If a picture is worth a thousand words, here are three you can share with your friends who obsess about the debates.
All in good fun, of course.
Political Vegetable
Posted on July 14, 2010 Written by 1 Comment
“Modern politics is an endless onion. You can peel back layers as long as you want, and everything you find smells bad and makes you cry.”
The Future of Political Journalism?
Posted on April 16, 2010 Written by 7 Comments
Traditional Journalism is in for several more tremors before the implosion is finished. I’ve mentioned several of the trends that are accelerating the shift toward a concept I call the Embedded Journalist, but don’t expect that transition to be smooth.
In California, for example, a political campaign high on finance and low on interest is offering to provide video excerpts to television stations. Opponents are crying foul:
Republican primary rival Steve Poizner’s campaign called it another attempt by Whitman to buy the election, referring to the $49 million that she’s spent so far on the campaign — largely on paid media advertising.
“Meg Whitman crossed another line in this race by spending her millions to spread her campaign propaganda in tailored sound bites to news stations,” said Jarrod Agen, Poizner’s spokesman.
Sterling Clifford, campaign spokesman for Democratic candidate Jerry Brown, called Whitman’s move “campaign propaganda,” while Sean Clegg, campaign manager for the Level the Playing Field 2010, said the move was straight out of Wall Street.
“In the world of corporate public relations,” Clegg said, “it may work to send packaged video press releases, but there’s a far greater degree of scrutiny in the political world.”
What’s not clear is how much this is political sour grapes, and how much is recognition that politics is a different animal.
If you’re a small-market station in California, you don’t have the resources to cover an extended campaign. And I have heard from many colleagues in California that Whitman’s media spending has jump-started this campaign season, promising to make it the lengthiest ever. Fatigue will be a factor.
I have to wonder, how much complaint would there be if:
- A campaign put its video highlights straight to the web
- A campaign sent news releases with quotes to fax machines
Apparently, the arguments coming from the other campaigns are a signal that television news is a protected, sacred resource. There is only a limited amount of time in a newscast, and every second of video showing happy, waving crowds for one candidate is time not spent talking about another. And, of course, the airwaves belong “to the people.”
There’s also a notion that political journalism is a particularly vital subset, without which our democracy could not function. I’ll buy the idea there are sleazy repercussions for the manipulation of journalism outlets. That line is drawn between persuasion and outright falsehoods. (Like astroturfing, when it can be proven.)
But I have to wonder how much of the disdain coming from television stations is a byproduct of the $49-million Whitman has spent on media so far? Why run the footage she is offering for free, when you can make her buy an outright political ad? It’s easy to stand on principle when it aligns with your bottom line.
Also, are the other campaigns just trying to neutralize Whitman’s bottomless checkbook and her early start? Would they be doing the same thing if they had the resources? I don’t see any moral and ethical question being floated around “the campaigns’ use of fax machines to provide carefully-crafted news releases that paint their candidate in only the most positive light.”
Redrawing the Lines
Again, I am not advocating for the Embedded Journalist model. It’s clear in this case that the video being shared – with no narration or editorial comment – isn’t replacing a reporter. In that sense, it is somewhat neutral point-of-view, but also is not finished and ready for air. I am just looking at the trends and the pace of change, and that model may end up filling a lot of needs, including that of public information.
What hasn’t fit neatly into this model is communication of a campaign nature. The Embedded Journalist gains some advantage through proximity and familiarity with the companies and industries it covers. In a finite campaign, that is a dynamic more about access and sticking to the script. The Embedded Journalist in a corporate setting would be more independent, almost like an ombudsman. That’s essential to build credibility, and without that credibility it is of no value to the company.
I just don’t see the concept working in a campaign that is too short (even by California standards) for the authenticity to accumulate.
I do, however, have a problem with Whitman’s opponents using scurrilous arguments about “level playing fields.” That’s the clear sign of a candidate that wishes it had the same finances. I would suppose a social-media friendly campaign that was very slickly produced and purchased would be just fine? Talking straight to the people? Or would it be castigated for circumventing the traditional media?
Your thoughts?
