday! ...or in a Psych class...but let's hope for the best.

Gotta love that Bloomie!

On page 14 of this week's New York magazine - a reporter asks Mayor Bloomberg about Matt Damon's endorsement.

Reporter: "How do you [and Matt Damon] know each other?"

Bloomie: "All young sex symbols know each other."

Classic.

Rather pathetic? I'm not so sure...

If you peruse the reader comments after any given web story on the topic, it seems as though there are two kinds of people when it comes to the Dan Rather vs. CBS saga. One group of people used to care but is experiencing a sharp decline in interest as each day passes. The other group never cared. Me? I find it fascinating. A life-long journalist is working on the biggest investigative piece of his career. The ironic twist is that the genesis of the piece, for all intents and purposes, ended his journalistic career...for now.

Rather reported a story about former President George W. Bush's questionable stint in the National Guard on “60 Minutes II” in 2004. Later, CBS, apparently succumbing to pressure by the administration, assembled a panel to investigate how the piece saw the light of day seeing as how some of the documents in Rather's story were not authentic. The story resulted in an apology to the White House from CBS and Rather being ousted from his position in the anchor seat at the CBS Evening News. (...and the grand entrance of Katie Couric...barring the Palin interview, that choice has not exactly been wildly successful for CBS.)

But instead of quietly going out to pasture, Rather fought back. He launched a lawsuit against CBS in 2007 claiming that he was the fall guy for a story the network said was fraught with flaws. He's also claiming that the network did not live up to the terms of his post-anchor contract which promised continued airtime and appropriate support staff. In the spring of last year, a judge threw out several parts of the claim, specifically the sections that claimed fraud against top execs at the network. What's left is basically a glorified breach of contract claim. But depending on how the imminent trial goes, this could shake out to be much more than a run of the mill contract dispute.

Now, without being limited by the usual shackles of a journalist, Rather has been free to dig deep during the discovery phase of the legal process. It seems that Rather has uncovered some information that could prove quite embarrassing to CBS at trial, including how they formed their independent panel that investigated Rather's story. Emails and memos imply that CBS was intent on assembling a panel that would pacify the right. After all, it was 2004 and there were another four years of Bush and, more importantly, deregulation stretching before them. If (which is starting to look more and more like 'when') the case goes to trial, CBS brass could find themselves on the stand testifying about the assembly of the investigative panel and how said panel compiled its report.

Some have called Rather's actions petty and pathetic, but this lawsuit could provide a rare and fascinating window into the goings-on at a major news organization. How things make it...and don't make it...to the airwaves. The crux of the claim will depend whether Rather can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the records used in his story are authentic. Although the network's lawyers are seeming pretty confident and are fond of talking smack in the press, no one has yet publicly proven that the records are fabricated or inauthentic. And, several people independent of the network maelstrom have corroborated everything that was in Rather's piece. If I were the counsel for the CBS, I'd be pretty skeered. A wealthy reporter who is not interested in a settlement is a formidable opponent.

Having said all this, I have to say that I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, I respect that Rather is not backing down. I have to admit, initially I wasn't following the story closely and I thought he was just being petty and pathetic. It turns out, he's trying to protect his journalistic integrity! However, there are problems here too. Rather did apologize for the story, basically stripping it of all credibility, then later said the apology was coerced...now that's just lame. The other problem I have is all the reports about how Rather sulked about not being invited to Walter Cronkite's funeral. I don't know what the real story is there, but if Rather had anything to do with fanning the flames of that tidbit of information, it was a big mistake. If he wants to have anything resembling a decent legacy, he needs to pray this thing goes to trial, fight like hell to prove his side of the story, and never sulk.

Jon and Kate Plus 8 Times 25 Years of Therapy

Reports of Jon Gosselin potentially co-starring in a new reality show were swirling last week. The would-be-trainwreck, Divorced Dads Club, would feature a group of famous divorced fathers and how they are coping with (read: giddily embracing) their return to the single life.

One E! Online headline read “Does the World Need Another Jon Gosselin Reality Show?”...Come on, people, we all know it didn't even need one!! Luckily, Gosselin will proooobably not be part of the show, if the world should ever be unfortunate enough to be subjected to it. The brass over at cable network TLC would have to approve his inclusion in the show, something insiders apparently think is not likely.

I only watched one episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 before the inevitable marital implosion became apparent to the outside world. If I remember correctly, I did so out of sheer boredom, with a twist of procrastination. I needed to clean my apartment and had done just about everything else I could possibly do in lieu of springing the Pine Sol from its quiet, slightly dusty abode under my kitchen sink.

A freelance project I had been working on was complete, I was up to date on all of my email correspondence, I had even sewn a long-lost button back on a sweater. Both sweater and button had been thrown aside months prior to patiently await their reunion. Jon and Kate were the only hurdles standing between me and a clean apartment. Unfortunately, they won. I didn't want to, but I gave in. I thought, 'a show about eight kids has to be at least a little interesting, even if that interest will be accompanied by exasperation, annoyance, and possibly anger. I was right about the last three things.

