Live 8 archives
If you can't beat them, buy them. Traditional institutions and power structures, having realized that blogs aren't going away, are co-opting the pajama-clad harbingers of the new era of journalism. And the bloggers are making it all too easy.
The latest example is the decision by Holland.com to send twenty-five American bloggers to the Netherlands. Presumably this is to promote tourism there. Indeed, if the Dutch wish to attract visits from tedious left-wing hairsplitters with all the social skills that passionate and frequent online argumentation implies, they've made a sound investment. Realistically, Holland.com just squandered a great deal of money for no discernible return whatsoever, and the crowd it is flying Amsterdam-bound can be counted upon to admiringly highlight the very facets of the Netherlands polity -- killing young people, killing old people, daring and creepy social experimentation -- that will assuredly ward off most American families seeking European holidays. One can only wonder at the rationalization that spurred Holland.com to this frittering-away of euros: Market research showing valuable blog-audience tourism going elsewhere -- say, to places blogs talk about more often, like Iraq? A graying mid-level manager wishing to get in on this interweb thing? A low-level manager -- or Henry Copeland of BlogAds -- taking advantage of his superiors' ignorance?
It seems that the answer may be a combination of all three: the junket is the brainchild of Amsterdam Tourism Board Internet manager Sebastian Paauw, who has decided -- based upon no apparent public data -- that it's time to treat bloggers to the amenities once reserved for actual journalists and travel writers. Paauw isn't operating in a vacuum: I've written before on the emerging phenomenon of moneyed interests that co-opt bloggers. They fall into three basic categories: private-sector entities that wish to generate positive press; public-sector entities that wish to do the same; and non-profit, non-governmental entities that wish for positive press if not for themselves, then for their causes.
Of the private-sector entities I have written all that I wish to write: it is enough to note that if you see a blog praising Wal-Mart, you would do well to ask why. This phenomenon is nascent, and it remains to be seen if it will expand. Until an effective boycott of a product is organized online, this strikes me as doubtful. The universe of products susceptible to meaningful help or harm from an engaged online community is limited mostly to the gaming industry; when that expands to common cheeses or AA batteries, then the for-profit sector will engage bloggers with abandon.
Non-profit, non-governmental entities seeking positive coverage from bloggers are even more rare than their private sector counterparts. As it happens, I was fortunate to be included on one of the few blogger-specific endeavors from this corner when I was given a ticket to go see Live 8 in Scotland this past summer. You can read all my posts on the experience here. We will shortly visit the question of whether I should have taken the free travel and lodging from the event organizers -- and whether that affected my writing. (It should be noted that my blogging colleague on that trip, John Aravosis, is also on the Netherlands junket.)
Finally, and most important, we come to the public-sector entities that wish to engage with blogs. They include government agencies (the Netherlands tourism bureaucracy, natch), political parties, and individual politicians. The utility here is obvious: an engaged online community can bring a massive amount of noise to bear on a topic -- as the Washington Post has found to its regret -- and it can provide substantive money besides. Neither Ginny Schrader nor Paul Hackett would have gotten the money to run (and lose) without the numberless online coming to their aid; and the 2004 George W. Bush campaign was able to raise millions online for what was assuredly a massive proportionate return on investment. Thus politicians rush to court the bloggers and their followers: not for nothing did John Kerry make sure to announce his farcical filibuster of Alito at Daily Kos. It's not just the major websites who get this attention -- by way of full disclosure, at NoEndButVictory.com, a small pro-Iraq war site I founded several weeks back, you can see in the list of Contributing Editors the five Congressmen who have posted at the site thus far. Political blogging is hot, and few persons in power -- or their press secretaries -- want to be left out of it.
There are right and wrong ways to handle a website relationship with these public-sector entities. DailyKos.com and RedState.com, to name the two prominent community sites at each side of the partisan spectrum, appear to have arrived at a respectable model whereby politicians post as guest editors or diarists. In this, the politicians come to the online community as participants, or even supplicants, and are exposed to the full feedback of that community. Whatever the machinations on the back end, this has at least the appearance of propriety and openness.