Imported Turf
Posted on April 12, 2010 Written by 23 Comments
While traditional media outlets claim to “embrace the conversation,” are they still holding it at arm’s length? Is it enough to host comments and invite input online, without the due diligence to see if others are manipulating the agenda?
A few days ago, I wrote about what appeared to be a fairly obvious case of Astroturfing – the practice of creating fake “grass roots” in order to make it seem like public opinion was different than reality. One of my biggest clues was the sheer volume of comments posted between the moment the story went live at 5 a.m., and the time I read them (dozens of them) at 6:15 a.m.
If newspapers were a little more sophisticated about this sort of thing, they might check their IP logs and see the source of all that recent traffic — most of which is not washed through any proxy, and does give decent geographic information.
For example, let me show you the sort of data one can mine if they use the right tools:
The two images you see to the right are screen captures from my Sitemeter administration page. They show two separate visits to Occam’s RazR, both time and date stamped.
As you can see, both of these visits came from Boca Raton, Florida, and the visits overlap in time. Curiously, you can see from the out-click information that both of them left comments. They also come from different browsers, which is a nifty little way to be logged onto the same site concurrently from different profiles.
As it happens, those comments correlate in time to a pair of comments left here, by people purporting to be “5 Points Joe” and “Garlic Rolls,” two screen names you see used in the AL.com comment threads about Bingo. “Garlic Rolls” is one of the many commenters who is firmly for a vote of the people and is pro-gambling, while “5 Points Joe” is a little more skeptical, and is often accused of being a “Sock Puppet” handle for Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial page editor Joey Kennedy. (That accusation is laughable on several counts, but I digress.)
Here is the screen shot of my WordPress comment administration panel, verifying the IP addresses of the comments. I took the liberty of blurring out the email addresses used by those who posted, for reasons I will get to later.
Since the panel shows newest comments at the top, you can see that the “5 Points Joe” comment, left at 6:27pm, came first. I seriously doubt this is from the real 5PointsJoe, because a quick look at his comment history shows him engaged on a number of issues not related to gambling in Alabama. Why would a paid lobbyist based in Boca Raton be so involved in flood warnings at schools, police trials, and whether George Barber is a good guy for offering free land downtown for business development.
Brad (claiming to be Garlic Rolls), on the other hand, has only posted in bingo-related threads. And in the comment, Garlic claims to be on unemployment in the state of Alabama, while posting from Boca Raton. I would think that someone whose lamenting the loss of his/her minimum wage job would be staying someplace cheaper than Boca Raton while cashing those Alabama state unemployment checks.
But hey, I’ve been wrong before.
I’m not a betting man, but here’s where I would put the smart money:
- Both comments were left by the same person.
- Neither email address shows up in searches.
- Wanting to throw me off the trail, the Phony Joe was left first, so the Garlic Rolls could respond.
The entire thing reeks of underhanded manipulation. And it parallels a more fundamental question raised by the real Joey Kennedy of the Birmingham News, about transparency and our right to know who is paying for all the issue advertising.
Round-Up the Turf Merchants
If I were a reporter, I’d be wanting to chase down some pertinent data. A couple of years ago, this same newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize for investigating corruption in Alabama’s two-year college system, and that entire series of stories started with a request for a raw data dump. Brett Blackledge asked for the raw records, and started stitching together the tendrils until the narrative came into focus. But I’m not so certain that will be as easy to accomplish here, because most newspaper web sites are run as completely different divisions. I do know that AL.com is run out-of-state, and there is likely not decent access to the raw information that could establish patterns of astroturfing.
What about privacy? The News doesn’t publish letters sent anonymously, so I don’t buy the precedent that this is somehow invasive.
I love my lawn. It is good turf. But some turf is wrong, and deserves to be terminated.
So, who wants to do a little digging into firms that handle political campaigns and public relations efforts out of Boca Raton?
Political Geometry
Posted on March 30, 2010 Written by 1 Comment
“Modern politics has become an exercise in bending over backwards to bend your opponent forwards.”
