Uppity Wisconsin

You know, news?  The kind that was reasonably clearly focused, and that came to you in a reliable way?

I find myself thinking about this because I keep seeing things happening around me that are disheartening.  Yesterday I went over to my local rural store to buy my Sunday papers.  Only to find out that I can no longer buy the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram because apparently Downsville is too far away to get delivery.  And I can't get it delivered to my house either.  Cutbacks.  So the only paper I can get now is the Dunn County News (which is okay, but pretty darn local and limited in scope).  If I want the Leader-Telegram, I now need to drive to Menomonie to buy a copy. Can this be good for their already-dwindling advertising revenue?

New Hampshire just joined the list of states allowing gay marriage, after a quick trip through the legislature and a world-record-breaking signing by the governor. 

And yet, Wisconsin has somehow lost its progressive way on this issue.  2006 was the sad year in which Wisconsin legalized discrimination, both legally and morally.  It's time to fix this. Let's try again.  Let's keep trying until we get it right.

You may remember that there was a lot of commentary and consternation in Wisconsin a few months back when the Madison Capital Times announced that they were going to be primarily web-based, and would be only doing a physical paper twice a week.

Today we also hear that the Christian Science Monitor is doing essentially the same thing , so I guess Wisconsin is in the vanguard here. 

I subscribed to the Christian Science Monitor for several years, and I have to say that I find this trend disturbing for a number of reasons.  

First off, it seems to be the better newspapers that are falling off the radar first in this trend.  It may just be that they are more able to see the handwriting on the wall, and go along with the times. 

Let's see here - I'm sitting in my office on a dreary Sunday afternoon, contemplating the news.

• Alan Greenspan says the U.S. economy is in more dire straits than he's ever seen.
• Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch will probably not exist in a few more days
• Unemployment is at its highest in 5 years
• People continue to die in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no clear plan in site - this in an attempt to "stop the terrorists" who last I saw were alive and well, including Osama Bin Laden
  
• Yet another major hurricane threatens to cripple the southern U.S., and along with it our energy production infrastructure, and yet another major American city
  
• The polar ice caps are melting at an astounding rate, indicating that global warming is much worse than even the pessimists had predicted
• David Foster Wallace kills himself (anyone who read Infinite Jest will understand that there is a connection here)
  

We're a country in preparation for a major election which will determine whether we continue the same ill-conceived policies that brought us into this mess, or if we set off in a new direction. Now- you'd think that under the circumstances the press would be full of stories about all of these issues, helping to clarify the positions of the two parties and their candidates. Instead, we end up with a media circus about lipstick and pigs, distracting the news cycle and the American public from the extremely serious issues at hand. And we hear nothing but stories about the ill-equipped hockey mom from Alaska who has captured the imagination of the public because - er ---- well, okay, I'll be damned, I have absolutely no idea why.

If you're a news junkie like me, here's the fix you need! 

The Newseum's website has daily front pages from newspapers around the world that you can view by list or map (the map feature is superior, IMO).

So whether you want to know how Spain is celebrating tennis star Raphael Nadal's latest win, or maybe how the U.S presidential election is being reported outside of our own librul media establishment, <snark> check it out!

Nice brief coverage of the some of the new technologies discussed at the Personal Democracy Forum.

The political world is a picture with a lot of chiaroscuro. Some elements are illuminated with very bright lights. Others are shrouded in shadows.

As more of the visible parts of government are explored with the precision of digital technology, there may well be pressure to reduce the area in darkness.

Life is often full of surprises.  Our sleepy little farm outside of Downsville is becoming a hotbed of political activity even though I wasn't expecting it. A few weeks ago it occurred to me that it was a shame that lots of bloggers are covering the Democratic Convention in August, but that there isn't any centralized place to read all of that work. 

Then, more recently, Borges (from Kicktime )and I were at the Journalism That Matters and National Conference for Media Reform shindigs in Minneapolis, and we got to talking about how it's too bad that there's no central place to read all of the blogs in Wisconsin.  We talked to some other people about that as well, and a few actions are falling out from that.

