Stand-Alone Journalism archives
The next time the Direct Marketing Association or the political consultants get together, they need to invite DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas to their gathering.
First, he gets huge press. Political reporters anxious to see this "blogging" thing flocked to Las Vegas last weekend to meet roughly 1,500 laptop totting activists who, if Maureen Dowd's pet chronicler Adam Nagourney is to be believed, spent a fair amount of time sucking up in person to the folks they spend so much time on-line denouncing.
And secondly, he's pulled off a trick worth of PT Barnum. Moulitsas has managed to make political reporters think that he and his 1,500 companions in ASCII are an actual threat to how real political reporting and writing works. Certainly, they're disruptive, often annoying and they are treating Big Media reporters with little respect, lots of attitude and no shortage of argumentative behavior. All of which is good. No one who love peace should go into the news business.
But when you get down to it, DailyKos is nothing more than a piece of political direct mail. You go to it, yes. And you can talk to it, yes. And it talks back. But fundamentally, DailyKos exists to serve the candidates Moulitsas thinks are worth backing; to push them forward and denounce their critics (in the press and elsewhere). Nothing more, nothing less. That doesn't make him a reporter - or even a "media" as he's so found of saying - it makes him a political consultant. Or a direct mail house - one with a terrible track record, by the way.
Maybe because they do so poorly at the ballot box - only Bob Shrum has managed to build a business off a string of sustained losses - the Kossaks are still trying to have it both ways when it comes to their role in American politics. Used to getting "news" about candidates from opposition research, the Kossaks think that by taking that job away from campaigns, they're becoming "media." In that light, it doesn't matter if their candidates don't win. It's the bloggers impact that counts. The Kos bloggers want to storm the barricades - using the one of the cheapest tricks in the news business, the spoon-fed dirt-drop - and be welcomed with open arms for their vigor, innovation and "good reporting." But when it comes to actually understanding the editorial business, they fall short. Crassly imitating the behavior of the pundits they see on television (which they mistakenly think is the zenith of the business) bloggers are flatterers around Big Media stars. Why? So they can become like them. Even a passing reference in a traditional news outlet is worth a lot of traffic and traffic sells advertising and, oh, yeah, it can make you a Big Boy Blogger with influence and power. But once the reporters have pulled out? Well, Big Media is a bunch of clueless boobs who can't see how wonderful bloggers are and how sorely their work has been neglected.
This is an old story for those of us who have been in and around the tech business. Bloggers, like almost everyone else who has ever discovered the miraculous potential of a piece of software, have decided that they - and they alone, that few, that proud, that chosen (and why are they all men....?) - are agents of profound transformation. They are going to change the world as we know it and their potential power is awe-inspiringing, limitless and potentially very lucrative. Similar comments were made about the Segway and were happily reprinted without question or skepticism in Time magazine and other pubs. But can anyone look at a Segway these days without laughing? Don't get me wrong, the power of self-publishing is everything bloggers say it is (unlike the Segway) but the ways in which it's being used by this crowd are silly (like the Segway). And often self-defeating (like the ginned-up Segway PR effort).
My favorite Big Media cocktail party story is the one about the Kossak who sharply, repeatedly and publicly criticized an influential editor's judgement, pretty much calling into question everything but his hair color. A few weeks later, the blogger wrote to see if the Big Media editor would accept his work, making no mention of their public contretemps. The editor wasn't looking for an apology (well, maybe...) but he flat-out balked at the assumption that harsh, sustained public denunciations would be taken as just another day at the office. Journalism is a pretty competitive business but there's a difference between having sharp elbows and wielding a switchblade and bloggers, as a rule, don't know the difference. They often employ their tools at the wrong time with the wrong people. Special note: No matter how nice any one is to Maureen Dowd or Tom Friedman, they are not going to say something nice to NYTimes Editorial Page Editor Gail Collins so your latest post can get an op-ed spot. Promise.
There's something else bloggers at Kos and other outlets are trying to brush aside. They're sloppy about money and funding. They can - they have and they will again - be bought. And they will continue to sell their wares - political endorsement and fundraising ability - at a higher and higher price, thanks to ruling by the Federal Elections Commission that keeps them from having to account for any money they spend on behalf of candidates. This is a scandal in the making.
A few years ago, bloggers costs nothing more than a few cheap-o BlogAds. Writers were happy to repay the favor with a nice mention, maybe a fund-raising post. Today, the entry fee is an appearance at a Los Vegas convention and a big party with free sushi and lots of other goodies.
Think I'm making too much of this?
Listen to Moulitsas talking last night on MSNBC's Countdown (sans - sigh - Olberman). Asked who made the biggest splash, Moulitsas didn't hestitate. "Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia did create a big sensation. He had a big party. Some criticized it as being a little too lavish. Others, like me, said 'You know what? There's so much stupid money being wasted in politics, it's about time they spent it on meeting some regular people.' And, at the end of the day, bloggers are regular people. We're not media elite, we're not political elite, we're just people sitting in front of our computer really passionate about politics and if they want to spend a few bucks on us, I say bring it on."
Ummmm. Since when is a non-practising attorney living in Berkeley, CA and running a website that's given him a six-figure income a "regular person"? How about a 23-year-old law student living with her parents in Chicago? Or Armando Lorens-Sars, an attorney with a list of corporate clients as long as his arm? "Regular people" pulled into Los Vegas today for the United Auto Workers annual meeting a session that promises to carry grim news to one of the best-compensated unions in the country, once the backbone of the Democratic Party across the Upper Midwest. Those regular people are not sitting in front of their keyboard and feeling passionate about politics. They're staring at their family budgets and their depleted bank balances, wondering how they're going to pay for health insurance and worried that the pension plans they were once promised could disappear entirely. These are regular people and I'll bet Mark Warner didn't stick around to buy them sushi. Think anyone from DailyKos thought to hang around that meeting with their fellow "regular people"? Probably not. Which as far as I'm concerned tell you all you need to know. DailyKos and many other bloggers are a group that aspire to be media and political elite; their big interest is in sucking up to those who they think (wrongly) can welcome them into the club.
There are more questions to ask about Kos. My friend Micah Sifry points out that Moulitsas' reasons for supporting Warner, who is running on the "not Hillary" plank for the Democratic nomination, amount to nothing more than Moulitsas' endorsement of Warner's hiring the "right people." One on level, that's a charming note of support for Kos' book co-author, Jerome Armstrong who has been retained by Warner as a consultant. But it might be something else, too. It may just be a recognition that the Warner campaign - the first candidate Kos singled out when he was asked about the Vegas gathering - is money in the bank for Moulitsas and company.
What's even more troubling? Most bloggers - partisan to their core - don't see Moulitsas' statements as contradictory or incriminating. They think this is business as usual. They're right - if you're a political consultant. In that job you're supposed to take money from your client, the candidate, for your work - which is to get him or her elected. But if you're "media" - mainstream, traditional, new, or old - this sort of talk ought to raise a few questions about what your job is, how you're doing it and where you loyalties lie. What - exactly - is the relationship between DailyKos and the candidates it supports? And when are they going to stop being coy about it?
A few months ago, I joked that Jon Stewart should follow the habit of the pretentious "real" TV shows and offer transcripts. Earlier this week, I decided that wasn't so funny after all. Stewart's not consistent and he's often not as humorous as he (or his somewhat rabid audience) thinks he is but those are minor failings on an interview show. When he gives a damn, it shows.
As a result, he regularly does something that almost no one else on TV does: He gets to the heart of the matter. Watching him rag on Sen. John McCain for giving a speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University was pretty good TV. A few days ago, he did it again, in a discussion about the state of the news business with New Yorker editor David Reminck.
Now, nothing said in this conversation would come as a surprise to regular news junkies or even sensible, politically sentient Americans. But that's exactly why it bears repeating. When editors and reporters like David Remnick talk about in being easier to cover Russia than the White House, we as an open society have decided to duck out on one of the basic precepts that forms our government. What he's saying - nicely - is that many people in Washington are afraid to talk about their government and what they and it do.
But Remnick also has a few words that ought to be heeded by my compadres here on-line; the folks who call themselves "media." His observations - reporters are not given to self-organization, the news business is competitive and reporting and stenography are separate undertakings are welcome. Aping the behavior of TV pundits is not journalism. It is, as Remnick says, theater. Good, solidly grounded political commentary isn't about us, guys, it's not about the press room, it's not about the briefings, it's about the stories. Anyway, after the jump an edited version of their brief chat.
Continue reading "A Fake News Sensibility" »
There are some days – this is one of them – where working on-line feels like volunteering at a nursery school for extremely intelligent determined children with bad manners and lenient parents.
Yes, I’m talking about the war over Ben Domenech. Spot-on gave Domenech one of its soon-to-be-coveted HotSpots yesterday because, well, because we think any time a publication stretches a bit it ought to be rewarded. Far too much American journalism is mind-numbingly predictable and the Washington Post, having gotten plenty of flack (like this from Spot-on’s Josh Trevino) over Dan Fromkin decided to take a walk on the wild side. Good for them. Good for all of us.
Today’s HotSpot goes to our pals at DailyKos. Turns out that Ben might not be the original thinker he'll need to be to cut it at the Washington Post. At best, he and his pals at William and Mary were a little sloppy in the attribution department but it’s college journalism and well, let’s just say that the press corps hasn’t been setting the best example for young men of Domenech’s generation. There's some other stuff that's more damning than the college writing but, ultimately, the decision about what to do is the Post's to make. It’s their publication, they can do with it as they please; readers will behave accordingly.
The problem with this real honest-to-God problem of plagiarism is the criticism that greeted the news of Domenech’s hiring. It was so harsh – again, here’s Trevino – that it has made this new discussion seem like piling on. Which, in a funny way, makes the reasons for Domenech's Post gig more compelling; a lot of the protests were nothing more than jealousy and, in some case, outright snobbery. Domenech’s not a journalist; and yeah, he should have had to “earn” his gig at the Post like all those hard-working Liberal commentators holding down less prestigious gigs around Washington. But he didn’t and that’s not the end of the world. Have you gotten the memo about how the news business is changing? I can send you my copy if you need to brush up….
Continue reading "Wanted: Original Thinking" »
Have you noticed that this site is a Karl-Rove-free zone?
