In the past week, Washington [D.C.] has been up in arms over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. From what I have gathered, being somewhat politically uneducated by my own non-action, the white house is fighting for the executives right to remove any U.S. Attorneys with the consent of the DOJ [Dept. of Justice]. Congress has come to terms with the awkwardness of the attorneys expulsion but they are not satisfied with the explanation thereof. Because of inconsistencies between the white house explanation and the U.S. Attorney General Al Gonzalez’s statements, NY Sen. Chuck Schumer is heading the legislative investigation into the proceedings involved with the firing of those 8 attorneys.
This whole fiasco is a wonderful test of the stability and effectiveness of the U.S. system of checks and balances within government. However, with media as a form of impartial litigator upon government, we citizens and contributors to media [aka bloggers and the like] are doing the checking and balancing. Look how fast documents and news can be spread. The Dept. of Justice papers and emails were released at after midnight and by 130am there were over 200 posts regarding excerpts and interpretations of the documents.
I can see from various articles and speeches that the investigation is, at the core of it, made up of partisan drives. Some Democrats are continuing forth with the view that the republicans are trying to make a last stitch effort to get done what they want done before the President’s term is up. While some Republicans continue forth with the idea that the Democrats are out to remove and tarnish the Republicans name while the President is still in office. They [r] placate their motives behind a veil of protecting future president’s right to executive privilege. The President warns democrats to not take this further on their premise of partisan politics, but in making that statement he is protecting his own partisan motives. Dems want nothing more than to be in complete power, they are close, and so need to show they have weight. By criticizing the President at each and every turn they gain more and more supporters.
I’m sure my readers will fill me in soon enough. Let the conversation BEGIN!
[Edit -- if you would like a transcript of the wp.com articles, send me an email. Otherwise use Bugmenot.com a bypass of compulsory registration.]
So Hillary Clinton has called her campaign a conversation. Can a
campaign be one? Or are they necessarily propagandistic, getting a
message out? Even on the Dean blog that was what it was about.
Brady:
I think it’s more like a conversation that you have at a job
interview, not the kind that you have over a beer. I’m skeptical of
that. I’d love people sitting there answering straight questions
completely honestly. We go through this with each cycle, that we think
we are going to find out who these people really are, and then by
election day we say, why haven’t we talked about the issues? I think
the key thing in this campaign is going to be how do these people react
to being covered all the time.
Rosen:
There’s a problem with this question, that we’re going to find out
who these people really are. I think that is a vain hope. We should
change that to, let’s force these people to be who they really are in
public. Instead of trying to strip away a false facade. One thing that
could change is this: in every campaign the candidate and his advisers
decide things that they don’t want to talk about. But these may be
things that the public wants to know about. We can try to get them to
talk about those things. We can try to get them to be realer in that
sense, in trying to get them to address the topics that people want to
hear about.
The speakers go on to entitle this concept of a candidate being "real" in front of the media and general public as "authenticity". I would like to explore authenticity on the side of the candidate. As Jarvis mentioned, Hillary Clinton has labeled her campaign as a "conversation". In many, many of her video conversations to the public she encourages the public to comment, argue, and to join the conversation. Is she authentic in requesting such feedback? Probably not. She is gunning for the highest political position in the entire country, and a top spot with the influencers of the western hemisphere. Propaganda is the name of the game. And she doesn’t play it all that well. By asking us, ordinary citizens, to talk with her she expects us to give her the answers. I would urge candidates to, rather than being "authentic" to be honest in how they plan on running this country. That is what matters.
The web brings a new atmosphere to campaigning such that the candidate is always being recorded and observed. The campaigns know this and now are able to control every outlet of information. Look at Obama, each of his videos show an energized and charismatic person with incredible enthusiasm and heart. In effect, authentic. But authenticity may appeal to some, what about others who wish to hear how this enthusiastic person will run a country? Indeed this race has gotten really hot really quick. And usually we begin asking issue questions very near the end of the race. With the internet asking all types of questions from all types of angles, what will the end of the race look like? Will we have run out of relevant questions to ask, will we have had our fill of information?
