Jim Flowers: Politics and Blogs

Literature literally loose cannon -- and other philosphical alliterative writings

Sun, 24 Apr 2005 12:47:00 GMT

Edward George Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873), an English novelist, wrote this for the first time in 1839. He wrote, "Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword." [BYU page]

Salmon Rushdie pens a powerful commentary in the LA Times today. Highly recommended reading. In particular:

... The old idea of the intellectual as the one who speaks truth to power is still an idea worth holding on to. Tyrants fear the truth of books because it's a truth that's in hock to nobody; it's a single artist's unfettered vision of the world. They fear it even more because it's incomplete, because the act of reading completes it, so that the book's truth is slightly different in each reader's different inner world, and these are the true revolutions of literature, these invisible, intimate communions of strangers, these tiny revolutions inside each reader's imagination; and the enemies of the imagination, politburos, ayatollahs, all the different goon squads of gods and power, want to shut these revolutions down, and can't.

Where were they?

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:06:03 GMT

I attended a hearing on a bill (HB 340) that the news media is opposing through the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. One of the arguments put forth was that the bill would make it harder for the public to have "access" to information on how the government works (in this case who the anonymous donor is). I made an amusing note to myself - If the press doesn't cover the issue, does the public have access?

As if to beg the question, Bill Shipp writes a column today asking where was the press, the tv cameras, when budgets for additional security and training of the Fulton County Sheriff department were denied? In deed, where are the media when the boring, dirty details of governing are discussed? Is the media being responsible when its hired pundits castigate the public officials (after the fact) for not doing a better job when the media failed to inform the public beforehand?

BTW, why does an organization that supports open government fail to disclose its contributors as required by law for any group affecting legislation or campaigns?

Media Assertions

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 11:39:05 GMT

I want to write some on "Media Assertions" - a topic broached by the latest study on Media trends by The Project for Excellence in Journalism and highlighted in a USA Today article. I will give you a hint -- look for facts in this editorial. Can't find them -- well try this one. But that will have to wait on my day job.

The point of this post is to update the side links -- Kevin found a typo on his blog name. Some folks can never be satisfied!

New Media vs. Media Classic

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 08:24:14 GMT

The current debate (see Are online reporters the real thing?) waging over whether bloggers, or online reporters, are journalists seems to be missing the big picture. That picture is that the current breed of journalists, or perhaps more appropriate the news media in general, do not report information -- they report gossip, inuendo, intrigue -- material that was relegated to the tabloids not too many years ago.

For example, yesterday's AJC contained an article summarizing 16 hours of legislative meetings as one where "tempers flared" because of the deadline imposed for legislation crossing from one chamber to the other. If you read the article, you find very little information on the substantive issues debated.

Consider these 4 sentences used to describe more than 2 hours of debate over HB 501, a bill esigned to demolish the Department of Motor Vehicles:

State Rep. Alan Powell (D-Hartwell) led a passionate and failed effort to derail the governor's plan to reorganize the Department of Motor Vehicle Safety in an attempt to reduce the driver's license lines. Powell said the move will shatter an effective agency.
''Death is in the details, ladies and gentlemen,'' Powell warned. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." He almost prevailed --- Speaker Richardson had to step in and cast the deciding vote for the governor's plan.

One other news article appeared on this debate (House votes to disband DMVS).

Missing from the articles are references to memos from the Office of Planning and Budget declaring that DMVS "is not broke" and therefore, doesn't need fixing. Also missing are detailed statistics on the impact to highway safety that the breakup of DMVS will bring.

Nothing is said about the lack of response from the leadership managing the bill on the floor. Finally, nobody in the media reported on the almost two hour hearing where this particular legislation was set to die in committee until the "Hawks" flew in to pass the bill out (Hawks are people the Speaker appoints who can vote on any committee they wish -- yes, another essay).

Rep. Powell's arguments were so compelling so as to force the Speaker to vote twice to save a major piece of the Governor's legislative package.

The "Real Media" didn't tell you that, did they?

Tom Crawford, a respected journalist whose main medium is 'online', has published two pieces on the DMVS bill (Rep. Powell provides links to both). The information provided by the 'unreal' reporting of Mr. Crawford is siginificantly more enlightening than the paper press.

If the "Real Media" is not giving us the information we need to conduct the business of a democracy, who is to question the whether online reporters are the "real thing"?

Opportunity blogging

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 07:45:15 GMT

In the 80's, direct mail was the "killer app" for politicians. In the 90's, the killer app was the combination of computer-aided research and fast-production of attack/response ads. The 21st century has brung us the Internet, and in particular, the Blog as then next killer app for politics (I would submit blogs are a killer app for democracy -- but that's another essay).

Anyway, Winer points to:

Rex Hammock summarizes the online politics conference. [Scripting News]

Bottom line -- few in the business (general consultants, media and research consultants) "Get it". There's an opportunity there.