Why? The raging summer controversy over Rove's role in identifying Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA agent is of great and massive interest to many, many people I know and respect as journalists. It is of no interest whatsoever to anyone living outside the Washington, D.C. beltway or off the island of Manhattan. It is a high-stakes game of inside baseball gone public. And it is boring.
It is boring because it is predictable. Even I have been having trouble getting interested in this mess. It's that much of an inside game. Of course, Rove was the source. And of course he denied it. And of course the White House is embarrassed. But this whole mess is just another good example of why most folks think that the national press and politicians deserve each other. They see the Rove controversy as a family spat that will be settled in time for everyone to make nice at the family Christmas party. A pox on both their houses, is the thinking.
They're right. The Affair Rove is a perfect example of how Big Media and politicians in elected office – regardless of party – feed off each other. No one individual is at fault here. It's a corrupt system nurtured in part by systemic weaknesses in the media business, weaknesses that can be disguised by reciting supposedly absolute rules about sources, or information or how we do our jobs. The only absolute in this business is that there are no absolutes.
Here's an example of what's true: In spinning Time writer Matt Cooper, Karl Rove was doing his job, he was dissing a critic of the administration going to a rival publication – Time magazine – to throw a little dirt on the New York Times editorial board. Cooper had to have born this in mind when he sent a memo to his editors saying that Rove had spoken to him on "double secret" background. That's ridiculous -- Cooper was putting Rove's name in the memo for anyone to see and read. But Cooper, too, was doing his job: Telling his boss what the White House thought of former Ambassador Joe Wilson's New York Times op ed piece and "warning" them about that editorial. Was Rove being sleazy? Yes. How about Cooper? Well, he was showing off, that's pretty clear. But both men were doing their jobs, playing their roles; that of powerful insiders, armed with information unavailable to the outside world. To some extent, they're still at it.
Continue reading "Fantasy Island" »
Kevin Drum, Mr. Political Animal, wonders if he should attend Blogher, the woman-run conference on blogging scheduled for the end of this month. He's a little worried. Given the history here, I can't say I blame him.
This gives me a wonderful chance to state the obvious about this conference: IT IS NOT FOR WOMEN ONLY. Not only are men welcome -- a statement that it seems absurd to have to make - but some are planning to attend. So you will have company, Kevin.
This gives me the chance to make another observation: If you are a man who likes code and software and things that plug in, and is perhaps having trouble finding a girl who likes Java (and knows it's not just a coffee) and undersands your inner Geek, this might be the PERFECT place for you to spend a summer afternoon.
The ratio at most tech conferences is hugely biased toward men. That will assuredly not be the case here.
Anyway, here's what I left as a comment over at Drum's site. Chime in down there. Let's see if we can't move the man.
Kevin, this is such a no-brainer, I'm ashamed of you.
Blogher has a terrible name, I agree (and I'm on the advisory board) but it's a fabulous chance to hang around with a bunch of smart, tech-savvy women who are going to be spending a lot of time talking about blogging and writing on-line and, well, Kevin, some of them even have cats.
And I think you'll be very surprised to see that this is NOT a convention about "why it's unfair that men run the world." Nor is it a "sisterhood-only" event. It's for EVERYONE.
If I were you, I'd fly up Friday, take a cab from the SJ Airport to the Westin, crash the BlogerHer speakers' dinner (you can come as my date, big guy), kick back and have a good time, realizing that the on-line movement pioneered by guys like you has thrived, spread and is now opening up to a whole new generation of writers who should be encouraged, welcomed and praised.
What's NOT to like about this Kevin? Huh? What?
Registration for the conference -- which is close to being sold out -- ends on July 25. So hurry, boys, hurry.
UPDATE: Mr. Drum - who said his mother told him to come - will, in fact, be joining us at BlogHer. Dan Gilmor won't but says he wishes he could. Uber nerd Craig Newmark has also given BlogHer his endorsment. And the Pope of the Internet Instapundit Glenn Reynolds has sent us thousands of views. Thanks, guys.
Lots of mail in the in-box this week. And a few snarky comments around the web, too.
So, here's the deal on Grokster: Wishing there were no record companies or movie studios with lots of money to sue people doesn’t mean 1)they're corrupt jerks who are out to ruin your personal music or movie enjoyment pleasure or 2)things are going to stay this way.
That doesn't, of course, mean you have to like the current circumstances. But the point of the Grokster post was to say, essentially, that if Silicon Valley wants change, it's going to have to work for it.
A lot of what was said about that piece on the web and in email was captured by Liza Sabater over at CultureKitchen.
"So, will this make car, liquor and beer makers liable for drunk driving?" Liza asks. No. It won't. This is what I call a good dumb question. To some extent, we already know the answer. Bartenders – the people who serve liquor – have been held liable in drunk driving incidents. So have party hosts. And gun shop owners have legal obligations and responsibilities. The Supreme Court was pretty clear on this point: It's not the technology, per se. It's what you encourage people to do with it.
Mr. Simon writes in a bit more cryptically:
Uh. I think you got two things wrong:
1. The end of file sharing programs
2. America loves Hollywood
The RIAA and MPAA better get with the program.
More theft = more sales.
Think about how the MPAA railed against Sony video recorders. Claiming it would ruin business. Well thefts were up and business boomed.
What we have here is 30+ years of content industry stupidity repeated at every new technological intersection. In fact it didn't start 30 years ago. It started with Edison's invention of the gramaphone which was supposed to ruin the music industry. Or playing tunes for free on the radio was going to ruin the gramaphone industry. Or the cassette recorder which was going to ruin the music industry or boom boxes which could dupe tapes which was going to ruin the music industry, etc. etc. etc. Why all that bad stuff never happened? Why is it that every advance that made music easier to steal increased the size of the market?
There is some rampant stupidity going on here. However, it is not the tech geeks who are in charge of the stupid brigade.
BTW if suing becomes significant then file sharing will go further underground. Just like the drug war.
Hollywood is like the oil companies. The product is popular; the companies selling it are not.
Can you tell he's an engineer?
Well, I'm not so sure the Geeks are so smart about this stuff. I mean, who won? But I do think filesharing will be forced underground to some extent if lawsuits accelerate. Hollywood and the studios are playing a delay game – politically and in the marketplace – until someone comes to their rescue. The smarter play might be to figure out how to do that.
Continue reading "Oh, Boy Do We Got Mail" »
Well, I’m stuck on the other side of the country so I can't lend my two cents to the Federal Election Commission hearings on regulation of Internet communication. Like the Grokster decision, the FEC's rulemaking is another case of politics colliding with technology.
And, like the Supreme Court decision on Grokster, no one's happy about the FEC, either. Most of the comments on this site have centered around the arrogance that a lot of bloggers have about conflict-of-interest habits that press folks follow. As a result of that post, I got this thoughtful note from PE Byrd. It's edited a bit and I don't agree with Byrd about everything he says. But his comments on the ways in which Big Media have shirked their responsibility is a good one.
Some points/questions re: KOS. I respect what KOS has done - a lot of hard work - and he is committed. He is a hot head - and perhaps for justifiable reasons, but I don't think he has the right end of the stick here.
1) He is clearly working to build to new media company - the blog/community is the first thing - he's added advertising, he will probably add video, etc. At some point he does look like a new-style media organization. He does have a point that he is entitled to the same treatment as the traditional media.
Continue reading "FEC Comments" »
Ever since this on-line thing web logging began, there's been a lot of talk about the quality of comments and commentary on the web. Generally speaking, reporters and salaried journalists aren't exactly pleased to see their work reviewed, dissected, mulled over, analyzed and generally taken apart by folks working on-line. Their on-line critics haven't held back. Not one bit.
There's plenty of reason for all the slamming, that's for sure. CBS's sloppy work on the memos about President Bush's National Guard service, The New York Times willingness to take the word of the administration and its plants when it came to Saddam Hussain's progress acquiring and developing nuclear and other dangerous weapons are two of the best examples. And yeah, okay, that little scammer Jayson Blair.
But there's something else at work here, too and to my reporter's eye, it's notable. Many of those who are the harshest in their denouncements of the media – many of the Big Boy Bloggers – have one thing in common.
They're lawyers.
Continue reading "You Know What Shakespeare Said..." »
Something interesting is going on with local TV stations and the on-line world. A few weeks ago San Francisco's KRON had a bunch of us virtually ink-stained wenches over for chips and diet coke.
J.D. Lasica shot some footage along with the KRON gang and a few folks have mentioned that they've seen me on the tube talking about this thing I do here at Politics From Left to Right so I thought I'd put the links up so you guys can share in the fun.
KRON is looking for folks to help them better cover the San Francisco Bay Area. They made no bones about that. They're copying some of the work that's been done – under the guidance of consultant Terry Heaton – in Nashville.
It's interesting to see TV folks nosing around this area. On-line video – as J.D. is demonstrating on his own site and at OurMedia.org – has a lot of promise. And the very structure of TV station hiring – it relies on contractors as much as employees, a very different set-up from the way newspapers operate – creates a different sort of environment. For stand-alone journalists working in any medium, this could be very, very good news.
That's a bit off in the future, however.
More immediately, if you want to hear more about stand alone journalism you can tune into "San Francisco/Unscripted" this evening at 7:30 to hear and see me chatting with the show's host Art Bruzzone. It will air again on Thursday at 6:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m and Saturday at 8:30 p.m. on Comcast San Francisco's channel 11.
One of the themes that runs through Lefty debates – particularly in the on-line community - is a steadfast belief that if traditional media were doing it's job better, George Bush wouldn't be president, the U.S. would never have invaded Iraq and a small group of Republicans wouldn't have taken their party hostage and ruined the country.
This way of looking at the world is common in the tech community whose members believe their job of changing the world now – with blogs and blogging software – has extended to the press. It's a direct descendent of the "blame Big Media" sentiments expressed during the Dean Campaign and it makes normally intelligent people claim that, for instance, the war in Iraq is an "under-reported" story.
Continue reading "PressThink (SF Version)" »
There's lots to say about the sudden unveiling of "the guy they used to call 'Deep Throat'" and by the time the Sunday morning political talk shows are over, everything will have been said and everyone will have tried to say it. Sitting out here on the web, it's been interesting to read the stories and comments not just as the end of a great mystery but as documents of the way in which the media business has changed since that hot summer in 1974 when Richard Nixon was forced from office.