Now Giuliani is slowly getting into the web race. However, his ride is a slow and steady one atop a horse called "I was the hero of 9/11". His media coverage is less web-tastic than the potential democrat candidates but then again, strives within new york. The giuliani website is lacking, what many other candidates have adopted as prime media coverage and message dispersion, video. Albeit the website itself is lackluster at best. However I am not writing to quarrel with the design of candidate’s websites. This is to bring to light what we, as citizens and public media, understand as to the effects of web media on campaigns.
Summary: Web media is inevitable and inescapable. The public eye is always watching. Campaigns understand this and have adapted to control every outlet of information. We can draw new information from them by being persistent and unyielding in our coverage. We can demand honesty to skills less authenticity of person. The facade is there and we know it. Now tell us what we want to hear, be it through a facade or not.
A very good friend of mine happened to email me an interesting article [if you don't want to register with WT.com then email me and I will send you a transcript of the article.] he found in the Washington Times
. It touches on a subject that has frequented my posts, the popularity and utility of newspapers versus internet media. Jennifer Harper of WT wrote on March 13, 2007,
"Political insiders turn to the old standby for updates, even in the age of blogs and cable news. The
traditional newspaper is the most popular ‘destination for political
news,’ according to ‘The State of the News Media 2007,’ a 700-page
report released yesterday by the Project for Excellence in Journalism."
She goes on to say in the article that a major component of newspaper readership is due to the "political junkies" those people who follow politics "closely". However, I beg to differ Jennifer. The fact that "newspaper readership has dropped 20 percent since 1992" is a bigger component to the livelihood or death of print news than a host of political junkies getting their "fix" from papers. In fact, now that politicians are using the internet and YouTube as major outlets for their campaigns one could go as far to say that the brunt of news is begotten online.
Many newspapers themselves are realizing the impact of an online presence and are encouraging their journalist staff to contribute to their own blogs. Check out USA Today and their grasp of internet media. They have incorporated blogs, classifieds, and the well-known formerly paper-unique crosswords and sudoku. The point is that newspapers still and probably will always have some role in our society. Now however it will probably have to be a lot more dynamic.
We crabs in a barrel, you ain’t gettin out until I do first And that’s why the guns burst Whatever happened to strenght in numbers? Some of the greatest minds on the planet are among us But so many start on strugglin’ and never get saved Man, Martin must be turnin’ in his grave Like remind my soul – Akrobatik, Remind My Soul
"Some of the greatest minds on the planet are among us" So true. So very true.
The struggle for power is still ripe in many people. They yearn for the almighty dollar and would do almost anything to attain it. It is true that because of the struggle for power, violence towards other humans was born. Before the notion of violence was ever thought of, we used weapons to hunt for food to sustain our livelihood. Weapons were a tool for living, not a tool for killing. Akrobatik captures this in his inspirational lyrics, the pursuit of peace was lost as an agenda. Taking it back is key. Now with knowledge and community as the forefront of this battle. He says, "Martin must be turnin’ in his grave". Alluding to the peace keeper who tragically departed from this world before his vision was fully realized.
The community is here. We are gathering together, sharing information and ideas on a global scale. The key is in the content. Now that content is being generated by more and more people we can see a multitude of minds coming together to foster knowledge and progress. Blogging is the latest realization of this. Blogging is uniting the greatest thinkers in the world underneath their own unique umbrellas. Each niche is breaking the boundaries between the professional and the layman. Status is taking a bow and making way for content.
I am glad and fortunate to be able to share my ideas and notions with the world. What with the internet being such a perversely global agenda, we can decide its future as well as our own.
The press and media are peculiar entities. The right to free speech de facto is essentially what it means to be a journalist. The first amendment in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution states, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
In this document, the founders of our country recognized the press as a collaboration independent of government. They are the critics and analyzers of governmental action and non-action. Our freedoms and liberties ensure that we are able to keep the government limited in its powers. We are to be doubtful and skeptical of government because that is what makes this country a democracy. The presumption that our voice will be heard is key to the democratic process. I am not saying that government is wrong but I am saying that power can grow and become an unruly and uncontrollable evil. Limiting government limits the potential of any one group having an excess of power. We call this federalism and under which the separation of powers within the government was based. The press is our method of scanning all that government does and letting the people know how and why their government is acting or not acting. The press is our insider on that which we control. We are the shareholders in this business, the United States of America. The executive officers are the White House and Congress while the media acts as the board of directors. In this way we, as citizens, run this country. If an executive or director does something we don’t like, we first hear about it from the other directors and then take action in the form of a vote to decide what should be done. Now that I’ve reiterated the base of our democratic process… the topic of discussion follows as such.