Twice removed -- and reminded

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 07:34:55 GMT

Remember when I questioned why I didn't pay attention more closely to Georgia Bloggers? Well, Robert Scoble reminds me. In one of his many posts, he mentioned a fellow who ran the White House Web Site in 1994:

Jock Gill is sitting in front of us. He's the guy who did the first Whitehouse Website back in 94. Now he's working on Greater Democracy.

[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]

Curious, as I had friends in the EOB then, I checked out Gill's site. There I found a post from Dana Blankenhorn (Moore's Lore) drawing comparisons of Marx and Rand -- more precisely how the perversions of their respective philosophies led to totalitarianism (now, that calls for another essay).

Give me information or give me ...

Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:11:54 GMT

Imagine, voters waking up every day, annotating the news and actually caring enough to save their papers for prosperity. See Workbench:

The First Blogger Died in 1794. On Scripting News this morning, Dave Winer nominates Harry Truman as the patron of bloggers.

I'd like to go a bit further back to find the patron saint of weblogging: Harbottle Dorr.
Dorr was writing a hyperlinked daily journal on current events two centuries before the technology existed:

An average citizen marking up the news every day with his own opinions and furiously cross-referencing his work, Dorr was a blogger. Reading about this collection makes me want to park myself at a microfilm reader for a few months to read this hypertext. So many questions: Was he a warblogger? Did he fisk people? Would he have objected to autolinking?

When Dorr died in 1794, his entire estate consisted of the four "newspaper books" that constituted his blog. They sold for 7 pounds and 10 shillings. [Workbench]

Now, if information, and the free access thereof, is the cornerstone of democracy, is it not every citizen's imperative to be "informed"? Ah, I feel an essay coming on...

Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:39:00 GMT

Ahh... a new campaign tool...

Eliot Spitzer is running for Governor of New York. On his blog it says: "To listen to an audio podcast of Eliot's remarks, simply connect your iPod or MP3 player to your computer and subscribe to the RSS feed within Eliot's blog." But there's a problem with the feed they point to, it won't actually work. I'd be happy to help them get it working, if you know anyone who works on their stuff, send me an email and we can have a quick back and forth to get it working. This is a perfect application of podcasting, btw. Go direct. [Scripting News]

Much ado about nothing

Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:30:41 GMT

WSJ: Dean Campaign Made Payments To Two Bloggers. [Scripting News]

The above story does not dawdle about in inuendo, the facts speak for themselves. So, why publish it? Conservative pundits are having a field day pointing out that Dean "abused" the ethics of journalism trying to manipulate yet another form of media. Of course, their statements are not couched in facts -- just rhetorical bombast -- such is not conducive to intelligent discussion of the issues -- never has, never will be.

Anyway, I remember the Daily Kos disclosing their relationship with Dean (by the way, the nice thing about blogs is you can go back to such articles with ease -- a newspaper would charge you an arm and a leg to research past writings), appreciated the disclosure but it was clear from the writings in the blog where the author's preferences lay. But, the criticism of some conservative pundits begs the question, doesn't it? This isn't about journalistic ethics, this is about beating the other side.

Winer continues his democratic ways

Fri, 26 Nov 2004 22:30:20 GMT

IF we are going to have a league of blogging voters, then we also need a National Bloggers Association to protect our blogging freedoms.

Had a great lunch with Nicco Mele, former blogmaster at Dean For America. We talked about so many things but one of the last ideas was the best, imho. I said we need something like The League of Women Voters for 21st Century voters who want to think about their decision and need information and other points of views. That led to the The League of Blogging Voters. LOBV. Nicco said he'd grab the domain. [Scripting News]

Not so live feed and not so useful site

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 23:19:57 GMT

The DNC Web logging site leaves much to be desired. They publish the schedule for the day -- but they could put the speaking schedule up along with links to speaker bios and a full transcript of the speech (it's already loaded in the teleprompter, has been since Saturday). And the live feed is a full minute and a half behind... means they aren't assigning priority out of the production booth.

Hotline still chugging along after 17 years...

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 20:46:15 GMT

Winer reports on National Journal Hotline being a "very interesting crib sheet on the news of the day from the Washington perspective." Hotline was a "hot" new thing in 1988 when the convention was here in Atlanta. We would dial in, grab the file, then print it here. Hotline would also fax you the daily clips as well. I have heard some politicos ask if Blogs are just another way to do what the Hotline does... Somethings don't change, just the delivery channels.

This week's focus

Sat, 24 Jul 2004 21:06:00 GMT

Guess I'll spend some time watching the DNC Convention, see if I spot my wife running around the hall, and teach the kids some politics -- fish a little, take it easy. Yeah...

Saturday AM cartoons

Sat, 24 Jul 2004 13:29:55 GMT

You’ve heard about it on the Today show. Your friends may have already seen it. So, here it is, live and in link – www.jibjab.com.

