Politically speaking, last week was one for the history books. A black man with a funny name was voted to the highest office in the land for the second time, proving 2008 was no fluke.
And the right wing’s chief screw tightener lost his shit during a live “news” broadcast.
In case you missed it, Fox News called Ohio, and thus the election for The President. Karl Rove said not so fast, just like he did in 2000 for Bush. Except this time, he was way off, and the Fox anchors were forced to say so. But before they were willing to put this highly paid mouthpiece in his place, the producers asked Megyn Kelly to walk back to the war room, where the real data crunchers were pouring over the results.
Just the suggestion from Rove that Fox might be in error, led to a five minute fact-finding mission aired live on national TV. Rove had power, but he lost it on Tuesday. Even his right wing friends are turning on him. Brent Bozell, president of For America, said, “If I had 1/100th of Karl Rove’s money, I would have been more productive than he was.”
New York Times op-ed writer, Frank Bruni, reflects on the Rovian meltdown:
Of course arrogance, or at least self-assurance, is a consultant’s stock in trade. That’s what we buy when we buy advice: not just the content of it but the authority, even the grandiloquence, with which it’s delivered. We exchange the anxiety of autonomy for the comfort of following orders. And Rove gives great orders, rife with arcane historical references and reams of data.
Historically, the need for bluster and misdirection may have been there. But thankfully, the times they are a changin’. Rove’s game is from another time. Twelve and 8 years may seem like just a moment ago, but in terms of the digital dynamic and its impact on communications as a whole, and thus politics, it was eons ago.
Let’s marvel for a minute at what communications technology is doing to our culture. The Web is deeply democratic and thus totally revolutionary. People are empowered by the information they take in and share, and an empowered electorate is a massive disruption for old time pols and their advisors. As Romney learned in Ohio this fall, we live in a nation of fact-checkers now, and that makes it real tough to lie and get away with it.
It’s political season again and the airwaves are full of polluted words. Presidential campaigning is a travesty, an official lie. And mainstream media is a diversion, at best. It’s enough to drive a person to drink. Thankfully, there are voices crying in the wilderness. Voices like Arun Gupta’s.
Gupta, a journalist and activist, spoke in Seattle, WA on August 23, 2012. The transcript of his talk, plus the audio file are available for purchase from AlternativeRadio.org. I plopped down my $3 to download the transcript after hearing a portion of Gupta’s talk on KBOO Community Radio, earlier this week.
As a radical independent, I enjoy hearing people eloquently make a case against the corporate, two party Babylon system. Gupta does it well. Let’s listen in…
The Democrats are a firmly right-wing party while the Republicans are a fanatical right-wing party. What we’ve had over the last 30 years or so is the Democrats take the right-wing radicalism and turn it into bipartisan consensus. So the next iteration of the right becomes more and more extreme. We do know, if the right does get into power, if Romney is elected, they will nominate extreme Supreme Court justices, they will viciously attack organized labor beyond what the Obama administration is doing, and they will, of course, viciously attack reproductive rights and access to birth control. So there is an argument to be made, yes, you should just go in the voting booth. But on a whole host of other issues it’s difficult to say who is going to be worse.
Both parties are going to pursue austerity policies on Social Security and Medicare, neither party will address global warming, or, in fact, they will address it—they will make it worse. It’s “Drill, baby, drill.” Those have been Obama’s policies for the last four years. The wars will continue, the Islamophobia will continue, the targeted assassinations will continue, the police and prison industrial complex will continue, the assault on civil liberties, spying on Americans, and on and on and on. We know that it really doesn’t make a difference, because liberals do not provide any sort of oppositional force when the Democrats are in power.
Gupta admits there is “an argument to be made” for voting for the least offensive of the two corporate candidates. It’s an argument I am working over in my head, just in time for our Oregon ballots to arrive via snail mail. I have a history of voting for third party candidates for President, because I prefer to vote my heart. That’s my preference and my right, misguided as it sometimes seems. My problem this fall is I feel as disillusioned with “making a statement” when I vote — which is what voting third party largely is — as I do with voting for a Democrat. (more…)
Newspaper readers don’t have the kind of relationship with newspaper reporters that they do with famous columnists, authors or the talking heads on TV. As far as readers are concerned, newspaper reporters are pretty much anonymous. So what’s the big deal, if some of the nation’s best newspapers including The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Houston Chronicle and The San Francisco Chronicle are running articles written by offshore “reporters” and publishing them with a fake byline?