Being independent of government, what "rights" are specific or should be specific to the press and media? From the perspective of a reporter, they need sources and access in order to obtain their information. The sources may want to remain anonymous or in secret. To the rest of the world the source is supposed to be nothing more than a wayward voice speaking from the darkness. If a journalist reports on criminalities in say government, does the source who "leaked" pertinent information or who acted criminally as a result of government deserve to be held accountable? I am not too sure on this subject. It is difficult to rationalize out a fair answer. If "sources" had no protection they would have no reason to go to media unless they were willing to turn themselves in which in most cases is not the case. These people want to protect their job and family and life. "Sources" who quit going to the media would restrict the flow of information between government and its citizens. The independent voice of the media would no longer exist because it would have no substance to report on. The reporters would no longer have a job. Now this leads me to my next point, that the government needs to have regulations on taking press to court for acquisition of their content.
The journalist would not want to reveal there source because that would break the entire realm of source protection, sources would no longer talk to the press, and reporters/journalists would lose their jobs. Losing there jobs means eliminating the independent criticisms towards government which defines democracy and our country as a whole. The sector which helps us citizens to keep the government in check would be no more. What now is to keep the government from deceiving the citizens? How are we to know which statements from government to believe, which studies to trust, which laws are "good" for us? However, a case which requires the testimony or identity of a source as relevant evidence to a judicial trial is required to present ALL evidence to the courts no matter the severity of submitting such evidence. This exact principle is exercised in the prosecution of Josh Wolfe, a California journalist, who has served 6 months so far in jail for his refusal to submit his video footage of a protest as evidence in a case of civil unrest. His reasons for refusing are that if he were to willingly turn over the video it would be inviting the government to further probe into the identities of his "sources" and others in the video. We all know very well by now that if you give the government an inch, they take a MILE.
Similarly, in the Plame Affair, of which the investigation into the leaked name of an undercover CIA operative, resulted in many reporters being told they must hand over the names of their sources as they were pertinent witnesses to the case. Naturally most of the reporters refused, and one Ms. Judith Miller actually spent 80+ days in prison on account of "protecting her source". The case, which delved into all matters political and ethical, really meant to the reporters that if they gave up their source it would result in a breakdown of the media-government independence. Both Wolfe and Miller fought and are still fighting, Josh is stuck in prison until the proceedings of the grand jury, to keep this journalistic privilege and to protect democracy. The undeniable uniqueness and difficulty of the Plame Affair only brought more in support of each side, government and media, to the floor. Miller claimed that her source informed her that it was alright for her to give the information to the court. Other reporters however reluctantly released their information because of the pressure of jail-time. Many, many cases have involved the press getting hold of confidential information and releasing it to the public. Some that come to mind off hand are the release of the Pentagon Papers during Johnson’s presidency and the media recently releasing information regarding a confidential government wire-tap program enacted in the U.S. with intention to weed out terrorism within the country. In cases such as these the government responded to the media’s content as being unjustified and a breach of national security.
I believe in protection of sources as a testament to journalistic integrity. If a reporter is holding information that is pertinent to a trial it should only be release on grounds of without such would directly endanger lives. I believe that the more I know as a citizen of what my government is doing, especially during a time of war, is the greatest service I would be able to do for my country. I also believe that my privacy is sacred and protected within the rights of the constitution, meaning unless a court ordered warrant is provided to me no one is able to violate my privacy. Whether or not I have something to hide is not of relevance, it is the rule and making exceptions to the rule leaves room for more exceptions in the future. I will state it again, give them an inch and they take a mile.
Stay tuned for more discussion on the rights of privacy and what effect it has on business today.
Wow Chrysler... Way to spend $10mil on 90 seconds! Longest Clint Eastwood speech ever. If he was selling anything but Chrysler id buy it http://www.twitter.com/krispatel19 hours ago