And, once you’ve seen “This Land”, check out the comments on the blog.

On the more serious side, check this site (DNC 2004 weblogs) out regarding the convention. Content provided by persons “blogging the Democratic Convention.” At the very least, you will find an angle you like (kinda like cable tv on steroids). The DNC gave credentials to a number of bloggers – but you will be surprised at the volume of original material that will come from those not at the convention. The Republican Convention will have bloggers as well.

The AJC article regarding bloggers at the convention (See Boston E-Party) uses a sub-head to say blogs are “unburdened by facts.” Hmm, read the Wooten editorial and let me know if it is “burdened by facts.” (Hint : He doesn't understand Senate and House caucus accounts don't go ito the party general fund).

Sat, 31 Jan 2004 10:51:53 GMT

Business as usual.

Folks just now realizing that principal consultants generally do get cuts of the media action -- it's how they get paid. It also biases their approach to strategy. Smart campaigns (i.e. those that have been around the block a couple of times), segregate management, media buys, media production and fund raising.

Taegan Goddard cites a NY Times article which contains a blockbuster that we missed. Did Joe Trippi get a commission on every ad run by Dean For America? Third Superpower has an interesting sequence of quotes leading up to this revelation. [Scripting News]

Sat, 31 Jan 2004 10:49:01 GMT

He said, she said.

As Winer observed, triangulation is a key value in blogging. This article in The Register is a good example. Picks on the "bloggers" who claim credit for Dean's campaign. One principal, who is no longer with the Dean campaign because they didn't win the primaries they were supposed to, says tech is just another tool. He's right. But, he also says that "campaigns have always been disorganized, we just got more disorganized people than before." That statement is partially true (at least from my experience). Someone ought to talk to folks that have been part of political machines -- that disorganization is organized more than you'll ever know.

But, that's another story.

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 08:35:14 GMT

How dare we be so presumptious

As to critique the work of the 4th branch of government! Really, this is akin to a bureaucrat expressing outrage over a taxpayer offering constructive criticism. I've got to focus on some work... but this post from Workbench is too rich to pass up. Thanks to Rogers Cadenhead for the link.

Journalists wither under scrutiny. As a former newspaper journalist, I'm amazed by some of the hysteria that journalists are exhibiting about a plan for webloggers to follow and critique specific political journalists during the 2004 presidential campaign.

A case in point is the reaction by Alan Judd, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The idea of 'tracking' individual campaign reporters -- as on Wilgoren Watch -- is absurd. The people behind such efforts would be satisified with nothing other than stories effusively praising Howard Dean and blasting Bush as the great satan. What they advocate isn't press criticism, it's stalking.

It's hilarious to watch professional journalists, a group that makes their living subjecting public figures and private citizens to scrutiny and even ridicule, turn into delicate flowers at the mere thought of being subjected to the same treatment. [Workbench]

For more on this entertaining event, tune to Press Think.

Fri, 02 Jan 2004 17:54:48 GMT

Check out the blogging of the president link...

Uh oh, they're starting to get it.

Freewheeling 'bloggers' are rewriting the rules of journalism, in USA Today.

It's still framed in terms of competition between bigfeet and littlefeet, even though the market logic is AND, not OR. It's also focused mostly on politics, which is fine.

As usual, Jay Rosen gets the best pull quote: readers are becoming writers. This gets at the most important effect of the Internet on the world's markets: demand gets the power to supply. It revolutionizes everything.

There are even plenty of links in the story text (though none to Jay, oddly). The emerging best launch site of the bunch: The Blogging of the President: 2004. Great grist in there.

Thanks to Loïc for the pointer.
[The Doc Searls Weblog]

Wed, 31 Dec 2003 14:41:13 GMT

GOP Trojan Horse

If the GOP is so convinced a Dean nomination will lead to a GOP century – then why are they spending so much time and money trying to scare Democrats from voting for him?

Tue, 30 Dec 2003 13:44:36 GMT

BRAC

At what point does lobbying for military bases begin to overshadow the more important reason for base realignment – effective defense?

College Savings Plan

The Governor is promoting while the analysts are dissing. And the reporters aren’t asking the right questions. Wonder if Wooten believes that it is the government’s responsibility to explain that these savings accounts may not be all that they can be? Oh, the Athens article actually addresses the question.

Do this for an exercise. Look at the Governor's Press release. The look at the Morris, AP and AJC articles covering the press release. Do you see any value add? At least enough to justify the price of subscribing, the dirty ink on your fingers, and all those ad inserts you throw away?

Plus, look at the Augusta edit of the Morris piece -- it leaves out the last two paragraphs which mentions criticism of 529 plans.