First a bit of background. I lived in and around Washington most of my life and during Watergate, I was enrolled at the same high school as one of Nixon Attorney General Elliott Richardson's daughters. The school counts Katherine Graham (and her daughter) as alumnae in addition to Stockard Channing (Dr. Abby Bartlet to you West Wing fans). One of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee's kids attended briefly. It was a place where people, even young people, knew their politics and their place in the political world. And journalists were not seen as powerful, not as powerful as politicians, anyway. And certanly not as rich.
Continue reading "Press Club" »
Hey, wanna know some of what's going on behind the magic curtain here? Take a gander at this interview I did with Paul Bass, contributor to a bunch of on-line political journalism projects on the East Coast.
Cool, huh?
Also, take a look at Peter Daou's Last Best Chance site plugging the docudrama. Daou's a friend of all on-line writers but he's also a serious international peace-nik who does a great job of urging us to look outside our borders.
Also, here in San Francisco, I'll be talking about some of what I'm doing and what other folks are doing in two different – really different venues. The first, is a breakfast (!) on "blogs" and "blogging" sponsored by BusinessWire at the Santa Clara TechMart on June 9. On June 14th, I'll be part of a panel discussion on that very same topic (imagine….) hosted by the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists at the London Wine Bar on Sansone Street.
Your choices again: Talking about blogging with eggs and coffee or talking about blogging with wine and cheese. It's a new feature of interactive media: We talk, you decide where you want to hear us.
Once again, things are going to slow down here. My apologies in advance.
I have a busy week planned in New York City. On Monday, I'm going to be hosting a panel for the Personal Democracy Forum at the CUNY Grad Center. It should be a raucous good time. Participants include Mr. Markos "Daily Kos" Moultisas, Josh "TalkingPointsMemo" Marshall, Hugh "Blog"
Hewitt, Carol Darr from George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet and Chris "Afro-Netizen" Rabb.
Believe it or not, we're going to talk about blogging. The panel is called "Using the 'net to Move Your Issues."
You really devoted fans can listen to me and Moulitsas talking about the same and related topics on Brian Lehrer's WNYC show at 10 a.m. Eastern. Looks like Lehrer's got podcasts available, too, for those of you who are more devoted to sleep than chat.
UPDATE: Here's a link to the audio.
Many tech-oriented types read this site. So I'm soliciting your help on behalf of Instapundit Glenn Reynolds.
Reynolds is trying to come up with a "generic blog reporting kit." He's got some suggestions on what works best to create the video he shot at BlogNashville but he's looking for other ideas.
Netboys, I know you're out there. Help the man.
It's not every day that I get to say I read Jon Stewart's mind but yesterday I did! I did!
Sort of. The folks at The Daily Show took a look at Big Media's "coverage" of blogs and – with biting humor and their usual welcome sarcasm – pointed out the lameness of having bloggers cover blogging.
Jon Stewart: Great American.
FOOTNOTE: The blogger who got featured in Stewart's segment, the thoughtful, BBQ-loving Ed Cone defends himself. Sort of.
One of the themes running quietly through BlogNashville, the conference held over the weekend in Music City, was an interesting one that's been bubbling on various on-line sites for a few weeks now. You could call it The Quest for Civility or How Big Media Gets In The Way.
It started, really, with Dave Weinberger's post about quitting MSNBC after they asked him to talk about some silliness that he didn't think was worth his – or his readers' – time. Big Media has been using – and yeah, the full meaning of that phrase – Big Boy Bloggers to do roundups and other daily takes on what we're all writing about. It's nice that folks – mostly folks on the East Coast, within a stone's throw of the studios – get this exposure. And don’t get me wrong, I've done a fair amount of self-promotional TV and I'll do it again. But there's a line here. And it's one worth looking at pretty closely right now.
Continue reading "Nashville Noted" »
Also, from Nashville, check out Instapundit Glenn Reynolds' video coverage of the conference. Reynolds doesn't need me to send traffic his way but have a look at the work he's done here. It's very interesting and I'm not saying that because he's got me in there talking about money.
This is a very important little short. Why? Because it's both a comment and a demonstration on where Reynolds – a confessed HeadlineNews junkie – thinks the technology is going and how it will be used in the future. If I were a TV producer, this little short, done in a day or so of interviews, edited in less time than that and expertly throw up on the web, I'd be afraid. Very, very afraid.
Our month-long survey is just about over. From now on, hopefully, there will be real ads up and down the site.
We need to have statistically verifiable numbers, however. So if you haven't taken the time to answer the few questions posed here, please click on through and do so right now.
What have we learned so far? Well, most of you are over 35. Many of you make more than $100,000 a year (or you'd cleverly like the ad guys to think you do). You're mostly Democrats but there are a good number of Independents and even a healthy number – 10 percent – of Republicans. And almost 40 percent of you are women. And almost all of you have given to a political party.
The good news about this is that it's in keeping with what we learned when we surveyed you folks this time last year. Not to be too self-congratulatory but that means we've succeeded at something that's often very hard to do: Finding and keeping an audience.
So, thanks. Stick around. There's more to come.
A change may be as good as a rest although, I must confess, it doesn't really feel that way.
Over at eWeek, the column is about John Markoff's new, cool book, "What The Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" Markoff, one of the few people on the New York Times editorial staff who is loved by the people he covers and those he competes against, does a great job in this book which I think might be his best one yet.
It publishes today which means you can buy it now and if you're reading this from anywhere in Silicon Valley, and you're not in this book, there is someone you know in this book. Don't get left out!
I have a nice long well-edited (thank you, Professor Rosen) post about this thing I call stand alone journalism over at Jay Rosen's PressThink.
Why there, not here? Rosen teaches at New York University's Journalism School and is well read by media folks. Some of you regular readers are interested in what we do on this side of the curtain but not all of you are so it seemed more appropriate for the detailed discussion about this aspect of the news business – the how and where it fits, the what we've done and where we're going – to take place on a site dedicated to that purpose.
It's also a demo of sorts. The idea that one reader can get all their information from one place on the web – a hold-over from newspapers – is slowly but surely fading away. As RSS replaces book-marking, it will go for good. Posting for Rosen is a good a example of that shift.
There are a few housekeeping details – mostly having to do with self- and site-promotion – that have been waiting to get swept up so here they are, in order of most exciting.
Well, okay, maybe the most exciting and the most necessary. Please take a few minutes to fill out our reader survey. As expected, this site leads all other political websites in attracting women – a whopping 38 percent of you, so far, pretty much double the Big Boys again this year. To make sure the ad guys know who's reading, however, we need a better, more statistically viable sample. So please take the time – regardless of your gender – to lend a hand and answer some questions. (This survey is no longer active.) As always, information is confidential. It's not sold or bartered with third-parties for any reason.
Speaking of women on line: Blogher, the conference is real, live and going to happen.
Continue reading "Blatant Self-Promotion" »
Book publisher Judith Regan has decided to move to Los Angeles.
This story made the front page of the New York Times. That's how shocking New Yorkers find the idea that people in L.A. actually read. Of course, The Atlantic Monthly's Ben Schwarz has been in L.A. for years but he works for a magazine that's based in Boston which most New Yorkers think of as a college "town," so it doesn't count. Even they have to admit L.A. is a city.
Continue reading "The Setting Sun" »
Preliminary results for our survey are in and while it looks great -- you're well-off, established career folks, you'll be pleased to know -- we need a few more responses to make the ad guys happy.
Be kind enough to click the survey ad when you see it. (This survey is no longer active.) Or click here and take a very few minutes to answer some questions that will help us sell ads.
Thanks.
Today's eWeek column is an exercise in something that could represent the future of on-line publishing: Syndication. I write it here, it comes out over there.
If you've read it once, you don't need to read it again. But if you're interested in how this medium might evolve, with stand alone journalists working with larger on- and off-line entities, you might want to have a look.
There is some over-lap between my eWeek audience and readers of this site but I'm betting it's not huge. I think it might be typical of others writing on-line. There are an enormous number of voices – and readers – on the web with more coming from both directions every day. Exclusivity, more and more, can be in the eye of the beholder. That's one reason why I think the future of syndicating writers – sending voices to their readers, instead of asking readers to come to voices – has such potential. This is today's illustration. Hopefully there will be others.
This morning, a bunch of lawyers and no shortage of reporters, spin doctors, Congressional staffers and lobbyists are gathered in the Supreme Court's ornate hearing room to listen to an argument about the merits and legal liability inherent in file sharing.
The case, MGM v. Grokster, brought by the record companies, is a turning point in the long and ultimately silly war between record companies and new technology that allows their customers (and, it's worth adding, the artists) to share music easily, simply and cheaply.
The Grokster case can be boiled down to one big question: Who's in Charge? Who's going to make sure the record industry runs with the smoothness (and immense profitability) that it's demonstrated since its creative geniuses began pressing vinyl? But they're not the only ones asking.
Continue reading "Take Me To Your Leaders" »
Here's an interesting statistic. A disturbing one, if you're in the newspaper business.
Yesterday, when I was quoted in The San Francisco Chronicle, the paper's website, SFGate.com, was kind enough to provide a link to this site and sent me about 70 visitors. That's from a front-page story, one featured on the real "paper" paper's front page.
That ranks below a long-time referrer, a site known to one and all: Craig Newmark's personal blog
Newmark has sent me 87 visitors in the past 24 hours.
Compare that to getting hit by Glenn Reynolds. Depending on when he links to you, Reynolds is good for between 500 and 700 visitors a day.
For the last time: Is "blogging" journalism?
I have two answers to that and whaddya know, they're the same.
First, over at Personal Democracy Forum, I took a look at a silly story that appeared in The America Prospect's on-line edition. Any story published on-line that begins "the Internet took three scalps" deserves what it gets once it has the temerity to appear in public.
While I was typing away, Dan Fost, The San Francisco Chronicle's media writer called up to chat about Apple's suits against three on-line sites that had the nerve to break a little news ahead of MacWorld. Apple says they're not journalists. Apple's wrong.
So here's your answer: Blogging is a technology; it's a software that makes it easy to publish in HTML on the World Wide Web. Reporting and writing – the basics of journalism – are things you do with that technology. See the difference? Thought so.
Okay. That's enough on this. Like Jeff Jarvis, I am sick of the entire topic. It's silly and it's beside the point. The technology exists. People are using it. For better or worse.