Set against this model is the example of Matt Margolis. The founder of BlogsForBush and GOPBloggers is indefatigable in his efforts to promote and praise the Administration of George W. Bush. When not posting howlers about the fiscal rectitude of the GOP or touting the superiority of Republican partying, he can be found running interference for the odious Roy Blunt, or otherwise prostituting himself for the greater good of the Party. Margolis is one of many -- men for whom brushes with power are as enticing as Twinkies to fat kids -- and so we should not be too hard on him, nor assume that he's a uniquely fallen example of the power of blogging to corrupt and co-opt. (Who can forget David Adesnik's poignant joy when the blog-minders at the RNC threw a former Miss America at him?) He and far too many like him do their yeoman's work for free, and so it's no wonder that the institutions of power seek them out and use them with deserved ruthlessness.
Thus we come full circle to the Netherlands 25. Are they among the fallen of the Margolis model? Almost certainly not. Are they a good investment for Holland.com? Again, almost certainly not -- no more than I was a good investment for Live 8. (And in fairness, Aravosis himself was no Live 8 shill either.) Are they to be classed among the ranks of those blogging for business without public disclosure? No -- to Holland.com's credit, their sponsorship is open and apparent. This is being handled about as well as it might be, with the sole exception that the sponsor is assuredly wasting its money. But so what? If they didn't squander it, Dutch taxpayers surely would.
Keep in mind that "as well as it might be" is not the same as well. Bloggers as a group have yet to fully acknowledge the responsibility that comes with their power. And because that responsibility would entail tedious ethical and process demands, the pathetic phenomenon emerges of individual bloggers at once boasting of their import and denying it. Glenn Reynolds, who bears perhaps the most responsibility for popularizing blogging, thus issues an endorsement of a candidate for House Majority Leader while denying that he can issue endorsements. And Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos.com, denies that he's a leader of any sort despite having promised a lead an effort to annihilate the DLC -- and despite leading the single most active online community of all time. (You can download the audio of my exchange with him on this subject on KQED here.) Both of them are symptomatic of the larger problem of bloggers as a whole who wish to function as power brokers and major media, while assiduously avoiding any of the constraints of being power brokers and major media. It is a hypocrisy that cannot long endure -- or if it does, it will consume the whole of public discourse.
I don't look down on the Netherlands 25. I would have taken the trip too -- and still would -- but then, my wife and I were contemplating an Amsterdam trip in 2006 in any case. We have a soft spot for erstwhile Protestant strongholds. More to the point, Spot-On.com isn't a blog, but an online publication with an actual editor and investors who will insist upon the same level of transparency and ethics that you can expect out of "real" journalism: which means that the acceptance of these freebies comes with disclosure and oversight -- and a reflexive desire to not appear bought. It's tempting to state that until blogs at large get with that level of professionalism, they'll forever be relegated to the second tier of media. But that's not true: they're already moving into the first tier. The pity is that as they eschew the former demands of that tier, the standards of discourse sag accordingly. Blogging was once supposed to bring an elevated level of truthfulness, transparency, communication and comity to the public square. Four years on, we know it has done none of those things. If, by contrast, its main effect is to tear down former standards of rectitude, what might be farce at first glance would in the end be tragedy.
For those who have been following my Edinburgh diaries, you can see all the photographs here. Be warned, there are many, and I won't claim they're all good.
But the perspective that really matters here is the African one: so do read the postings of African journalists at the G8.
|
|
Genuflecting before Youssou N'Dour.
|
I must admit I almost did not go to the Live 8 finale this evening. Four days of relentless propagandizing made the prospect of tens of thousands packed into Murrayfield Stadium and reciting the same shibboleths -- debtreliefandAfricaandpovertyand -- seem like so much torture. I thought about not going when I ate lunch on the walls of Edinburgh Castle. I thought about not going when I walked through the rain on winding, quaint Victoria Street. I though about not going when I skipped the morning press events. I thought about not going when I sat in the media center and stared at anarchists being chased by Lothian and Borders Police across the North Bridge. I thought about it when I looked at the lovely wet cobblestones of the Old City and contemplated an evening stroll, secure in the knowledge that by dusk all the troublemakers would be risking arrest at Gleneagles or crammed into Murrayfield Stadium.
Our media center, that perennial ghetto of everyone with a press pass at big events, was at the least situated at the rather nice Balmoral Hotel. Folding-tables, cramped quarters and wifi were compensated-for with delightful exterior architecture and well-appointed interiors. The big event of the day at the Balmoral was the visit of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, who, under the auspices of the German Marshall Fund, was present to lecture on the bank's perspective on African debt. The slightly less big event was the rumored presence of Claudia Schiffer in the hotel. I RSVPed for Wolfowitz and then skipped his speech and subsequent reception. ("Hey, sir, I blogged for your war.") It was a dry run for ditching Live 8 later in the evening, I told myself, even as I knew that I certainly would not have skipped, say, Claudia Schiffer on African debt.