Location

According to an article at Dissident Voice digital TV won't give America a voice on their own airwaves.  In an article entitled "Grand Theft Digital: How Corporate Broadcasters Will Hijack Digital TV ", Bruce Dixon has this to say:

Although the airwaves are the property of the public under US law, and broadcasters receive their licenses from the FCC only on the condition that they serve the public interest, neither Congress nor the FCC, have attached any public service or public interest requirement to the thousands of new DTV channels that current broadcasters will receive. And current broadcasters, according to the deal worked out by Congress and the FCC back in the 1990s, are the only ones upon whom the new stations made possible by DTV will be bestowed. They’re in. Congress and the FCC, in their wisdom didn’t think local governments, schools, colleges, libraries, unions, community organizations, local churches, blacks, Latinos or females deserved a shot at any of the thousands of new DTV channels. They’re out. That’s it and that’s all."

 He continues:

So it's like this -- I've been talking to a lot of kindred spirits, journalists, fellow citizens, and all the other people Fox news is so upset about for five days now, and my head is reeling with ideas and enthusiasm.  Plus, I need to pile back in the car tomorrow to give a talk in Madison. So - I'm not going to say much more about the conference right now, since it would be a quickie job of pouring things out on to the page.

Instead, I'd like to do something different - a series on the Media Reform movement, why it matters, and some resources for you to learn more.  I'll intersperse this with pictures, video, and other information from the conference. I will try to make this a weekly feature for a while, and I hope you'll stay with it. The media in the US are failing us  miserably on many counts. The conference made it clear to me that there are many people who feel the same way and want to do something about it.  We have some plans, and we're really excited about them, particularly for bringing more coverage of what is going on in Wisconsin to your web browser.  

Also - please also go visit Kicktime - thank you for reminding me Borges - Read more about the convention there over the next couple weeks, and learn something about the Viroqua area and what is shaking there.

But at the moment I need to let the ideas and inspiration settle down. While you are waiting for me to get my act together, watch this spectacular presentation by Lawrence Lessig.

You may have "enjoyed" the Bill O'Reilly video yesterday about how terrible it was that Dan Rather was going to the NCMR conference, and speaking to the worst radical left-wing nuts in the US. Count me as being proud to be one of those people. O'Reilly has promised that his show tomorrow night (watch it - no really, I mean it - just not right before or after dinner) - He's going to expose us for the nutjobs and radicals he is sure we are. I'm looking forward to it. Compare his editing of this story with what you see below:

Fox was all over the convention with video crews. I'll have to say that I chatted with a couple of the video crew for a while, and they seemed like decent hard-working folks just doing their job.

But this is an example of what happens when they "interview" someone - I have no idea why someone would try to pull this in a convention full of people who have video recorders on them. There are a few more examples - they also accosted him on the street, but here are 2 different accounts of the backstage conversation, one from our friends at The Uptake, and one from On The Earth Productions' Karen Rybold Chin: - note the plug for Fighting Bob Fest - more on that in a few weeks:

I'll leave this conference with feelings of hope and helplessness. My hope comes from the fact that this conference is even happening. That people are spending time and money to connect with each other and figure out what the hell has happened in this county. The media is supposed to represent what's happening in this country. And it doesn't. It represents what sells. And therein lies my feelings of helplessness. If people didn't buy the crap, it'd stop selling. Right?

When I was in college, I went to a "student radio initiative" meeting. I realized once I got there that these meetings had been going on for years. And it was still just an initiative. I was at the first Conference on Media Reform and here I am again, years later. The sessions are different and there has been success. But ultimately. We're still fighting the same battle.

One of the sessions I attended this morning was, "Netroots: What's Next?" As it dealt with the future of the political blogosphere, I really wanted to check out what the panel had to say.

The fight for blogging legitimacy has been won (well, sort of). MOST have accepted blogging as a medium that not only offers quality writing, but gets it right more often. So...what next? What do we do now that everyone is listening? And what are the new battles we must be ready to fight? 

That was the focus of the panel. Gina Cooper, the head of "Netroots Nation", talked about the positive ramifications of a Democratic president (hopefully) come November. I couldn't help but disagree with what she was suggesting. I felt myself shaking my head "No" as she talked about how much easier bloggers (and all media) will have it once we don't have to fight the argument with people who "don't think dinosaurs existed." Those people aren't going away. And they'll only be working harder to attack our attempts at getting the truth out there and holding them accountable. Not only that, but the Democrats have their own set of problems, don't they? This certainly isn't going to be easy sailing if Obama gets elected.