Media

One week ago today there was a winter storm that was supposed to cover Asheville in a few inches of snow and ice. While in the end all we got was a dusting, and the worst of the storm missed the city, many people were spooked enough to close most schools, libraries and small businesses.

To the city's credit - the bus service remained open and ran on schedule the entire day. Otherwise, the working poor would have been stuck on the streets after their employers closed closed shop after 11am.

Keep in mind that even if the brunt of the storm had hit us, it would have only been four or five inches. Enough to close roads in the suburbs, perhaps; but hardly a regional catastrophe. After all, we are in the mountains - it's not like snow is an anomaly here.

As far as I can tell, the difference between those who took the ice in stride, and those who reacted as if Godzilla were approaching the city - was the source of information they were getting about the storm-front.

Case in point: My co-workers who did not have cable TV showed up at the office on-time. Those who did have have cable were either late or stayed home altogether.

Obviously, one blogger's observations of his office's attendance are hardly scientific - but it seems to fit an overall observation about heavy television viewers: They are easily spooked.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: television - snow - cable tv - Eek! Snow is coming! Be afraid! Ooga Booga!

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The cheapest way to attract eyeballs to a blog is to mention a celebrity. Whenever I do so on this site, for months afterwards people find their way here looking for every scrap of info about their favorite star.

Frankly - it's kind of creepy to realize there are people out there with nothing else to do but find out what kind of hair-gel Courteney Cox uses. (And I swear to god, a month from now I will get at least a dozen visitors via Google for that last sentence.)

The problem with this strategy is that these kinds of hits are like junk-food: It tastes good in the short term, but in the long run it doesn't do anything for your body. Celebrity-hounds never leave comments, link to your blog, add anything interesting to the conversation or come back later for a visit.

This trap is not limited to blogs, other kinds of media use this cheap trick to boost their ratings when talent fails them. The most recent example is Sean Hannity's (now-former) feature on his show "Enemy of the State".

The Enemy of the State feature has already been covered elsewhere on the blogosphere, all I have to add is that we are looking at here is a sign of abject desperation on the part of Hannity.

American conservatives are, ostensibly, against the more blatant habits of dictatorships. If you aired a show that, say, declared people an enemy of the state - they would be appalled.

To be sure, conservatives have always been more authoritarian than their liberal brothers - but for the most part, they still get goose-bumps when reading Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

Hannity has to know this. Despite what you might think of his politics, he's a showman not an idiot.

The creation of an "Enemy of the State" award is his admission that real conservatives don't actually watch the show anymore. To boost ratings due to the show's lack of relevance, Hannity is forced to resort to mentioning celebrities in the crassest, most inflammatory way possible. 

In other words, Hannity has:

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Hannity - Enemy of the State - Jump the Shark - paleo conservative - Eisenhower rolls in his grave.

Note: In case you don't understand what the last image means, visit Wikipedia's entry for "Jump the Shark".

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A few months ago I was talking with a reporter who works for the local newspaper, the Asheville Citizen-Times, (AC-T) which happens to be a subsidiary of Gannet Corp.

She mentioned that the CEO of Gannet, Craig Dubow, had announced that they are re-structuring so that there will be no more News Room - instead it will be replaced with an "Information Center".

When I heard this, I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. (Gratuitous Star Wars reference.)

To explain the significance of killing the News Room to those who've never worked in journalism: A newspaper's News Room is usually organized into different areas of expertise such as metro, lifestyle, labor or sports. Gannett-owned papers have broken with this tradition by re-shuffling employees into one of six desks: digital, public service, community conversation, local, custom content, data, and multimedia.

These fancy names represent a shift away from investigation and reporting - and refocus newspapers on distributing content across multiple platforms beyond print; such as video and the internet.

Gannett's papers will also stop depending on individual journalists; instead, reporters will be encouraged to build web-based social networks to find, proofread and write stories. This is called "Crowdsourcing", and from a corporation's point-of-view it's the perfect solution to cut costs. Why pay writers a living wage when others will do it for free?

Here is a quick cartoon to illustrate the advantages of an Information Center over a News Room:

With all due respect to open-source activists and Crowdsourcing enthusiasts - there are three major problems with the "Information Center" model for a corporate news source like Gannett.

1) The "free content" niche is already filled by bloggers, specialty forums and wikis such as Pharyngula, DailyKos and Wikipedia. People are motivated to donate their time and energy to these sites because they love the subject matter and want to give back to the community.

These kinds of people are not going to be motivated to put much effort into their local paper knowing that they are part of a media conglomerate's business-plan.

2) The "Information Center" breaks the separation of journalism and advertising, since individuals most motivated to give free content away to a private corporation with an audiance are public relations flacks and advertising firms.

In the long run, this fact is going to kill any credibility or generosity that the Information Center creates.