We'll let the Big Media folks mull this one over for now. They ought to have it worked out by the end of the year.
The frenzy over James Gannon or Jeff Guckert's getting into the White House press room has left me cold for a number of reasons and now The Nation's Dave Corn has come along to explain why: 'cause it's not a story, that's why. Not yet, anyway.
Gannon is a bozo. That's pretty obvious after five minutes of watching him on TV. He's also a whore. But neither of these things make him a national security threat. He's just a bozo who got a day pass to White House press briefings and in a society that claims it wants a free press – although these days I sometimes wonder about that – giving reporters access to the White House is a good idea.
Continue reading "Gannon Shot" »
This man writes for The Washington Post. He can't spell. He really can't spell. And spellcheck doesn’t help. At all.
I am not alone. I have every problem Steve Hendrix has, including the inability to remember the proper order of letters once I've looked them up. When I write things by hand, I frequently substitute "p" for "b." You want to talk frustration? Man. And his editors and my editors – for years – have reacted exactly the same way. And they get meaner, too, as time goes on and your spelling doesn't improve.
But there's something else worth noting about this piece. It's a great way to talk about innate differences without being condescending or silly. Dyslexia, for whatever reasons, occurs more frequently in men than in women but Hendrix never makes that point. Instead he talks about his brain functions, how he's working to overcome his problem without generalizing.
Unlike some people we have already mentioned.
Oh and if you think this is a plea for help with the spelling. You're right. Bring 'em on.
For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, I have been invited to attend the Conservative Political Action Committee's annual convention in Washington, D.C.
I believe it's a diabolical test of some sort. They're going to stick pins in me and see if Hillary Clinton screams.
Coverage will begin on Thursday.
Markos Moulitsas, DailyKos himself, writes in to tell me about his choice of credentials at the DNC's Western Caucus Saturday.
You didn't get a response because this address only works for a handful of people. It is spam blocked for everyone else. If you need to talk to me, you can use the form on my site.
As for "press" badge, I am media. Jon Stewart would wear the same badge, even though he's not a journalist. Same with Dave Barry. Or a style columnist for Bazaar.
In today's media environment, "press" and "journalism" are no longer synonymous. Not everything published is "journalism." "Press" is actually more akin to "media."
Seriously, are you finding this that confusing? It's not that complicated.
Well, you know I think it's safe to say that there's a lot less confusion here than meets the eye. It's arrogance that got Big Media. And it's contagious.
A great deal of virtual ink was spilt last week in long discussions about Markos Moulitsas – known to most folks as DailyKos – and his insistence that he's not a journalist, he's an activist.
Since he's a partisan Left-wing blogger – not a journalist or, God forbid, a mainstream media representative – Kos argues that he's doesn’t have to worry about some of the conflict-of-interest restraints that tie down others who style themselves as reporters and writers. So he can accept payment from candidates. (This link is no longer active.) Or have clients who are advertisers and advertisers who are clients who benefit from his fundraising. It's a convincing argument – up to a point. A brief and unstable point.
Seeing Kos – he introduces himself with the simple "I'm Markos" -- Saturday at the Western Caucus of the Democratic National Committee brought the back the questions raised last week with full force. Kos, the partisan blogger, was wearing a green card, a press credential. Sitting with a group of Simon Rosenberg supporters, Kos wasn't wearing the yellow cards hanging around staffers' necks or the necks of those calling themselves "observers" – folks attending for some particular purpose or cause. Nah. He was wearing a press card.
Kos hasn't responded to an email asking about his choice of identification. And, make no mistake, it was a choice. The Western Caucus was keeping track of who attended and the organizations represented. And he's certainly justified in claiming that his audience makes him a kind of reporter so people who talk to him know they have a reduced expectation of privacy. That's why the press gets tagged.
But this sort of behavior undermines all the arguments Kos made last week. And it leads us right back to the path of full and open disclosure, now doesn't it? And that's a path Kos is refusing to take. That's not good for anyone who's calling themselves a "blogger."
There have been a number of notes and letters about the earlier post about the "blogola" scandal.
Let me take a minute to respond and to make one important correction.
Matt Stoller, the commentator and on-line activist was not a Deaniac nor did he support Howard Dean's campaign for president. "I never supported Dean," Stoller writes. My apologies for the mistake.
Many of you have written to point out that DailyKos and MyDD have, in fact, endorsed Dean for the DNC chairmanship. They are. That's why I said that they were endorsing "Rosenberg as an alternative to Dean." Dean has only been in the race for the chairmanship – officially – for about a week. The two on-lines sites were – as good activists do – hedging their bets. They are now saying their first choice is Dean, their second is Simon. That's two, not one, endorsement and it could serve to weaken Dean's support.
Continue reading "More Combustion and Some Ashes" »
It's a holiday weekend, things are slow, the perfect time to review the little "blogging ethics" contretemps going out there. This isn't all about paying "bloggers" for influence. Some, to my jaundice and cynical eye, are very much connected to the race for the DNC Chairmanship.
Last week, Zephyr Teachout former Howard Dean campaign director of Internet organizing put a post up on what she – and she has got to be joking – calls a private website saying that Dean paid a bunch of bloggers who supported his candidacy. (This link no longer works.)
Now, let's get something straight from the start. There are no angels here. The two bloggers who accepted payments from the Dean campaign, Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong aren't the innocents they'd like you and the rest of their partisan readers and supporters to think they are. They have no qualms about having their readers think they're some new kind of journalists but they are, really, political activists and organizers. Teachout is no babe in the woods, either. Her comments revealed nothing new. The fact that she made them, however, was newsworthy. And that she, well-known from the Dean campaign, made them against two equally well-known bloggers, made the story national news. She can protest all she wants – and she is – but she knew the impact that post would have when she clicked on the "publish" tab.
Continue reading "Not-So-Spontaneous Human Combustion" »
It is time, once again, to remind you reader types that good journalism doesn't come cheap. It doesn't come free, either.
As a stand alone journalist – outside the traditional media structure that would collect advertising and subscription revenue and turn it into a salary -- I have to turn directly to you folks and ask for your support. (This link no longer works.) There are more almost three times as many of you as there were when Politics From Left to Right first solicited subscriptions, twice as many as there were in July during our last fund drive. Dear reader, you are not alone.
Continue reading "Getting More Than You Pay For" »
This being Thursday, I have a column over at eWeek about – ta dah! – blogs. You were wondering when I'd write about myself, weren't you?
It's a column about the power that sites – yes, sites like this one – will have as their influence spreads beyond politics. Never fear, I didn't quote myself. No, I went out on an limb and called a former colleague, Dan Gillmor and got him to tell me about blogs and how important they are.
I didn't call Dan because I know and like him. Well, not entirely. Gillmor and I were thinking alike on this subject. A few weeks ago, I noticed how Josh Marshall's readers at TalkingPointsMemo, were "reporting" on how their Congressional Representatives voted on changing House Ethics Rules. A few days ago, Dan wrote on his – Grassroots Journalism blog – about Marshall's success when the House reversed itself and undid the rules change.
And for those of you out there who know us and our different styles of journalism – I can hear the knowing chuckles -- I'd say that me being early and speculative and Dan being a bit later and definitive is typical of our different reporting styles. But that's what on-line journalism is all about. And that's a good reason why what I call stand alone journalism should be seen in the same light as Dan's Grassroots journalism. They are different approachs to an end that, once we get there, will look very similar.
So call this a joint demo. And welcome to our world.
CNN is canceling Crossfire. There may yet be hope for civilized political discourse on TV.
CNN exec Jonathan "Flood the Tsunami Zone" Klein says it's because viewers don't want to watch a bunch of guys screaming at each other. What's better? They're also cutting Tucker Carlson – the twit in the bowtie – loose.
Is Jon Stewart – who had the good sense and the brass balls to tell Paul Begala and Carlson how much they suck on their very own show – a great American or what?
Don't you hate columnists who make New Year's predictions and never go back and tell you how they did? Me too. Last year, I made a few of 'em.
Here's the rehash.
In December, 2003, I said: Arnold will prove to be a more effective governor than people currently realize. That doesn’t mean he’s going to be liked in Sacramento, so the headlines will continue to moan and bewail his tactics as he runs rough-shod over anyone who gets in his way.
In December, 2004, I say: Not bad.
Continue reading "To Hell with Satchel Paige" »
Wanna hear me squawk – about this and more -- in person and in public?
Inforum, a division of the San Francisco Commonwealth Club, is hosting a post-election forum, "America the Polarized: A Presidential Election Post-Mortem" next Thursday, Dec. 9 at club HQ down on Market Street here in San Francisco.
I'm probably in over my head. These guys have forgotten more about party politics than I'll ever learn. So you really should come. We're all gonna learn something. The panel's moderated by CNN's Carlos Watson and will feature a pollster, San Francisco's own David Binder, an activist, Richard Winger from Ballot Access News and a polisci prof, Robert Eisinger from the College of Lewis and Clark.
Details are here.
Okay. Time for a Break.
We all need one. Politics From Left to Right will return after the weekend.
Have a good Thanksgiving. But first, since it's the season, some thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you for your financial support; subscriptions won't make me rich but they help keep this site up and running.
Thank you for your letters. Comments make the writing on this site smarter and tighter and better written.
Thanks for your time and attention. November is a banner month – again – for this site which means that stand alone journalism is catching on. I am more thankful than I can say.
Politics From Left to Right is very honored this morning to have received some kind praise.
Professor Jay Rosen over there at the New York University School of Journalism has adopted the phrase "Stand Alone Journalism" and called it "clever." Now there's a man who knows the way to my heart.
So it's official. You're reading stand alone journalism. (As Prof. Rosen is a real live academic, I’m gonna adopt his punctuation from now on.) This isn't just important for me; I mean it is but I'll get over it as soon as some nastygrams come my way.
It's important because using a new term to describe writing on the web – writing by folks who do it for a living – is a step away from this whole process being dominated by technology. It's a step toward acknowledging that what's done here has value.
So, thanks Jay. Thanks very much.
A few weeks ago, sage and experienced journalist that I am, I predicted a raft of Big Media stories about the "death of blogging." I thought they'd show up mid-month and picked the New York Times business section to carry the harbingers of doom.