Color Me Invisible
Posted on March 17, 2010 Written by 10 Comments
In many issues of communication, color does matter. Some colors evoke strength, some safety, some progress, and some security. Some project cowardice, and others royalty.
The mistake is in assuming too much – that a spectrum of colors will cover every flavor of difference and distinction.
American politics has divided down Red and Blue lines, so chosen because the media of the time needed simple charts with easily-distinguishable colors to project the presidential races. Red equals Republican, Blue equals Democrat, and that’s probably the way it is going to be for the parties moving forward. It wasn’t really standardized in any way until 2000, and it just fell that way. If you tried to change it now, you’d likely get a lot of resistance from people who have freely chosen to identify as a Red-State voter, or that Proud Blue Dot in a Very Red State. The colors have come to represent more than just the parties, and cut to the very core of a conservative/liberal division.
While we’re on politics, it’s fairly-well understood that a Green is one who pushes an agenda with a strong environmental focus. In fact, the environment and sustainability drive just about every policy issue for one who is Green.
Beneath, Behind, Between
So where does that leave the rest of us?
I am a lowercase-L libertarian. I have at times been accused of being a brainless lefty, and at others of being a heartless conservative. You might paint me as a little bit red and a little bit blue. Which adds up to purple?
My problem is that my views don’t wash out that way. I have a strong axis toward fiscal conservatism, anchored by a belief that people in the aggregate spend their money more wisely and efficiently than when their money is pooled together and spent by someone who didn’t earn it. I also don’t trust “government” as an institution to stay out of the individual’s way, and leave people alone to their peculiarities.
There is nothing muddled about my thinking. Just ask me my position on just about anything, and I’m certain you won’t get a wishy-washy magenta out of it. Yet the current framework of color doesn’t have a place for people like me.
It’s entrenched in the notion that our two-party system is the best way to proceed – and both of our predominant American political parties have a vested interest in seeing that continue. (Don’t pretend the Democrats were happy with Ralph Nader’s Green Party siphoning off enough votes to turn the 2000 election on its ear.)
Essentially, this is rah-rah bumper-sticker boosterism. I steal from Rush’s “Territories”
They shoot without shame in the name of a piece of dirt
or a change of accent, or the color of your shirtBetter the pride that resides in a citizen of the world
than the pride that divides when a colorful rag is unfurled.
Reject the Premise
The Red Blue divide does more than polarize, it freezes the thinking. What color would you use to describe someone like me? Orange? Yellow? (Because cowardice is so politically appealing.) Pink? Brown?
How about just taking me off the map. I reject the notion there is a single prism through which to view issues, and I reject the premise that such a continuum can even exist. The Great Divide has become so much about different core values to the extent that “common ground” is difficult to navigate in the increasingly rare instances where the overlap remains.
We need a multi-dimensional approach to dissecting the issues that divide us. Viewed through one lens, the course of action is clear. Viewed through another, a diametrically-opposed strategy is apparent. But the language for seeing the differences from an angle that makes sense becomes impossible when the sides are conducting purity tests for their Red or Blue.
Color me invisible, color me blind. Better yet, challenge yourself to remove the goggles others are using to obscure your vision, so you only see the world in a way where the colors matter.
Who Needs Avatar? We Already Live In Parallel Universes
Posted on January 12, 2010 Written by 11 Comments
Sarah Palin is joining Fox News.
Cue the cheers from her fans and loyalists who will get her fresh and mavericky take on world events and politics.
Cue the jeers from her detractors, who are already writing punchlines that reinforce their existing opinions.
The fact is we now live in a strange age, one where there really is no common ground.
Years ago, one could read an analysis from the left and one from the right, and somewhere in the middle there would be an intersection from which one could reconstruct an objective truth. But that doesn’t happen anymore. The circles have split, and those in the left bubble can’t even fathom the cognitions of those in the right bubble (and thus conclude those in the right bubble are incapable of anything approaching reason and cognition.)
We’re now seeing the consequences of feeding your brain with only one side – selecting and never leaving your ever-deafening echo chamber: ultimately, you surround yourself with more noise, and get no closer to objective truth.