3) Web communities are based on trust, reciprocity and mutual respect. Gannett does not give anything they can't control or squeeze a dime out of. For example, the AC-T locks their archives unless you pay a fee, they ask for demographic information to read regular articles, people can't comment on their community blogs without heavy moderation and the registration process to post on the forums takes a ridiculously long time.

Speaking as a relatively successful blogger, if I treated my readers like this, I'd be lucky to get more than a dozen readers a day. And yet, executives at Gannett expect the web-based community to just hand over content without any reciprocity.

Yeah, riiiight.

Another problem with this move is that the CEO of Gannett just told all it's best writers: "We want to phase you out and replace you with volunteer website moderators and editors."

Not only has this got to be a huge blow to employee morale, but the "Information Center" removes the primary reason anyone would want to read a Gannett-owned news source: Well-written journalism.

If newspaper's reader-base has been diminishing of late, it's because people are starting to understand that their local papers have become, for the most part, regurgitated content piped in from out of town. Media conglomerates like Gannett aren't adding anything new to the information that people can't get from elsewhere.

And that's why people are going elsewhere for news and information. Killing the News Room isn't going to change that trend.

Here's my suggestion to Gannett: Good journalism will never go obsolete and has a long history of profitability when done properly. If you want to make money, encourage reporters to cover issues that will make your advertisers wince but is important to the community: Stuff like labor issues, the effects of sprawl and Wal-mart, the burden of credit-card debt or the plight of the homeless.

Don't just run a one-time special on these subjects - cover them constantly. Be a champion for the average citizen, not just an extension of the advertising department.

Follow the #1 rule of blogging: Provide quality, relevant content on a consistent basis. You don't need an "Information Center" to distribute across media platforms, that will be done with or without your help - and whether you like it or not.

A local paper's first priority should be to solid journalism - the audience, and money, will follow.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Gannett - News Room - Information Center - Corporate Speak - journalism - reporting - blogging - media - wiki - Crowdsourcing

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The editorial staff of Time Magazine seems to disdain half-assery.

On some level, you've got to admire any institution or individual that decides if they want something - GO ALL THE WAY!

If you want to be a saint, grow a halo. If you want to be obnoxious, install huge base speakers in your car. And if you want to pander to readers with a puff-piece, then make YOU the "Person of the Year for 2006".

Don't be fooled. What they really mean by "You" is "people who are web-savvy, hip and upwardly mobile." Especially if "You" use YouTube.

Oh please.

Yes, information age technology and internet social networking has come a long way, but this is the most blatant attempt to pander to an advertising demographic I've ever seen.

Are we to believe that the shlub who posts video of his cat playing with yarn is on the same level of achievement as former People of the Year like Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1941), Charles De Gaulle (1958) or Ronald Reagan (1983)?

Are we to believe that Richard Dawkins and Donald Rumsfeld had less influence on public opinion in 2006 than the virtual society of Second Life?

No disrespect to cat bloggers and MMORPG players - but no. Not by a long shot.

I'm speaking as a fan and admirer of Time Magazine. My parents have been subscribers since they moved to the states from Argentina; my first exposure to political journalism was from those weekly pages.

So it breaks my heart to watch Time use their most well-known yearly feature to highlight, and suck up to, a social demographic rather than do investigative reporting on an individual who has dedicated h/er life to a particular cause.

Bloggers, OpenSource pioneers, social networking stars and digital artists were important in 2006 - and they did have a profound effect on popular culture. No doubt in the coming years their influence will continue to grow as high-speed internet access deepens across America.

I'm looking forward to the day when the Person of the Year will be a blogger or member of the internet community.

However, this social technology is so new that there is no way to determine if it's a trend or a fad. This week's "You" theme is as much of an overkill as if Time Magazine had declared Disco the "Person of the Year" in 1975.

"You" should have been a regular issue of the magazine, not the yearly highlight.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Time Magazine - Person of the Year - Pandering - 2006

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The following skits were made by local activists to lampoon, and highlight, some of the short comings of our local congressman: Charles Taylor.

I'm showcasing this not so much to make fun of Taylor, although admittedly doing so does bring me some joy, but to inspire activists across the political spectrum about what is now possible.

Enjoy the video below for a few minutes, then we'll continue the conversation. BTW: I'm the dancer and the lion in the 2nd and 3rd skits. :)

The citizens that headed this project didn't wait around and complain that the corporate media prevents them from getting their message across... but instead created their own commercials.

These videos were created with a budget of zero dollars and zero cents.

The cameras were borrowed, the actors were free, the editor learned how to use the software on his laptop as he went along, and, most of the dialog is ad-libbed. (For example: The whole lion-reporter exchange was off-the-cuff.)