Silly me. The first "wither Blogging" story has already appeared in Business Week. Here's the question the story doesn't answer:
But can the blog business survive without a Presidential election and gaffes by mainstream media firing up the Internet masses? Skeptics wonder, particularly since some blog sites damaged their credibility when they jumped the gun and erroneously predicted Senator John Kerry would win the election.
Here's the sad part: They're just getting started.
Things are busy around here, that's for sure.
Tomorrow, Election Day, I hope to be posting here and perhaps over at the Personal Democracy Forum, a site devoted to exploring the increasingly familiar, but now somewhat awkward, relationship between technology and politics. Regular readers of this site can expect more grumbling about polls which I consider somewhere between a nuisance and the bane of all reporters' existences. But my talented colleagues at PDF have lots of other things to say on a broader range of issues. If you're after the nuts and bolts of how this stuff can work, PDF is worth a visit.
Wednesday morning bright and early – okay, so it's 10 a.m. PST – I'll be moderating a panel in Sacramento, "Politics: It's Beyond Left and Right." Nice of them to think of me, no? The chat will be part of the California Professional Businesswoman's Forum at the Sacramento Convention Center and I'll be chatting with San Francisco D.A. Kamala Harris, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kim Belshe and Secretary of Business, Transportation, and Housing Sunne Wright McPeak. I'm looking forward to this as a way to look at how California politics – and politicians – will affect national politics and policy over the next four years.
Saturday I'll be in Palo Alto for Dave Winer's BloggerCon III. This promises to be a pretty interesting event in part because never-shy Winer has timed it for maximum Big Media exposure. My bet is that a lot of traditional reporters will be walking around trying to do the "what blogging meant to the election" story as a curtain-raiser to "why blogs are dead" which is a prequel to "why blog advertising has gone away." I'll be the cranky lady in the corner with the BS detector.
Well, Steve Schwenk has his apology from New York Times public editor Daniel Okrent. It's a gracious and considered ending – and this is the end – to a dispute that, honestly, should have been beneath the New York Times. But such is modern life.
I'm going to stick with my East-v-West Coast tech-savvy and comfortable v. tech-aware and still learning analysis on this one for a couple of reasons all of them nicely illustrated – although he didn't mean it – in Okrent's column yesterday.
Continue reading "So Sorry" »
All this talk about Jon Stewart's Crossfire appearance is interesting, no? It seems so beside the point.
Someone who gets a paycheck from Big Media (Comedy Central, which carries The Daily Show is owned by Viacom) tell someone else in Big Media (CNN's Tucker Carlson) that they're doing a bad job and everyone notices. Because, well, it just isn’t done. Big Media employees are supposed to sit around the campfire and congratulate each other for having the smarts, luck, and good connections that enable them to be on TV while we're all watching them.
Continue reading "Heeeeere's Johnny" »
The back and forth over Steve Schwenk, the guy who made the mistake of getting nasty with the New York Times' political writer Adam Nagourney, hasn't died down. And, from a reporter's perspective – a reporter who often relies on email to do her job – it probably shouldn't.
No one should get fired over this. But it's probably worth a good think or two. Neither side realizes it – bloggers do, of course – but this is an interesting look in on how different cultures are adopting technology. I always get a little freaked when I go East. For me, it's time travel to the 1990's. There are almost no Tivos! Wifi access is hard to find and rarely open. Here in San Francisco an always-on connection is understood to be important to daily life; access is easy and often free. And TiVo? Can't do without it. In Washington, people use their Blueberries as phones and, well, this is really strange: they hold them up to their ears and talk instead of using earpieces.
Continue reading "Schwenk On" »
Did The New York Times take a sledge hammer to kill a gnat?
That's the first thing that popped into my head when I read Daniel Okrent's column "How Would Jackson Pollock Cover This Campaign?" in Sunday's paper. Hmmm. I thought. Why the return volley?
Okrent, like a lot of writers is tired, tired, tired to death of the name calling that passes for criticism these days. You can add me to the list. It's the reason that comments have never been allowed on this site. What passes for political discourse, particularly here in San Francisco is often nothing more than name calling. It's appalling. And I'm not going to encourage it because it's one of the many reasons that political involvement has skidded to an all-time low.
Continue reading "Talk Back Live" »
Since I run a political website, I am required to make the obligatory comments about Sunday's New York Times magazine cover story on "bloggers."
Not bad.
I agree with Andrew Sullivan's take. Matthew Klam, the Times reporter, like most Big Media folks, doesn’t get the implications of all this stand-alone journalism. I got a sense that he doesn't really understand the technology that most folks writing on the web use every day. The average reader sitting at home with an RSS reader, Google news alerts, and a little bit of sense learns in a few clicks of the mouse what an experienced reporter used to need a newsroom of machines to discover. This is lost on most Big Media editors and writers; they haven't changed their old habits. They haven't had to.
Continue reading "Y'all Come Back Now, Ya Hear?" »
Last week, when I wrote a piece saying that President Bush is going to have to thank conservative bloggers when he gets elected, I got a fair amount of cranky mail from Democrats who either didn’t believe the CBS memos were fake or didn’t want to think about the consequences if they were.
One note in particular criticized me for giving the Swift Boat Veterans for “Truth” an easy ride as I outlined how the CBS memos would affect Kerry’s campaign. The vets lied, said my correspondents, and that’s no different from what happened to CBS. When I quoted Howard Dean – “When you say you’ll do anything to win, you’ve already lost” – I was told I was naïve since plenty of politicians will do anything to win.
Continue reading "Bush: 2. Kerry: 0. CBS: TKO." »
The nice folks at Marketplace asked me to do a commentary for them on “blogging” and what it all means for someone like Dan Rather. Never short of an opinion, I obliged. You can hear it this evening on your local public radio station. Here’s a list of stations (this link no longer works) and scheduling.
UPDATE: A RealPlayer version of my two minutes is available under "commentary" at the Marketplace site.
As difficult as it is to believe, there hasn’t been enough written about the death of the American newspaper.
I know, it’s silly to think that a once-loved institution – the comics! the columnists! – would actually sit down and take a hard look at why it’s customers have fled. But they have. In droves. The result is that while everyone’s mourning the death of newspapers, they haven’t bothered to talk about the consequences for readers and former readers.
Continue reading "Black and White and Tired All Over" »
Quietly, quietly, John Kerry’s “blog" (this link is no longer active) has dropped its blog roll – its list of on-line writers sympathetic to the Democratic Party. As far as I can tell, the list was dropped just after the convention.
So, as of the weekend, the official site for the Democratic nominee carries no link to independent sites on the web discussing politics. It’s an interesting way to get on-line folks to participate in the political process, no? It didn’t cost Kerry anything to link to me or anyone else. It doesn’t cost me anything to link to Kerry but, as of this morning, that link’s coming down. The Democratic Party has been – how do I say this politely? – difficult, er obtuse, maybe? when it comes to getting support (financial and otherwise). And that was long before I let a Republican sound off on in this space (although…….).
Continue reading "Reach Out and ...Oh, Nevermind" »
Andrew Sullivan, another one of the “Boston? Why?” crowd in which I count myself a card-carrying member, sums up “blog” coverage pretty nicely I think.
In Boston, hacks outnumber delegates by four to one. Mickey [Kaus] is reduced to quoting cab drivers. Jonah [Goldberg] is writing about his hotel. What a complete waste of time and money. Look, I think these conventions should be televised for two hours a night on the networks. Both political parties should have a chance to present themselves and their candidates as effectively as possible. But the notion that being there has any real journalistic merit is preposterous. Next time, the bloggers should save the money and switch to C-Span.
Continue reading "Stand-Alone Journalism: DNC Edition" »
You missed the note about the prizes we’re raffling off to subscribers, didn’t you? Ah. Never fear. There will be periodic reminders until mid-July.
Take another look at the goodies in store: dinner, posters, and a nice box of cheese. It’s part of the campaign to get you – you readers – to support stand-alone journalism. And don't worry, that guilty feeling -- I type, you read -- will go away as soon as you subscribe.
Across the Bay – the San Francisco Bay – economist and Tom Kalil cousin Brad DeLong sits down and tries to answer his oft-repeated lament: “Why, oh why, can’t we have a better press corps?”
Delong spits out a few snarky examples on his specialty – economics – to talk about the inadequacies of various and sundry Big Media Big Foots he’s encountered. He comes up with some interesting insights that, if you care about political and economic coverage (or have ever been on the receiving end of a Big Foot reporting stampede) are worth thinking about. But, oddly for an economics professor, DeLong misses the real problem with U.S. newspapers. They’ve stopped hiring smart, as they say in Silicon Valley, and have settled for hiring people who will put up with their lousy pay scales, their difficult management and their collapsing infrastructure.
Continue reading "It's the Economy, uh, Professor" »
There’s been a bit of comment about my stand-alone journalism proposal, most of it thoughtful and smart so I’ll take a few minutes this morning – and only a few minutes there is nothing on God’s earth more boring that listening to journalist discuss their craft – to expand on what I said yesterday.
First of all, I’m not trying to entirely redefine web logging. I’m classifying what I do -- write and report -- using the tools and technology available to me. That technology – the ability to publish my ideas easily and quickly – has come to be known as web logging and, for many people, that’s what it will remain. No one, least of all me, is going to change that. But there are or soon will be more people -- experienced journalist -- coming on the web everyday. And what we do is different in a number of ways from what's gone on before. It needed a name. So I gave it one.
Continue reading "Stand-Alone Journalism" »
Observant readers – that’s you, I know – will see that we’ve started to sell advertising.
This represents a change in what’s happening on this side of the monitor so it’s a good time to talk with you – more of you every day! – about what we’re doing and where we’re going. It’s not just us, either. The media business is changing. Dramatically. And it’s only going to get more thrilling for all of us.
Continue reading "It's Not Just Blogging Anymore" »
The survey’s over. The results have been tabulated. The winners selected (at random, I had nothing to do with it).
Here are some highlights. Not surprisingly, most readers are Californians but our next largest audience comes from New York and Washington, D.C. – so we’re bi-coastal. Most of you are Democrats (66 percent) and have given to a political party (75 percent) and most are men (64 percent). But a good chunk of you said you were independents or not registered – a total of 29 percent. It’s hard to know for sure, but I’m going to take a guess and say that’s evidence of the Libertarian strain at work in Northern California politics.
This ‘blog attracts almost twice number of women who regularly read the “big” bloggers. They get 20 percent women, I get 36 percent! Take that, boys.