I was genuinely overcome with boredom by the end of the show...as well as exasperated, annoyed, and angry. I don't think I could have expressed the boredom in words if I had tried. It was the feeling of not being able to get back the two hours you spent watching a dumb movie, except even though I had only lost a half hour of my life, I felt that pain...exponentially. It was like the show had left a hole in my soul. Of course, I only saw one episode, so maybe there were others that were more interesting.

The episode I saw can be summed up thusly: eight children run around babbling incessantly; they at some point get into some minor trouble; Kate runs around, sporting her insane rooster-inspired hair cut, barking at Jon in a most shrill and obnoxious manner; Jon walks around with his tail between his legs and quiet rage brews.

Now, from what I understand, I might not be the only person who thought the show was super-duper boring before the split. The show only had so-so ratings. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at various meetings when the execs over at TLC were first hearing about the brouhaha.

I wasn't a fly on the wall, so I don't know exactly what happened. But here's what I think happened: they began foaming at the mouth like rabid beasts. There's really no other explanation for the way they have exploited this sad, dysfunctional, downward spiral of a marriage. I'm pretty sure they saw a show that had been just sitting there taking up space and realized they now had the opportunity to create a world-wide media circus centered around it.

I would just love to know if it ever crossed anyone's mind that maybe, just maybe, they should cut their losses and encourage the family to go away and attempt to quietly put the pieces of their lives back together.

If it were just Jon and Kate, two attention-and-money-whores...I mean...adults, involved it would be one thing. But there are eight kids here, people! That's eight little minds being warped by this weird, constant attention they are getting, for no good reason other than they are part of a large set of multiples. These are eight kids who will grow into young adults and be able to watch a video chronicle of the erosion of their parents' marriage...and know that a whole slew of twisted Americans (yours truly included) watched it too.

Yeah, I know, I know, money whores is a little strong. But if they wanted a good life for their kids, there are tons of other ways they could have made money on their story without plastering it all over the world (and airing their dirty laundry) with their insipid reality show. They could still do speaking engagements, they could still write books, they could create a website and blog. None of those things, even cumulatively, would have put their kids in the middle of such a frenzy. They would probably not be household names and be making 3 million dollars a year combined, but their kids might actually have a fighting chance of turning out normal. Now, not so much.

Do small regionals have the answers?

So my morning ritual was not so depressing yesterday!

Editor & Publisher published the results of its ninth annual "10 That Do It Right" feature, and several regional newspapers across the country are utilizing innovative techniques that should have the national papers sitting up and taking notice (if they know what is good for them). The techniques are simple but brilliant. Best of all, they are highly transferrable. Here's a brief
round-up of some of the smarty-pants ideas helping smaller papers to thrive.

The Las Vegas Sun has slimmed down and become a "section" inside its joint-operating-agreement partner, the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The small but mighty eight page insert has contently returned to true the roots of journalism. And guess what? People are reading it! Why? Because it is full of meaty investigative journalism. What's that, you say? It's what's you've been
missing!

Columnists have become the driving force at the Sioux City Journal in Iowa. The newsroom of 32 has focused on creating "something to talk about" among its print and online readers. Sure, their target audience is a small regional circulation, but with everything there is to talk about in the world, columnists are missing the boat at many larger publications. Stir the pot, columnists, stir the pot!

Briefing in Dallas, Texas has found its target audience, busy suburban moms, and they are delivering exactly what these women want. Briefing is a smaller, zippier version of The Dallas Morning News. It's so popular that the paper's acceptance rate is growing and advertisers are lining up to appear in the trim Wednesday through Saturday publication.

Freedom of information is not a privelege in America, it's a right. And the Post-Star in Glens Falls, New York is diligently reminding its readers about this fact every day. Editorials and blogs stress that it is not just Washington insiders and journalists who are entitled to transparency in government.

Everyone is talking about community building these days. This usually amounts to a fan page on Facebook for many publications still trying to harness the power of social media. The East Bay Express in Emeryville, California is actually building a strong community, dare I say, the old fashioned way. Last Christmas editors appealed to readers to pledge to spend at least $100 right in their community to stimulate their local community. The idea caught on and other papers jumped on board. The paper now has several others community-based ideas in the hopper.

How do newspapers of all sizes bring their readership back again and again? Allow them direct access to controversy, sit back and watch! The Star Tribue in Minneapolis posted all disputed ballots in the U.S. Senate race between Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D) on their website. An important result was that the public scrutiny made the campaigns drop several of the frivolous disputes. And the readership came very close to the actual numbers that decided the race. Hurrah for the masses!