None of us had any formal experience with web-casting before.

The lesson here to activists is that you now have the tools at hand to go out and do what you think needs to be done. If you are frustrated that the leadership is not getting your message to the people... be the leader.

You can check out the whole "WCNN" series at YouTube here:

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: political ads - activism - YouTube - grass roots - media

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Hi everyone. Paul is having internet connectivity problems and he asked me to do a guest blogging stint until he has a reliable net connection again. My name is Leo Lincourt and I run the freethinkers' and skeptics' group blogsite Neural Gourmet where I post under the pseudonym tng. I also ride herd over the blogosphere's only liberal blog carnival Carnival of the Liberals. For long time Brainshrub readers I'm probably not at all what you're used to, but hopefully I won't totally scare off Paul's readership.

The medium, or rather the network in this case, was the message Wednesday when Air America Radio summarily fired firebrand talk show host Mike Malloy without explanation. Liberal and progressive sites went wild when the following terse message appeared on Malloy's site:

The decision was a curious one. Malloy was only one of two radio professionals (WJNO Florida powerhouse Randi Rhodes was the other) hired by the fledgling Air America Radio in its' first year of operation, and in my humble opinion, the most entertaining of AAR's assortment of hosts. Indeed, Malloy's ability to accurately reflect the anger of liberals and progressives at the Bush misadministration often gave the listener the impression that they were not so much listening to a political talk show as participating in group therapy. And for this Malloy's fans were both legion and rabid.

So it was no surprise that within minutes after learning of Malloy's dismissal his fans had flooded AAR phonelines with calls of outrage, organized petitions, threatened boycots, and spawned countless threads on liberal discussion forum Democratic Underground among others. To say that hyperbole was involved would be an understatement. Reading through some of the comments at DU, and Malloy's own forum puts one in mind of the hysteria accompanying the breakup of the Beatles. So why would AAR let one of their most popular hosts go?

You know, and this is where I part company with a broad swath of my fellow liberals and progressives, I don't think it matters. AAR is after all a radio network, and a business. In businesses all decisions are ultimately financial ones, even in a business like Air America that is famous for mishandling its' finances. The radio business is also a notoriously gossipy one and ultimately the truth will out.

In the meantime what does concern me are some of the reactions to Malloy's dismissal, which are as fraught with conspiracy theories as Malloy's shows were. While details vary the concensus narrative is that AAR was brought under pressure by the government to fire Malloy who had inconveniently gotten too close to the truth. Much of the controversy has centered around other popular, but low-ratings producing, hosts that AAR has let go with speculation that the Republicans are trying to kill AAR one host at a time.

Others have called for a campaign to raise money to help Malloy, and his producer/wife Kathy Bay, feed their young child until Malloy finds work elsewhere in the industry. This would be a noble sentiment if not for the fact that Malloy was hardly working for minimum wage, and could have been getting much more than that if one commenter on Air America Radio founder Sheldon Drobny's blog can be trusted.

And much of the anger has focused on Air America Radio itself where conspiracists theorize that it has been taken over by the pro-business, centrist Democratic Leadership Council which seeks to tame AAR so as to avoid embarrassment from far left talk show hosts heading into election season.

But above all else lefties are mourning what they see as the final nail being driven into the coffin of their beloved radio broadcasting network.

Amidst all of this I find myself disgusted. Disgusted at not just the vile and twisted conspiracy theories and their torturous logic but also at the defeatism being flaunted and paraded, nurtured even.

Might I suggest, and on this you may vehemently disagree, that while AAR's missteps are unfortunate it's just a business for crying out loud and not the freaking holy liberal saviour. Mike Malloy's firing doesn't trumpet liberal media armageddon. Likely it doesn't even sound the death knell of Mike Malloy's broadcasting career. Further still, left or center, love it or hate it, Air America Radio serves an important function as the most mature, and most recognized of all the alternative broadcast sources. To channel this much anger AAR's way while hoping for its' demise is to cut your progressive noses off.

You don't like AAR and the way it runs its' business? Fine! Good! Frankly, neither do I. Now stop your yammerin' and go do something about it -- and I don't mean sign another online petition. Be the media!

At no point in history have people had so much power to create and disseminate their own message. There's no need to just sit passively by when there are so many ways you can contribute your talents. Start a blog, or podcast. Get involved with local cable access, community run radio, or even your nearby college radio and television stations. Now, you can argue that you're never going to have the reach of the mass media giants. So what? You're never going to reach the yokels who prefer to be spoonfed their information from Fox News anyway. You're not missing anything.