But thanks to everyone who responded. We’ll start running ads in a few days, if all goes well. I – and my publisher Chris McCarthy at LocalMagic.com -- appreciate you’re helping out with the sales pitch!
Normally, I don’t post over the weekends and even with President Reagan’s death it’ll be light going here for the next few days.
I’ll be busy but you watch the funeral to see how Nancy Reagan treats the Bush family in relation to the Schwarzenegger family; yes, it’s cynical but every politician in the country will be watching and you should, too. This is an election year and if, like me, you hold that Nancy Reagan served as our 40th president (or, like Hillary Clinton as our unelected vice president) then, well, how she manipulates the symbols of the office she once shared with her husband is very important for national and California politics. Read anything and everything you see by Lou Cannon; he’s the expert here.
Continue reading "Rock On" »
Welcome, Political Animals.
Kevin Drum is a much nicer guy than I am or would be if I were a guy. Which I’m not. Here’s what I wrote to him:
Continue reading "Don't Let the Name Fool You" »
Haven’t taken our reader survey have you? Hmmmmm. Why’s that? Got a problem winning prizes? Think I’m going to sell your email address or otherwise bug you?
Wrong. Yes, I know there are technical problems with the survey software – it doesn’t work on Apple’s Safari browser – but the rest of you have no excuse (besides, most Macs come with Explorer installed). Click on that button over there on the right and answer a few quick questions. I’ll be very grateful.
But gratitude isn’t all. You can win a chance for a fabulous $50 gift certificate to Incanto here in San Francisco (it’s a good restaurant and if you could see my waistline you’d know I know what I’m talking about). Or a cool, specially printed and signed poster commemorating San Francisco’s gay marriage madness.
Thanks. We’ll stop bugging you soon. But the more you click and respond – yes, you – the faster that day will come.
I’m serious about this survey stuff. Less than a minute of your time and – gasp – you could win fabulous prizes! Posters! Food!
It’s for a good cause: The continued good health of this web log. See the button over there on the right? Click it. I swear you'll know all the answers to the questions. And we’ll keep any information you give us between us. That’s a promise.
I know I’m badgering you. I’m good at it, too, aren’t I? Think how easy it is to make me stop.
Oh, and if you’d like to buy an ad, talk to the good folks at LocalMagic, our publishing support. We offer reasonable rates, quality service and well, lots of politically savvy, smart and well-off readers. If you’re running a political campaign we can help you out.
Please take a few minutes to answer the reader survey over there on the right. Click the button, answer some questions. It’s easy, it’s anonymous and we’ll keep the information between us. Promise.
There are prizes!. One lucky guy or gal gets a gift certificate to Incanto. And you can win a special edition of Derek Powazek’s "Justly Married" poster commemorating San Francisco’s Love Spring.
We’re doing this so we can sell ads. If we can sell ads, we can stop bugging you. So do your part. You might win a nice meal or some good-looking art.
I'm traveling and having a few technical difficulties. Thanks for your patience.
New exciting posts, er, one new exciting post in a few hours. Apologies and all that and will someone make this 802.11 stuff easier to use? Thanks.
A couple of months ago, I complained that the Digital Democracy Teach-In was the sound of geeks grokking politics, and not much more. Well, someone’s some along to answer my complaints.
The Personal Democracy Forum organized by some of what – if this thing is a roaring success – we’ll some day call the 'usual suspects.' The idea is to talk about the intersection of politics and technology. Only it’s not just pols or geeks. And they’re gonna have some real live political journalist. Even – moi – a political blogger. Kewl, huh?
I’m going to be the shy quiet one on the “Bloggers, Journalists and Politicians” panel moderated by Technorati Dave Sifry’s brother, Micah, with (among others) Jeff Jarvis, Arianna Huffington, Eric Alterman and Jason Calacanis.
With this post, I am hereby renouncing officially, completely, and entirely, the position of “queen of valley gossip,” given to me most recently by the lovely and kind Om Malik. We were in the ‘way ‘back’ machine last night at a party for Blogger’s relaunch, the details of which Om provides on his ‘blog.
Continue reading "That Was Then" »
Believe it or not, another incentive to answer our fabulous reader survey has come your way. And we’ve fixed one of the technical glitches, too.
Photographer, designer and, it seems, all-'round nice guy Derek Powazek has offered copies of his “‘Justly Married’ Special Edition Poster, lovingly printed and signed by the photographer.” A $50 value, the posters are slightly smaller than the retail version at 13”x19” and it will look really cool in your house regardless of where, how or whom you live with. We’ll wrap it up real nice before we ship it, too.
What do you have to do to win one of these two cool posters? Or a $50 gift certificate for San Francisco’s lovely and tasty Incanto restaurant? Fill out our reader survey. It’ll only take a few seconds and you know the answers! Click on the button over there on the right and you’ll be done in the blink of an eye.
TECHNICAL NOTES: The survey software was requiring email addresses most of yesterday. If you gave us one, don’t worry, we won’t abuse your trust (see technical details here). It’s no longer required. My apologies for saying otherwise.
Thanks!
My copy of The Atlantic Monthly finally showed up Friday so I spent the weekend – what else? – reading former New York Times editor Howell Raines 20,000-word-plus finger-pointer.
The whole thing is a boring exercise in self-congratulation, bridge burning and fabulous excuses. If you’re not in the newspaper business there’s no reason to read it. But it provides a really short and really fine example of just how short-sighted New Yorkers see the world. And for all his protests to the contrary, Raines is one of them.
Here’s Raines critiquing the Times business coverage:
“A gaping hole in that strategy is that we were essentially conceding to The Wall Street Journal the hottest running story of the late-1990s boom – mergers and acquisitions.”
Mergers and acquisitions? What planet was this man on? His evidence for the “hottest running story”? AOL/Time Warner. Which, of course, involved a New York company. Forget all that dot. this and that; all those stock games played at the expense of shareholders. Nope, the late 1990s was M&A, Enron and Arthur Anderson.
Oh, nevermind. He’s gone. Unfortunately, his thinking lives on.
I was joking last week when I wrote to Andrew Ross Sorkin – the New York Times' official harbinger of mistrials -- and suggested that Tyco Juror No. 4 and former Madeira School headmistress, convicted then pardoned Scarsdale Doc murderess Jean Harris were, as Spy magazine used to say, separated at birth.
Turns out the joke is on me.
Juror No. 4, the “batty blueblood” as the New York Post called her really is a Madeira girl; class of 1930-something back when it really was for bluebloods. Those nice folks at The Washington Post knew better than to let that one go; former Post publisher Katherine Graham and her daughter Lally Weymouth did a little time in Greenway, Va., too. Actress Stockard Channing (Mrs. President Bartlett), one-time Clinton advisor Alice Rivlin and a bunch of women running co-op boards up and down Park Ave. are also Jean Harris High grads. The place has slipped since then; they let me in for four years more years ago than I’m going to publicly admit.
The current assistant head of the school pronounces herself unsurprised to find out that the more stubborn juror was an alumnae. "She's feisty, confident, outspoken and ethical," Cole said. "Our girls have something to say."
See. I’m not all bad. I was just drawn this way.
Naughty Nick Denton – oh, remember when he lived in San Francisco and didn’t do anything but complain, complain, complain -- has a new service that will help you read better.
It’s called Kinja and it’s designed to help on-line blog fans (and bloggers, of course) keep track of posts and the like. Nick says it’s not new. But it sure is purty. And I got him to put me on their list of political sites. So I am hereby returning the favor. Go over and sign up. If nothing else, you'll run into a bunch of friends.
Some days I pick up the newspaper and steam starts coming out of my ears.
Then I remember: I have a web log.
On Saturday, The New York Times published a graph of book sales. It told you something you might have already guessed: Conservatives buy books that tell them their world view is correct and righteous. Sadly, forsaking the very thinking they claim to embrace, Liberals do the same. Books in the middle ground aren’t read. In no small part, it seems, because there are none.
Continue reading "Tang For Your Brain" »
One of the odder things about the meeting between writing and technology is that every once in a while you have to teach people how to read.
Over the past few weeks, as this web log has grown in popularity (thankfully), I’ve had a number of people ask for updates or email blasts or alerts of one sort or another.
It’s a fine idea and when I was writing regularly for the New York Post, I used to do just that. But since then – in a mere three years – a piece of technology has come along to do the alerting for me and pretty much everyone else on the web. It’s called RSS for “really simple syndication,” and yesterday, with much fanfare, Slate magazine announced the inauguration of its RSS feed.
Paul Boutin, Slate’s talented tech writer wrote a great tutorial on RSS, what it is and how it works saving me the time and brain cells. His piece is here.
Regular reader, Dave Zinman, also points out that readers with “My Yahoo” pages can also put this site in the RSS reader that’s part of that package. Here’s the link to that feature.
RSS means you can get headlines from your favorite website delivered wherever you want, when you want. And, they can be from all over. Just keep an eye out for the little XML sign (mine is over there on the right at the bottom of the green box) and your news will start coming to you; you won’t have to go to the news.
San Francisco Magazine’s freelancer, the fabulous and funny Sheerly Avni, has turned her attention to what she correctly describes as a “pissing match” between me and San Francisco Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein in this month’s magazine.
It’s a very brief item that purports to be about reporting and reporting on reporting and the problems with blogging. Which is pretty funny because between them, Avni and her fact-checker, SF Mag Research Editor Justine Sharrock made a mistake; a glaring factual error that they say they’re going to correct…
The brief item is here. Go and see if you can find the mistake. A free drink – coffee or better – will go to the winner provided, of course, you’re here in the Bay area (no one else should have to read that stupid mag). Bonus points – extra whipped cream or martini olives – if you can name the men who most recent Bronstein squeeze (if SF got this right which I heard they actually did) Christine Borders used to date. Extra special credit if you can name her Menlo Park-based business.
Employees of San Francisco magazine are not eligible.
UPDATE: SF Mag has corrected its mistake on its web site. Nice of them. But the glaring factual error remains in the magazine. So the contest continues and "no," to the smart ass who wrote in suggesting that it was a mistake to call Bronstein a journalist. Nah. Phil has pretty decent news judgement. He's just got a paper-thin skin.
It’s probably the O’Reilly conference that starts Monday but the blogosphere – the political Geek blogosphere – lit up yesterday with Dean re-thinks.