The St. Petersburg Times is also making the most of the web to keep their readers interested, and keep politicians (somewhat) honest. The newspaper analyzed hundreds of promises made during the 2008 presidential campaign. And they didn't stop on Election Day. The Times continues its fact-checking on Obama's administration and claims made by both the right and the left.

When it comes to paving the road for the future of newspapers and journalism, I personally think the key is reaching out to youth. Dave Eggers agrees with me (see the first post on this blog). So does the Daily Independent in Ridgecrest, California. The daily not only offers internships, with serious potential of one day becoming a staffer, but also helps kids with their high school papers which it prints at cost.

The voice of a generation

There will never be another news person like Walter Cronkite. It is impossible in part because we live in a world that is over saturated by media and information sources. There are far too many voices for one to rise above the din for dominance. It is also impossible because, well, he was Walter Cronkite.

A journalist since high school, Cronkite fell in love with the newspaper business years before the nation fell in love with him. During his career, he ushered the nation through the most transformative events of the 20th century.

He reported from the front lines of World War II after flying with fighter pilots. He broke the news of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. in a professional and human way, calming fears and soothing nerves when the country was collectively frayed and on edge. He shared the awe of the nation as he giddily reported the Moon landing 40 years ago today. He gave America one of its first glimpses of the Beatles and he unabashedly expressed his disappointment with the direction the Vietnam war.

In his 20 years as anchorman of the CBS Evening News, Americans welcomed Cronkite into their living rooms because he was trustworthy, professional and accurate. He was also one of them. He had a conversational tone, a way of connecting with people all over the country that was comforting and inviting.

I probably never saw one of Cronkite's live broadcasts, but somehow I am familiar with so many of them. This is because he was not just a journalist. He was a living legacy - the epitome of a tough and unrelenting profession. He delivered news with integrity and never compromised himself in this regard.

60 Minutes ran a special on Cronkite last night. Speaking about Cronkite's retirement from the CBS Evening News in 1981, NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams said, " I couldn't shake the feeling when he retired that something more than one man was leaving the chair." Well, once again Walter Cronkite has left an enormous void. Something more than one man has left journalism.

The future is black and white...hopefully

I have a very depressing morning ritual. I visit several websites about media and journalism and read about what is potentially on the horizon for these industries. As you can imagine, much of said mornings are filled with articles and blogs about the demise of print journalism. Every day I read about how the newspaper is dying.



This is not new - this bleak news about the news started even before the economic meltdown last fall. But every once in a while, someone comes along and speaks to this issue with a perspective that buoys my spirits and with which I happen to agree. It also makes me feel like I'm not weird for being a 30 year old who prefers to read a newspaper on the train as opposed to squinting at her Blackberry.


Dave Eggers, known to many of my generation as the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, recently spoke to Salon.com http://www.salon.com/books/int/2009/07/16/dave_eggers/ about his new book and the future of the printed word as he sees it. Mercifully, his version of the future looks bright. Eggers sees print and the web living harmoniously together, so long as each makes the most of their respective potential.


Some of the young up-and-comers who take part in Eggers' writing program, 826 Valencia, are enrolled in print writing classes and (get this!) read newspapers. Of particular interest to these new writers is the chance to see their name in print. I mean actual print, in a newspaper, not in pixels. As a journalist, I can relate to the excitment and satisfaction of seeing my work in a publication as opposed to the much more crowded internet.


And that is not to say that I do not see the merits of online media. It is where we are and should be heading in many respects. But the development of web journalism does not have to be mutually exclusive of print. Eggers makes an important point when he laments the much-forecasted passing of the printed word. He says that the end of print journalism will become a reality only if we allow it to happen - newspapers do not have to die. Sure, we may all have computer chips implanted in our heads in 30 years that will really make newspapers obsolete. But those chips may also make blackberrys and iPods obsolete, so let's not get ahead of ourselves here. (That last point was mine, not Eggers'...)


What's missing from the world of web news is traditional investigative journalism. When people talk about the death of newspapers, this concern is raised again and again: the loss of stories that require more than a few hour's worth of research, stories that keep people honest, stories that uncover newsworthy information as opposed to juicy gossip. This is the kind of work that is most costly to news organizations, but it is what would be sorely missing if every major newspaper packed it in tomorrow. It could be that the web has not yet evolved enough to encompass this kind of writing. Or it may be that the newspaper format is just a lot more conducive to it.


For me, much of online media is the journalistic equivalent of reality TV. It continuously looks in on itself - editorializing and blogging (yes, I see and appreciate the irony). But I'd like to see more objective, meaningful, and thoughful commentary going on. As always, there are exceptions. There are websites with excellent commentary and focus. But if those exceptions do not multiply rapidly, and the pervading view of the uselessness of the printed word gets kicked up a few more notches, then I see a future that is not quite as bright as Eggers'. I can only hope that the writers at 826 Valencia are not anomolies and that they refuse to let their medium die.