I guess it depends on your point of view. It’s clearly a big deal for journalists. One of the best in the business, David Carr of The Times, notes, “while the rest of us were burning hot dogs on the grill last week, the newspaper industry seemed to be lighting itself on fire.”
Clearly one of the brightest coals in that fire, is the This American Life piece on Journatic, a content farm owned in part by the Tribune Company.
The Journatic employee, Ryan Smith, who spoke to This American Life, describes how he pretended to be from the Houston Chronicle when speaking to a source in Texas for a story. He also describes how much of the copy he was tasked with editing originated in the Philippines and was full of grammatical errors. Smith also wrote a confessional for The Guardian about his experience at the company.
My stomach turned and my guilt grew. The company I was working for was harming journalism: real reporters were getting laid off and were being replaced by overseas writer-bots.
Naturally, Journatic’s CEO Brian Timpone, has another story to tell. “We were writing things that were controversial. Our writers were being threatened individually by the subjects of stories. We did it to protect them from the threats.”
He also notes that the articles in question needed to have bylines so they would show up in Google News results. Uh huh.
As a writer, I am a knowledge worker and member of the Creative Class. Which is to say, I am busy developing not only words that make meaning, but dollars that make ends meet.
That’s the deal with the Creative Class. Creative people gather in special places, and through the power of our collective ingenuity we create wealth for ourselves and the communities we call home.
But not so fast. “The Rise of the Creative Class is filled with self-indulgent forms of amateur microsociology and crass celebrations of hipster embourgeoisement,” argues Jamie Peck, a geography professor and vocal critic of Richard Florida’s theories.
Freelance writer Frank Bures of Minneapolis shared that gem in Thirty Two, a new bi-monthly magazine for the Twin Cities. Like me, Bures was seduced by the idea that we aren’t alone in a world where writers are not highly prized. No, we’re members of a club. No, not a club, a class. Yes, we are in a class where we’re always learning and striving, and the future is bright.
Bures suggests that Florida “took our anxiety about place and turned it into a product. He found a way to capitalize on our nagging sense that there is always somewhere out there more creative, more fun, more diverse, more gay, and just plain better than the one where we happen to be.” Given how dreamy writers and entrepreneurs can be, it was an easy sell.
Bures also recounts conversations with Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk, on the topic. Bures calls her an “apostle of Floridian doctrine.” Nevertheless Trunk points out, “If you want to look at a city that’s best for your career, it’s New York, San Francisco or London. If you’re not looking for your career, it doesn’t really matter. There’s no difference. It’s splitting hairs. The whole conversation about where to live is bullshit.”
Of course, “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit,” notes Harry G. Frankfurt. Which makes me want to point to other popular tropes that are really just steaming piles of fecal matter. (more…)
It’s been 40 years since Nixon’s second successful bid for The White House.
It’s also been 40 years since the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CREEP) sent a group of rubber-gloved thugs to break in to Democratic National Committee headquarters at The Watergate.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, who won The Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for their coverage of the break-in and political conspiracy, have a new piece in the Post that paints Nixon in severely dark tones.
In a tape from the Oval Office on Feb. 22, 1971, Nixon said, “In the short run, it would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, to run this war in a dictatorial way, kill all the reporters and carry on the war.”
“The press is your enemy,” Nixon explained five days later in a meeting with Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to another tape. “Enemies. Understand that? . . . Now, never act that way . . . give them a drink, you know, treat them nice, you just love it, you’re trying to be helpful. But don’t help the bastards. Ever. Because they’re trying to stick the knife right in our groin.”
This reflective piece from Woodward and Bernstein comes, for me, on the heels of my first reading of The Boys On The Bus by Rolling Stone reporter Timothy Crouse. His behind-the-scenes look at the media and the coverage provided during the 1972 Presidential campaign is a critical read. While it too is 40 years old, the narrative is far from dated.
Crouse argues that Nixon and his team played the press like a violin during the campaign, feeding them an official story of the day and running them here and there, all the while keeping Nixon almost totally out of sight. The team included H.R. Halderman, Nixon’s White House Cheif of Staff, who worked at J. Walter Thompson in NYC and LA for 20 years before joining the White House team. Halderman also brought Ron Ziegler, Nixon’s White House Press Secretary, with him from JWT.
Not surprisingly, Halderman and Ziegler had a well defined media and brand strategy, and they executed it perfectly. Consider that The Watergate break-in happened on June 17, nearly five months ahead of the election, and it had no impact whatsoever on the election. In fact, Nixon won a majority vote in 49 states, including McGovern’s home state of South Dakota.