Many of them, Dave Winer, Doc Searls and Jeff Jarvis relate to what I’ve said here and almost all refer to Clay Shirky’s Dean obit from earlier in the week.
It pains me to say this but almost of these folks writing about politics are clueless – sorry, Doc, Clay – in the same way. Politics is about people, those breathing things. It’s very hard to game. It’s constantly changing. It’s unbelievably dynamic. Anyone can be undone at any time by things outside their control. And most stuff really is outside your control.
Still exorcizing its Internet Bubble hang-over, Big Media had it in for Dean, on that we all agree and I will remain incensed about the Judy Steinberg Dean (this link is no longer active) take-downs for a good long time. But the campaign’s contempt for the national press and its fundamental belief, nurtured by a campaign consultant clearly looking to expand his own business, was a sign of a deeper distrust of outsiders. Reporters, not really understanding the mechanics of campaigns, tried to get at this with ‘mood’ pieces. Like the non-tech press in Silicon Valley during the bubble, these writers got excited about the gizmos and the personalities, not about the execution and the organization. The gizmos were eye-catching and cool. The execution, well, let’s just say it was sloppy.
And while I’m all up for a little Big Media bashing, let’s just take a few second to acknowledge that professional journalists exist. Ever listen to David Broder,one political journalist who gets blogs and whose reporting is almost always about voters, not candidates? Professional like Broder, Joe Klein and Al Hunt (this link is no longer active) aren’t going away. They are part of politics. And, oh, yeah, at least one of them should have been invited to the O’Reilly conference which in that long-established high-tech tradition, is heavy on Geek experts who know each other and a touch light on those from the outside with political experience who might have opinions based on different experience.
The best politicians – Clinton was a master at this – don’t have the best press relations or the biggest fund-raising machines. They have the best reactions. They know what to do when circumstances change and they do it. Quickly. The Dean campaign did not and does not know how to do this. Demo? This week’s complete silence on the Bush Administration’s tacit admissions about their failure to find any sort of Iraqi weapons cache. Still silent in Deanland. Why? Because they don’t know what to say. They can’t find a way to react. And that tells me all I need to know. This guy wants to be president and he can't find a way to reinforce the most salient point of his campaign? Next!
At its most basic level, the Dean campaign’s on-line effort was as much a spill over from MoveOn’s anti-war organizing as anything else. But Dean never found a way to talk past the capture of Saddam Hussein to keep his candidacy alive. Once things changed and the Bush Administration could say, “Look, we got the bad guy,” it didn’t matter what was stance the candidates took on the war. That capture assuaged the concerns of those who a little worried about the war’s purpose but weren’t convinced it was justified or necessary. Off line, folks moved on, in the literal sense.
In contrast, take the Kerry campaign. They didn’t quit. They didn’t look up in December and decide the ROI wasn't going to work out, time to cut and run. No, they kept at it, making a tune-up here, a change there, a refinement over there. Eventually, they got lucky in almost the same way that Dean was unlucky. This week, via Feedster and a la Doonsbury, Kerry will hit the web and hit it hard.
It’ll be a good effort. It may work. But my bet is that hard-core Dean supporters won’t move to Kerry. His politics aren’t pure enough. His relationships inside Washington will be seen as a slightly more palatable version of “politics as usual.” Geeks -- who are, to a man, Progressive Libertarians -- emphasize policy over politics. It's part of their high-minded but mistaken conviction that politics is somehow corrupt. The importance they place on somewhat obscure hot button issues (copyright, privacy) makes them see Kerry as bankrupt, not part of the reform movement they thought Dean embodied. They’re right. This nation’s politics are in dire need of change. And I’m far from convinced Kerry is the man for that job or that he can beat George Bush. But quitting while you’re not ahead ain’t getting anyone anywheres near the noble netizen goal of remaking democracy.
The subscription effort is running all out again this week so whip out your credit card, decide what this site is worth (I like $25 but you decide; some have given more, some less) and click on that little Paypal button over there. I’d like to limit this little fund-drive to a one-week event so vote early, as they say.
I won’t bore you with yet another wave of self-congratulations over the cool stuff that’s been up here or the reasons you should support an on-line site that talks about politics from outside Washington, D.C. But if the marketplace speaks, the site is doing okay. Many people have been very generous in their contributions and there have been more than a few calls about ads. So thanks to all who have contributed.
Everyone’s email has been screwy this past week so guess what? ChrisNolan.com pledge week has been extended!
Life is too good, huh?
I know you want to help support a political web log that talks about Dean Presidential Campaign “CEO” Roy Neel’s charm and Blog Emperor Doc Searls’ intellectual firepower don’t you? Just this week, this 'blog talked about the division between the outsiders supporting Dean and the political establishment. Great timing. Good info. You can’t ask for more.
Here are your choices, you kind person, you:
* Buy an advertisement (call or email for details; it’s not a lot of money).
* Send money directly (see that little PayPal sign over there? They take credit cards). For those of you who do this political stuff for a living, $75 would be nice. For those of you just stopping by from time to time -- $25 -- less than your local newspaper subscription. And more fun!
• Do nothing. Then feel very guilty because while you’re happy to take advantage of a new, vibrant form of political journalism, you’re not willing to pony up to support it financially.
The choice is yours.
Oh, and no, this isn't going to be a weekly thing. If we can raise enough money to keep the lights on, the phones connected, the server humming and the Geeks in Red Bull, we'll stop. For a whole year.
Thanks!
Like the new look? The one specially designed to make money? There will be a few more fixes in the days to come – and ChrisNolan.com is accepting ads of most shapes and sizes – so don’t be shy, send us a little cash. Critiques and comments, too.
Why? Well, we gotta pay rent, feed the geeks, and keep the phones turned on. So as you’re figuring out what to give, remember this is the web log that, among other things, has looked ahead and predicted the Bush immigration proposals, run down the tensions at work in the coming San Francisco
ballot initiative battle and presented the commonsense argument on why Dr. Judy Steinberg Dean isn’t on the campaign trail. It’s a 'blog that’s obsessed with the relationship between corporate behavior and politics and a kind of new politician I call the Progressive Libertarian (see Arnold Schwarzenegger). If you’re reading this, chances are good you are one.
How much should you give? If you’re coming by once a week saying “hmmmm” and stealing (woops! I mean repeating) what you read at dinner parties, I’d say, $25 would do nicely. If you’re a regular reader, more than once a week, you might want to think about a larger contribution, say $75. And if you’re a political junkie, consultant, elected official, or anyone whose job involves getting people to vote, you have two choices, both good. You should buy an ad (email for details) or make a regular sustaining contribution. We’re not proud, we’ll bill you.
I’m going to copy a page from PBS and blogger extraordinaire Andrew Sullivan and dedicate this week to raising money. So we’ll be back in a day or so reminding you that PayPal accepts all kinds of credit cards and that we’re more than happy to talk with you about ad specifications.
Thanks!
Michela Alioto-Pier – she picked up a husband since I first heard her name in the Old Country while she was working for Al Gore – is the newest San Francisco supervisor.
Hmmmmmm. I heard that somewhere before. Oh, yeah. Here. And here.
This is what Silicon Valley types call “value add.” You could remember that when it comes time to give to the tip jar – or buy an ad! – in the soon-to-be-provided space on the right side of this page. Money. We need it. Send us some.
Freelance writers run web logs for two reasons: self-promotion and its stealth cousin, egotism. I can – I do -- sit in my living room and snarl at the TV pundits or read the NYTimes, roll my eyes and mumble under my breath about the idiocy I encounter. Or I can post for you and yours to enjoy. Call it the triumph of immodesty. Shocking, eh? Herewith predictions for 2004:
TOTAL RECALL
Arnold will prove to be a more effective governor than people currently realize. That doesn’t mean he’s going to be liked in Sacramento, so the headlines will continue to moan and bewail his tactics as he runs rough-shod over anyone who gets in his way. But with a little luck and some economic recovery – oh, yeah, a little help from a Republican White House – he’ll end the year better than he started. And I’m still convinced he’s monkeying with Prop. 13, although I’ll happy admit that’s as much wishful thinking as anything else. Just remember Sen. John Burton’s comments comparing Schwarzenegger and Teddy Roosevelt. Apart from the fact that they fit nicely into my pet theory about workforce housing bond will pass. If it doesn’t, everyone in politics in San Francisco should hang their head. Low. And I’m talking to you Angela Alioto.
Yes, as Newsom’s political opponents will argue, there needs to be even lower-cost housing for people making just above the poverty level. That’s true. But the subsidies that create such housing don’t exist. And they will not be created. Neither the city nor the state can afford them. And the feds aren’t interested. Besides, housing is the one place in which ‘trickle down’ works. It doesn’t work perfectly. Few things do. But building more housing in San Francisco for people who make less than $100,000 a year, will drive down the price of housing for people who make even less. More supply equals lower cost because there is less demand. And yes, the buildings have to go up. But I, for one, think we can leave the smart-minded architectural criticism to the Chron’s John King. If more people paid attention to his critiques, we’d have a pretty good looking city.
PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS
Rev. Al Sharpton is going to do better in the primaries than people think. Big Media political reporters are currently distracted by Howard Dean’s fight with Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe so they’re ignoring Sharpton who is poised to start collecting hunks of votes. The better he does, the stronger his standing within the Democratic Party as the spokesman for black – specifically urban, black – America. Note that the Rev. is siding with the Democratic Party establishment in the slug-fest known as “stop Dean.” He may have started out as a race-baiting demagogue but the Rev. is one quick study when it comes to getting a place at the table. The NYTimes Saturday big ideas section (one of the best things in the paper that no one talks about) included an interesting observation about the links between grass roots organizing and hip hop. Those kids probably aren’t mobilizing for uh, Joe Lieberman, now are they? Besides, you gotta love a political campaign that touts Sharpton as “movin’ on up” (just like George Jefferson) in the polls, don’t you?