Continue reading "The Finale" »
"The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men, and their story is not graven on stone over their clay, but abides everywhere without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives."
The quote is Thucydides', "graven on stone" above the memorial to the 21st Royal Scots Fusiliers at the Scottish National War Memorial within the ancient walls of Edinburgh Castle. Even as we see this week in Scotland the forces of anarchy, rejection and nihilism, we are also called to remember those who sacrificed their all to preserve the societies which, among their myriad freedoms, allow these luxuries of foolish rebellion.
|
|
William Wallace, detail from St Margaret's Chapel.
|
They also allow the luxuries of charity and expansive concern. Which is, of course, what brings us here, and what makes Live 8 possible. Tonight is the big concert in Murrayfield Stadium. The weather for it could not be more dreary: after two days of cool, dry air, the British Isles have returned to their natural state of sodden grays undergirded by brilliant greens. Looking out from the castle walls at midday, the Firth of Forth stretched in the distance as a hazy azure arm resting on the cool, wet hills. Below, the sounds of drumming and shrieking wafted from the streets of the commercial district.
What sounded like a military tattoo was in fact a re-gathering of the crazies from two days past. But this was not their day: some were off to Gleneagles, causing a ruckus at their heart of darkness; and some were simply reluctant to get wet. Revolution is one thing, friend, but it's raining.
The question now is whether the concertgoers will feel the same. Feeding the hungry, pal, that's great, but it's soggy out. The organizers are fretful, but I cannot work up much concern over it. As I sit here in the allotted media center, I look out the window to the great castle towering above. In spite of rain and wind, in spite of earth and hell, the Union Jack is flying, and it lets me know that the real work is already done.
|
|
You've got passports, right?
|
"We always like to talk about how only ten percent of Americans have passports," said Bob Geldof, "And you.....you
do have passports!" The crowd gathered in the holding area at Heathrow laughed. I laughed. It was the funniest thing Geldof had said in, well, minutes, since he shouted obscenities at a door alarm that kept interrupting his impromptu remarks. He went on to talk about how Americans were really okay, how they
care, and how the Americans got a bad rap quite unfairly. It was kind and generous in the same manner that a Mississippian c.1920 publicly affirming the generally okay nature of the average Negro was kind and generous: a mild rebuke to a popular bigotry before the very objects of that bigotry. If you've been to Europe lately, to say nothing of the Middle East, you already know -- anti-Americanism is in. While there are some few who have some rational basis for it, for the most part it is pervasive, groundless, ugly and raw.
This presents a peculiar problem to men such as Geldof, who despite his occasional lapses in broader judgment is the sort of person who wants to get along for the sake of his larger goal. He is, moreover, not a particularly good hater. The word has long since gone out amongst the Live 8 community that bashing the Administration or the United States will be met harshly by Sir Bob himself. This is unquestionably problematic for many, if not most, within that milieu, who regard the Administration and/or the United States as the root cause of the problems they have flown all the way from Berkeley to protest. So they voice their dislike of their own nation and government sotto voce, in casual conversation and away from on-the-record or recorded remarks. It is a remarkable phenomenon: having internalized the reflexive, degrading criticism of themselves and theirs (they are, you see, representatives of an uncultured, uncaring, uniquely unknowing people), they seek not to rebut it, but to acknowledge its truth, apologize and atone. Rebutting it would be all to easy: they are themselves the counterexamples. But the curious virus of self-hate is pernicious because it is effective, and the American volunteers of Live 8 are not immune.
Continue reading "What So Proudly We Hailed." »
|
|
Welcome to Edinburgh! Don't make me angry.
|
The first signs of trouble came as I strolled north toward the Old City of Edinburgh. Interspersed amongst the working Scots of the town were out-of-place youth, dirty, disheveled, and profane; and almost all dressed in black. They ranged in apparent age from their mid-teens, with the girls still sporting baby fat, and the boys striving mightily to grow thin beards; to their mid-30s, at which point they were rangy, ragged, and almost uniformly male. Many carried banners, but none carried signs. They were therefore cryptic figures, intelligible to those not of their kind only as was the rebel without a cause:
"What are you rebelling against?"
"Whaddaya got?"