Now, go to Google News and search on 529 Savings -- as of now (12/30/03 10:30 am est) you will see 110 articles on the topic. A web search gives you 226,000 hits. With this kind of source material available, why trust an editor to include all points of the story?

Pharmaceutical Mandated Healthcare

Well, here comes another effort to get legislators to mandate what the CDC is reticent to do .. mandate a vaccine. The doctors in this story don’t support “cost effectiveness” as a means of determining a policy decision. But, isn’t that how you run a business? (The business of pharmaceuticals doesn’t think so).

Corporate connected connections

LA Times story on the three more prominent social network companies (Friendster, Linked In and Tribe Networks). These companies are attracting attention because they facilitate, enable to use a now trite word, folks to meet face-to-face. For the same reason, Dean’s use of the internet is working for him, while Kerry’s (which resembles the old broadcast model) is not.

Not getting it.

Meanwhile, USA talking about bloggers rewriting rules of journalism (rules, what rules?). At least that is what the headline leads you to believe. Read further and its really a story about blogging and its impact on politics. Another case of editors not understanding the content of the piece. And, as if I need more evidence to boost my case that the editor(s) ‘don’t get it’, inside Page 2, a list of bloggers appears – without hyperlinks. Oy Vey!

Getting connected knowledge

Recommend a read of The Great Library of Amazonia (Wired). Here’s what I learned:

· the process of publishing (I did not know that “many publishers do not have push-button access to the digital files.”)

· discusses how Amazon built its amazing book archive (scanned a lot of em) and the copyright work-around to enable public viewing of the information.

· Key point is the acknowledgement that current technology cannot replace the book for its physical attractiveness – but you can “enhance” the book with electronic aids.

· The fact that a majority of college students search the internet for sources without consulting libraries is disturbing – that is a rather narrow-minded focus for research.

· $12.6 billion spent on library and academic collections – little spent on digitizing books (hmm… yet legislators want to mandate electronic texts for learning).

More resources

· Gutenberg Project

· Million Book Project

· Eldred Case

· Lawrence Lessig (Copyright philosopher for the 21^st century)

Lists add to lists

Wired – Fantasy and Reality.

Forecast 2004 roundup. Computerworld

Sat, 27 Dec 2003 21:38:31 GMT

"Jim Moore: the Dean campaign uses commercial and free software" [Daypop Top 40]

Thu, 25 Dec 2003 11:02:32 GMT

Merry Christmas!

Don't really intend to blog, but saw this in the news feed. Read later.

Internet Politics & Journalism. UPDATED Lots of folks have pointed to Frank Rich's perceptive essay about the Dean presidential campaign and why it's so... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Doc has an alert to an interesting event

eDem

The Emergent Democracy Forum will be a one-day event happening alongside the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (eTech) in San Diego on Monday, February 9, 2004. I've been involved with planning the event since the idea was first raised during a casual conversation at OSCON last Summer.

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 10:16:53 GMT

Must watch.

You really cannot make money selling services to campaigns (unless you are buying, creating media). But, the tools for organizing, reporting, and analyzing do have purposes in other markets (heck -- a campaign management tool I designed in 1988 turned out to be v 1.0 model for CRM [another missed opportunity]). Anyhow, this merits watching.

Clark Campaign Going Open Source. Supporters of Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark launch an initiative to create open-source campaign-management software. With primary elections fast approaching, backers say they need better tools for their efforts. By Chris Ulbrich. [Wired News]

Sat, 20 Dec 2003 10:32:16 GMT

Getting it... or not.

NYT article discussess GOP efforts, already underway, to train an army of agents to contact voters personally. This is version 2.0 of the plan Reed and company put together for 2000, made some adjustments for 2002, and now is perfecting for 2004.

Dean's campaign has leaped ahead by recognizing how to employ the edge-to-edge structure of the Internet to invigorate voters. However, the AFL-CIO says Democrats need not fear the might GOP machine (or Dean's for that matter). What voters are really looking for is information from an insitution they trust (aka the unions). All this business of empowering individuals matters not.

Hmm... do they need to watch the election replays for the past 4 years? They don't get it do they?

Sat, 08 Nov 2003 11:29:19 GMT

Poliblog competition

Who said this?

"A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prolague to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives."

Come on, this is easy. You can at least guess the century by the quality of grammar and vocabulary (Only Buckley, Wills and Safire presently write with such a command of the language).

Now, who said this?

"I got a demo and a new account on Clark's weblog space (in beta). It's quite rough in its implementation but solid in its philosophy. Some of the ideas outlined in this piece are implemented. It's good because it will up the ante for Dean, Edwards, Bush, et al. Remember the Browser Wars when Netscape and Microsoft were competing to give us the best access to the Web. Now we have competition among the candidates to give us the best access to each others' minds. How much progress that is! They used to think of us as eyeballs and couch potatoes. "

I think the two would have had a wonderful conversation. And, I agree with them both.