“OUR THING”
The blogger bubble will burst sometime around the last of the Democratic primaries because everyone is heartily sick of 'bloggers and their self-congratulation. It’s not really a bubble, of course. It’s well, it’s just a trend that’s starting to work its way into the mainstream culture, in this case politics and media, two of our more hind-bound institutions. It’s kind of like smart-mobbing, which was really about text messaging and how that was working its way into adult culture via cell phones. But bloggers are smart and geeky and, in keeping with the temperaments of people who have – really and truly – changed the world or been standing next to other people when they changed the world, the bloggers’ sense of their own ability to make history will just get worse as the medium gets more popular. And then it will explode. Anil Dash gets at this a bit when he writes about the gizmo-affliction that dominates blogs and why that drives him crazy. It’s interesting that so many ‘bloggers want to stress their independence – the power of individual observation, the search for their own data, their own ability to get the facts, their displeasure with Big Media – but at the same time huddle together (link courtesy of Andrew Sullivan; points to those of you who can name all the parties shown) to talk about how their work is so important, so earth shattering. This sort of talk sometimes emanates from traditional newsrooms and it’s one reason that Big Media is so goddamned insufferable. Congratulating yourself is the first step in being able to look down on your readers. A lot of what’s being written and read on the web is interesting, insightful and providing a much-needed alternative to traditional corporate-driving mass media. But, it’s too in love with its technology. Lighten up, guys. It’s not about you. As Gawker publisher Nick Denton observed, well before he was famous, the best blogs are not about the blogger, they’re about the blogger’s ideas. The medium can be the message but sometimes – most of the time – the message is the message.
THEIR THING
Along those same lines: There will be another newspaper scandal a la Jayson Blair that rocks the credibility of people in the business. So, get ready for another series of woe-is-us essays and deep naval gazing on the part of people who think of themselves as upholding the public good and safeguarding democracy. CBS has already started. There are some smart people working in newsrooms all over the country but for many people and many papers, the fun has gone out of the business. It never paid very much which was a filter to keep out the less than dedicated. That’s still true but the consolidation of the business -– the effects of which are larger away from New York and Washington -- means wages at local papers have stayed low while corporate types have taken over newsroom management. National writers, of course, make the big bucks. And, Russell Baker recently observed those big salaries make a big difference. These days the news business attracts and rewards the power-mad. And they often see themselves as allied with corporate, political or government interests, as the best way to succeed. This is, after all, a group of people who wonder why Presidential hopeful Howard Dean never expresses any curiosity about them. That sort of thinking is the triumph of access journalism, which guides glossy magazines and TV stations: do anything to get the interview. That, of course, diminishes the story. Newsrooms are run by the gullible and staffed by the credulous. No wonder they screw up.
SILICON VALLEY
The guys over at Venture Blog say social networking software is silly, and no, it’s not the next big thing. They're right. It reminds me of “interactive TV.” Which was a cool idea. Until people found the Internet which was a cooler idea that let them do the same stuff for cheaper.
Along those same lines: emergent democracy. Another silly idea. Actually it’s an old idea – as old as say, uh, John Locke – it’s just on the ‘web. That doesn’t make it as different from those musty 17th century ideas as much as emergent democracy proponents would like to believe. The message. Not the medium. And there needs to be some kind of law requiring engineers to take at least one civics class before they're let loose on the world.
Tony Perkins ain’t never gonna finish his Google book. But John Battelle will.
Google’ll go public. The old-fashioned way. No dutch auction. There’ll be trouble, though. There’s been so much hype that some folks connected with the company are worried that the SEC, in its new “aggressive” mode (cough, cough), will raise an eyebrow or two over the “quiet period.” That’s a legit worry.
This could be a good year for hardware in Silicon Valley. Not traditional computer hardware but computer-enhanced stuff like home entertainment, radios and MP3 integration. The iTunes revolution – yes, he has done it again – is just the beginning. Video’s next. And getting all that stuff off your computer without running cords all over the house is the next hardware thing.
And finally: Martha Stewart gets some kind of conviction. And Frank Quattrone, well, if Frank is tried on the same charges – the indictment could be amended – I say he walks again.
Why can’t Big Media write about Howard Dean’s campaign without sounding like a bunch of clueless but well-meaning 19th century explorers debating the source of the Nile all the while breathlessly reporting back on the wonders of Africa?
First, there was Nicholas Kristof’s piece on Saturday comparing the Dean campaign to George McGovern’s humiliating loss to Richard Nixon.
Every time I see that comparison – they said the same thing about Clinton and Carter, by the way – I have the same reaction: Nixon cheated! Remember, that Watergate thing? He cheated! Doesn’t that make a difference? Things have changed since that campaign. Remember Thomas Eagleton, the Senator who had to resign as McGovern’s vice presidential pick after it was “discovered” – more like planted by the well-funded dirty tricks campaign run by the Republicans -- that he had seen a psychiatrist and been treated for depression? Contrast that to Dean’s candid admission just a few weeks ago that he had, years after his brother Charlie’s death, seen a therapist to talk about his grief and that yes, he thought it had done him some good.
Kristof was quickly followed by Eric Alterman’s piece about a dinner party he attended in Manhattan – an island in New York that’s filled with famous and really smart people who work for important publications read by all thinking Americans – hosted by comedian Al Franken. At what sounds like a parody of an Ann Coulter one-liner, (This link is no longer active.) the party was attended by writers, historians and famous journalists. Past and present New Yorker writer ‘Rick Hertzberg’ and artist ‘Art Speigelman’ get special mention but no formal introduction because, of course we all know them. This group was treated to the “spontaneous” thoughts of Democratic Presidential hopeful and Dean rival Sen. John Kerry. Marriage must have really changed Kerry. Back when I was covering the Senate Commerce Committee the only guy who was more of a stiff than Kerry was then-Sen. Al Gore.
But here’s what was really amazing about Alterman’s account of the dinner: It’s utter lack of regard for the completeness of its hermetically sealed tone. The whole account reads like a parody of the accusation Republicans used to lob at the opposite party. They’d talk about “Georgetown” Democrats and “limousine liberals” saying they were a bunch of elitists who only listened to the sound of their own voices. Yeah. Well. I guess everything comes true given enough time. Alterman’s piece was embarrassing and I say that as a life-long registered Democrat and card-carrying Ivy-league prep-school educated media elitist.
Just as Alterman took great pains to talk about the diversity of opinion in the room with Kerry, Kristof was very solicitous of the young people working for Dean. He didn’t want to see them become as disillusioned as he did when, as a 13-year-old, he campaigned for McGovern. That same caring and nurturing of the politically naïve, colors the NYTimes Sunday Magazine piece on the Dean campaign.
The magazine article spends a lot of time talking about how people supporting Dean are drawn to the campaign because they want to change the world. They’re all fired up by politics because it’s fun! And oh, yeah, boys who like girls meet girls! And they make out! And Geeks who like to code do it for free (oh, now there’s something we didn’t know; hey check this out, writers who like to write sometimes do that for free, too). And people who like to organize and meet other people and motivate them, they get to do that too. For free or for tiny salaries! My God. It’s a movement.
Some of this fascination with the fervor of the Dean campaign is completely legit as Craig Newmark’s reaction demonstrates. Newmark was genuinely interested in the article because it tells him something he finds to be true of the Dean effort.
But, as Newmark’s reaction also demonstrates, the sort of political activity that Dean’s people are channeling isn’t just technical or web-based. The Times’ dwells on the mechanics of Deanworld – Friendster and meetup are explained in wondrous detail. But the amorphous and evangelical role that the Cluetrain crowd has with many Dean supporters is boiled down – inaccurately – into terminology used by political insiders. They’re described as “consultants."
As anyone on the web knows, that’s not the role that Doc Searls and Howard Reingold play. But the description, an attempt to get their relationship to the Deanheads into a neat category, pretty much sums up the problem here. Dean is turning people on to politics because he is speaking their language. The Times also dwells for a bit on Dean’s willingness to talk to a local organizer – the Howards for Howard Dean guy – just as if he were a representative from AARP, one of the nation’s more powerful lobbying groups. Yup. Courtesy to less-than-loaded supporters. Now there's a concept.
That’s not the language of the Manhattan dinner party – and please, tell me, does anyone think Al Franken is funny? Really? – of political insiders or the jaded columnists. Dean is speaking about change and despite all the talk by guys like Kristof about anger, Dean's supporters seem to think he’s offering hope.
And, as hard as it is for many Democrats to believe, the hope he offers envisions a world that has little to do with their established ways of doing things. That’s what's so frustrating about reading campaign coverage: it fails to understand that people outside the media are sick to the core of their beings about politics as it’s being practiced by both Democrats and Republicans. They want change. And they want it soon.
Soon-to-book author and former Internet stock analyst Henry Blodgett is going to write about the Martha Stewart trial for Slate magazine. And, damn, if his first entry it doesn’t read like a trial ‘blog. There was a lot of talk during the Quattrone trial about how that case would affect Martha Stewart’s. But I had no idea…..
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Like anyone who’s been in and around media and tech, I can ruefully say “I knew Nick Denton when…” he was living on Larkin Street, then on Mission, all the while complaining about San Francisco as a quaint, begger-infested backwater. He was returning my email last week but I’m sure that’s all changed now that he’s officially famous.
Today, I pick up my NYTimes and there he is, along with a photo of the charming MegNut and Gizmodo man Pete Rojas. Denton’s right about one thing: if he’d stayed in San Francisco, the Times would never have written about him even if his Fleshbot was the first to get its paws on the Paris Hilton sex tapes. And, of course, as Romenesko and Gawker are demonstrating today, there’s nothing like a Times story to get the buzz going.
Ah, yes, Nick Denton. I knew him when….
You’ll remember the NYT's Andy Sorkin covered the Quattrone trial. He was the NYTimes reporter who dresses like a dickhead.
Coincidence? I think not.
It used to be that all politics was local. No one proves how much this little maxim has changed -- changed by the web-- than Craigslist Craig Newmark.
"I really think we're at a turning point in history," Newmark writes in his new weblog. "The Net has given individuals a voice we've never had before, and we're getting serious about using it for real change.
An on-line God, revered across the country for helping people find and shed furniture, boyfriends, pets and other spare items, the deliberately self-effacing Newmark has always been on a political mission of sorts. He's had a lot to say to his on-line community about privacy laws -- he supported SB 1 and his reasons for doing so provide a good look at why it passed. He's involved in the lawsuits regading digital copying and, most recently, he's started on a campaign aginst spam.
Anyone interested in the Geek perspective would do well, very well, to keep Newmark's new blog in mind.
The Bee's Dan Weintraub has readers who really understand this blogging thing. We should all be so lucky.