It's a deeply appealing motto to the juvenile, the witless, and the uninformed: but as maturity and the grim logic of consequences set in, its appeal tends to fade. Reject capitalism? Hate wage slavery? Detest the corporate world? Good luck at the collective, comrade, and sorry your girl left you for the fellow with the Prius. (As mentioned, the more middle-aged didn't appear to have so many women in tow.) Looks like the good life and social conscience can mix, so long as you're willing to sell out just a little. And when selling out is defined as working, obeying local laws, and washing up from time to time, it's damned hard not to.
But the true believers exist, and they are capable of organizing themselves. A counterintuitive thing, one would think, but the anarchist/hard left capacity for assembling at set times and doing set things is a well-proven one. Just like libertarians availing themselves of public services, the contraindicating intersection of reality and ideology is often employed, but never acknowledged. As at Seattle, DC, and Genoa, so too Edinburgh: the city is overrun in a well-planned influx from across the developed, Western, wealthy world to protest developed, Western, wealthy things.
Continue reading "Perhaps They'll Sing In Tune After the Revolution!" »
The Nigerian writer
Chinua Achebe once said, "People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them."
These days, one doesn't have to go to Africa. All that's necessary is to witness the committed talk about Africa. This Sunday afternoon, the place to do that was the Virgin Atlantic lounge at JFK International Airport.
Our allotted contingent of Live 8 celebrity personages gave their preflight press conference before decamping to the strenuous wilds of, well, Edinburgh and they were a fired-up group indeed. Rebel billionaire Richard Branson led off the event with an exhortation to "companies around the world to put aside some of their wealth," to build infrastructure for Africa."
In his next breath he got down to business. "I'm very pleased that we just set up Virgin Nigeria." It's going to fly many places and make a great deal of money. And that's precisely what Africa needs: capitalism, local wealth generation, employment, and lots of it. But Branson's speech contains a kind of cognitive dissonance: It conflates profit with charity and was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to rhetorical excess. Profit-making is synonymous with investment, itself synonymous with compassionate action for Africa which is so much for the better because it makes everyone look good.
Branson once said, "Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won't make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa." A scene from The Aviator comes to mind: Howard Hughes dining with Kate Hepburn's family, one of whom opines that money's not all that important to them; Hughes replies, "That's because you have it." To the non-rebellious non-billionaires among us, ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines can certainly make people enjoy life a great deal more. But that's a small point.
Branson, waxing on the myriad troubles of Africa on Sunday at JFK, moved on to its horrific burden of disease: "You have diseases like malaria which shouldn't even exist....Getting a mosquito net over everybody is not cheap." It certainly is not cheap. On the other hand, it is not terrifically expensive (although insecticide treatments can drive up the price). But more to the point, there are already local industries which turn the stuff out in ample quantity. Branson's implied message that non-Africans must step up to the plate and provide in these cases can, in practice, actually harm African entrepreneurs through economic dislocation. Furthermore, what nets are available are often enough sorely abused. As I said Saturday,Africans are people, and do as they will. To identify a problem of theirs and focus upon a solution predicated upon our action is fundamentally to forget this.
Continue reading "Because You Think Poor is Cool" »
The media circus surrounding Bob Geldof's Live 8 events today is intense, and indeed it is a notable series of concerts. Who doesn't want to see Pink Floyd reunite? Who can resist the spectacle of Bono goading the long-since complacent Paul McCartney -- you may know him as the front man of Wings -- into rocking out? Who doesn't relish the opportunity to be sermonized to by those moral beacons Will Smith, Bjork, and the tedious nonentities of Coldplay? No question, the 2 July concerts, hastily conceived and massively hyped, are remarkable; and the 6 July grand finale in Edinburgh promises to be nothing short of stupendous.
The premise of Live 8 -- that "doubling aid, fully cancelling debt, and delivering trade justice" for Africa is not merely a good, but essential thing -- has, by contrast, gone almost completely unexamined. This is, in part, because it seems like a self-evident proposition; and it is, in part, because to delve too deeply into the rectitude of the participants is seen as uncharitable and cynical. Particularly when, scalpers notwithstanding, most who enjoy these events will do so for free, it seems ungracious to critique them or its organizers overmuch. But as in all cases when hectoring figures -- be they Geldof, George W. Bush, or a televangelist -- demand action in the name of your conscience, some small examination is in order.
Continue reading "Do They Know It's Malawi Independence Day?" »