Warren Buffett, the greatest investor the modern world has ever known, just ponied up $142 million to add Richmond, Virgina-based Media General to his list of prized companies.
Media General operates 18 network-affiliated television stations and their associated websites, plus several dozen community newspapers across the Southeastern part of the U.S. Titles like Richmond Times-Dispatch and Winston-Salem Journal are well known, but most of the others like The Goochland Gazette and The Bland County Messenger have small circulations in the range of 5,000 – 25,000, according to paidContent.
Is the old man getting sentimental, or is this truly a wise investment? Both, I reckon.
“I’ve loved newspapers all of my life — and always will,” Buffett, who delivered newspapers as a boy, wrote in a letter introducing himself and his newly formed BH Media Group to the Media General team.
Berkshire Hathaway purchased The Omaha World Herald, its hometown newspaper last year, and has owned the Buffalo News since 1977. Buffett has also been on the board of The Washington Post and owned a large share of that national paper for years. One might say he’s making Omaha something of a genuine media town now. As a native of the hilly river city, I’m happy about that.
Of course, there are others with other more important media matters on their minds. Professor, consultant and writer Clay Shirky, for one. He argues that “ordinary citizens don’t pay for news. What we paid for, when we used to buy the paper, was a bundle of news and sports and coupons and job listings, printed together and delivered to our doorstep.” Shirky believes that news has always been a loss leader subsidized by advertisers. And now those advertisers are off to greener pastures. “Ad dollars lost to competing content creators can be fought for; ad dollars that no longer subsidize content at all are never coming back,” he contends.
GigaOm writer, Mathew Ingram, adds that “the subscription price of a newspaper and circulation revenues in general have historically only accounted for a small proportion of a media company’s overall revenue. In most cases, the bulk of that revenue comes from advertising.”
I’m a fan of both Shirky and Ingram, but I don’t agree that all the value is in the platform. The Oracle of Omaha believes there’s value in content and he wants his new newspaper managers to find ways to maximize that value for readers (who will be asked to pay for the content, regardless of the platform). “It’s your job to make your paper indispensable to anyone who cares about what is going on in your city or town,” Buffett outlines. (more…)
I lit up this morning when reading an article in the pages of Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab.
The article describes the inner workings of AllNovaScotia.com, a startup business journal in Canada’s largest Maritime Province that charges a healthy $360 a year for access to content. From what I can tell there is no free version.
AllNovaScotia has 5,950 subscribers, whose monthly dues generate 80 per cent of its revenue. Three people with different email addresses can share a $30 a month subscription, but they can’t pass the stories on to anyone else without some effort. The publication — produced by a staff of 14, 11 of them reporters — is locked down in Flash, making sharing usually a cumbersome ordeal of cobbling together screenshots. No sharing buttons here.
A focus on people and their wealth makes AllNovaScotia a different beast from typical business coverage that focuses on companies. People’s names are bolded in stories, frequently paired with their corporate compensation and the assessed value of their house. An almost-daily feature is Who’s Suing Whom.
Lots of things to consider here. Work your niche, and offer somewhat lurid content if you want people to covet it and pay for it (AllNoviaScotia is published by David Bentley, who co-founded a gossip publication called Frank Magazine in the 1980s).
The other thing is don’t hesitate to charge for content, once you’ve determined how best to serve your audience. “You can’t be in the content business and not get paid for it,” Bentley says. Emphasis on business.
All of which leads me think how we might modify AdPulp’s editorial product so it doesn’t compete with the trades or other ad blogs, but delivers the perfect mix of stories and images that ad pros will gladly pay for. Like photos of themselves sunning in Cannes and gossip about who is sleeping with whom back in Manhattan and Santa Monica. Plus, the dish on which creative directors are total assholes, and which producers are the most fun to party with on location.
Of course, there’s just one small problem with my plan. I won’t put out a pub just for money. Yet, there is clearly a way to offer the meaty substance that real journalists cook up and industry cocktail chatter in the same vehicle. Sounds like AllNoviaScotia has it figured out, and I imagine many other niche and regional publishers are about to discover the right approach, as well. Because “You can’t be in the content business and not get paid for it.”
The second season of IFC’s Portlandia airs this Friday. The show is much anticipated in Puddletown and beyond.
Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen — the show’s stars — have been out “doing press” for the show. Thanks to the deeply sarcastic nature of the program and its willingness to skewer hipsters over an open fire, The New Yorker is biting. In a sweeping article by Margaret Talbot we learn about Brownstein’s childhood in the Seattle suburbs, how she rocked hard in Olympia’s riot-grrrl scene and how she eventually moved to Portland and tried her hand a day job in advertising.
Brownstein said working at Wieden + Kennedy proved alienating, because of the way “the work mimics art.” Ouch.
Another interesting reveal in The New Yorker piece is this bit on the so-not-Hollywood writer’s room:
For the second season, Bill Oakley, a former head writer for “The Simpsons” who had moved to Portland, has helped out on the show. He says, “I’ve spent a lot of time in writers’ rooms. They’re pressure cookers. In most cases, they’re heavily male. You work long hours and many of the people in them have a really negative view about themselves and life.” The “Portlandia” writers’ room, however, is collaborative and laid-back. Some meetings have been held in the loft of the director Gus Van Sant, who has become friendly with Brownstein. “Gus’s dog was wandering in and out,” Oakley says. “There was a microbrewery downstairs.”
Answer me this…where in Portland is there not a microbrewery downstairs?
[UPDATE] The dynamic duo appeared Thursday on “Fresh Air” with host Terry Gross on NPR. Listen in.
Portland-based essayist and author William Deresiewicz explores what kind of values support the hipster persona in the opinion pages of The New York Times.
“What’s the affect of today’s youth culture?” he asks. In other words, what’s going on underneath those pork pie hats and ironic t-shirts?
Today’s polite, pleasant personality is, above all, a commercial personality. It is the salesman’s smile and hearty handshake, because the customer is always right and you should always keep the customer happy. If you want to get ahead, said Benjamin Franklin, the original business guru, make yourself pleasing to others.
…Today’s ideal social form is not the commune or the movement or even the individual creator as such; it’s the small business. Every artistic or moral aspiration — music, food, good works, what have you — is expressed in those terms.
Deresiewicz also says the term “sell out” has no resonance in the culture today–it’s “an idea that has rather tellingly disappeared from our vocabulary.” I’m not sure that’s bad.
Also, I don’t think it is wise to lay the “youth culture” label on hipsters and be done with it. As I write this post, there are young people of another class occupying city centers across North America and they have a very different set of concerns, “affability” nowhere among them.
At the same time, I do relate to what Deresiewicz is saying. Hipsters, and the Bobos who share their values, are selling themselves in increasingly obvious ways and he’s right to question where it all leads. Can you really be friends with someone who’s always selling? I guess it depends on what’s being sold and how, but the concept is mostly off-putting (even though I can see myself in this particular mirror).
I see myself not just because I’m a Bobo who frequents Portland’s hipster coffee shops, I’m also a writer who has to sell to survive and a Netizen who is “always on.” And I believe, like the hipsters in Deresiewicz’s piece, that business is a powerful engine for social change. When you run a business the right way, you’re literally changing things for the better for your customers and your staff. A conscious business like Patagonia, for instance, is worthy of our praise and a great example of how it can be (and needs to be) moving forward.
Of course, Patagonia is not born of hipster values, nor run by hipsters.
It’s hard for me to see people “taking care of business” and each other as anything but a good thing, especially when the business in question is focusing on the triple bottom line.
Let’s encourage, not discourage, more social entrepreneurship. At the same time, let’s find a balance and value much more than crafty commercial solutions to today’s problems.
I loathe the state of TV news today. The American public is fed such a distorted view of events, filtered as they are by bought-and-paid-for pundits, not reporters.
Clearly, this sad state of affairs calls for a response, and The White House, for one, has one.
Since April of 2010, White House videographer Arun Chaudhary and Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest have been creating West Wing Week, a newsreel-like recap of the President’s week.
I know it’s PR, but it’s so much better than the news. On the news, it’s all vitriol all the time, which limits our idea about what government is. On TV, government is nothing more than a game to be won or lost, like football. But online, we see it’s much more than that and we get a much better feel for who this President is.
I do not agree with many of the things Obama does, or all that he stands for. He’s much too conservative for me. Yet, I like knowing that he’s a smart and charming guy busy working on our problems.
As the field of right wing contenders narrows down, and an alternate to Obama is offered, it will be all the more important for the President to showcase his looser digital self, not just online but on TV, as well. The challenger is going to be a starched suit, we know that much, but the contrast between the two needs to be magnified in order for the Dems to hold the executive branch.