There are millions of people out there you can reach though. They're the ones who are actively seeking out information and with the tools the web puts at both your and their disposal it's easier than ever for you to find each other. Still, you don't need to affect millions of people. All it takes is to change the mind of just one or two people who might in turn change the mind of one or two people more each. And if those one or two people happen to live in your community and that results in the simplest of changes that improves life in your community, even if that simple change is something as mundane as getting a stoplight at a busy, dangerous interesection where there was never one before then you've achieved something. If enough people take the media into their own hands it won't be long before the mainstream media is no longer the mainstream.

Finally, if you don't think you have the talent, time or energy it takes to do it yourself then financially support someone who does. A couple of dollars a month multiplied by just 1,000 readers, listeners or viewers can make a big difference in affording your favorite liberal/progressive independent media creator the ability to continue to do the work that the mainstream media isn't doing.

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Below is a screen shot I took of MSNBC's website this morning.  (Found via Reddit.) Are they even trying anymore?  Or perhaps we should ask: Is Mr. Quintanilla of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis trying anymore? 

I suppose it's easy to chuckle a bit at someones expense; but honestly, this one of the best articles from a corporate-media source that I've read in a very long time.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: MSNBC - funny mistake

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Last week Julie Ball, a reporter for the Asheville Citizen-Times, (AC-T) interviewed me and a few other local bloggers for a story about the role of blogging and the first Amendment.

Julie seemed a bit concerned that since bloggers are not accountable to an editor, we would abuse constitutional protections and unfairly attack neighbors.

I told her that dedicated bloggers take credibility seriously and the blogosphere is a self-regulating system. While it's perfectly acceptable to have a point of view, nothing harms credibility more than publishing information that can't be backed up. If you start spreading rumors about a neighbor, he can easily start his own blog and fight back. Besides, if a blogger writes something particularly libelous there is a legal remedy: A lawsuit.

Citizen bloggers are similar to the PR departments of big corporations. The difference is that instead of being motivated by money, bloggers are motivated by what they are passionate about.

Blogs will not make traditional reporters obsolete anymore than cameras made artists unnecessary. The amount of influence blogging will play in the distribution of information has yet to be determined, but formal reporters and newsrooms aren't going anywhere. The role of the mainstream media in the face of this new medium, is to help citizens put all this information into context, while simultaneously admitting their own biases.

Julie Ball also interviewed Anne Fitten of Edgy Mama and Gordon of Scrutiny Hooligans. It was a good article and I am honored that she chose to mention this blog in it.

At this point, you might wonder why I am not linking to the Asheville Citizen-Times story. The answer: I can't. (Warning: Tangent ahead.)

Oh, I suppose I could ... but the AC-T archives all their stories after a few days. They want readers to register and pay for content, as if they were still the primary source of information about Asheville. If I created a link here, it would soon become obsolete.

This is one of the reasons why bloggers are such a danger to corporate control of the media. A month from now, if someone Googles: "Asheville Bloggers 1st Amendment" this site will be providing the content in advance of the local newspaper.

The AC-T bills itself as: "Voice of the Mountains." However, because Gannet, the corporation that owns the paper, is so concerned about squeezing every dime from their readers - Brainshrub.com will be the voice people hear.

If that isn't an illustration about the role that blogs have over mainstream corporate media - I don't know what is.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Asheville - Bloggers - 1st Amendment - Asheville Citizen Times - blogging - reporting - Brainshrub - role of bloggers - local paper

Related article:

• Mandatory registration to view content hurts online publications.

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Yesterday much of the mainstream media reported that most of the missing workers caught in Monday's mining accident in Tallmansville, West Virginia were found alive. By the time the news was shown to be false, friends and families of the miners were rejoicing in the streets... only to have their hopes and prayers cruelly dashed.

Mistakes happen, and I suppose there will be some collective hand-wringing over this incident among some media pundits.

What I found interesting about the reporting of the rumor, is that is gave us a brief glimpse into how the media contextualizes what images are supposed to mean.

Observe the headlines below that I collected from the service Newseum. Notice how the picture is the same, but meaning changes depending on the emotion the paper expects you to feel.

In some cases, the captions corrected the assumptions made about the pictures, but the huge headlines were what set the mental frame.

Tears of joy turn into sobs of grief with a few keystrokes of an editors keyboard.

Before: Headlines when the the families thought their loved-ones were safe. (Yay, they're alive!)

After: Headlines after the good news was shown to be false. (Oh no, they're dead.)

The above examples are just a tiny fraction of the many papers who used the same image. I couldn't list them all, but for the public record I've decided to host a handful of them.

The print media rushed to scoop each other and gave the public bad information. That's nothing to be happy about, but this isn't the first time it's happened, and it won't be the last.

The lesson here, from a media-citizen standpoint, is that we have to treat all information that we get from the news with a certain amount of healthy skepticism.

Read counterpoint here.

Summary: The aftermath of the mining accident gave us a glimpse into how the media contextualizes the images we see.

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