The Next Hurrah

Frontline/Firedoglake thread/ Media ownership

by Sara

Poked up a piece in Eli's thread at Firedoglake today on the profound problems in media/news reporting, all of which relate to a previous post here and the tonight edition of Frontline.  What I am calling for is less criticism of what is wrong, or praise for this or that alternative you find helpful,  -- we all know that score -- and more about how to go about change and reform. 

The reform I invision is one where distribution of media (TV Stations, local Press) are all owned by local foundations that are representative of the community, and all are non-profit.  I invision a FCC regulated Fairness Doctrine that really is a "diversity" doctrine -- not just the other side of the story, but all sides of a story.  Remember, Fairness got removed because the United Church of Christ and others like the Quakers, relieved some southern stations (mostly in Mississippi) of their licenses because of Racism -- and it was essentially shit thrown back when Reagan changed the doctrine.  No one really tells the Fairness Doctrine story accurately. 

Obviously I liked the Frontline piece tonight -- 3rd in the series.  In my post at FDL, I forgot to mention the St. Petersburg Times which sends its profits, (and it makes some) to the Poynter Institute which tries to do a great job.  So along with The Nation, The Guardian and The Observer, it is non-profit, and doing the "lord's" work. 

But our problem is how to create a favorable financial climate so that other major papers and TV local stations will just turn over ownership and control to local foundations dedicated to quality journalism, and moving forward the next Edward R. Murrow or whoever. 

The Biography of Murrow is of some interest in this context, largely because his supposed claim to fame is the McCarthy shows or Harvest of Shame.  Good Lord it is so much deeper than that.   Murrow was initially hired by CBS Radio to produce "Talks" -- fifteen minute pieces mostly by refugees from Nazi Germany, about the evils of the Nazi system and all.  Paley essentially bought the effort that the Institute of International Education and the American Student Union had created, and which had managed to re-settle more than 600 German Academic Enemies of the State into American Academic slots, when he hired Murrow, and sent him off to head up CBS's effort to report the rise of Hitler and the war.  When Murrow did his radio show about Buchenwald, April 13, 1945, one needs to remember that the guide who showed him about was someone on his list for rescue that did not get processed, a Czech Medical Professor who did 6 years in Buchenwald, and that there were another thousand plus Academics on that list Murrow had been working when he went to CBS in the mid 30's.  The key to understanding Murrow -- and many other early reporters is to understand that they had involvements in reality that really hurt.  But I don't criticize Murrow -- he knew the score and did what he could to push the US into WWII for the right reasons.  In the end, he managed.  Murrow was press -- and the night of Pearl Harbor he was seated in FDR's anti-room waiting for a meeting, though the reason he was there had to do with Eleanor having invited him and Janet for Scrambled Egg Supper a bit earlier.  Eventually FDR invited him in for beer and ham sandwiches, and a briefing to end all briefings.  Morrow never reported any of it, but it informed much of what he did report.   

Our problem is how Murrow came to be.  He was a compromise candidate for office of a national student organization, (Berkely did not agree with UCLA and Murrow was from a lowly state college in Washington State.) and part of the job was dealing with education ministeries in Europe that dealt with International Student Exchanges in the very early 1930's.   

Creating more Murrow's is about comprehending things other than Ivy League connections, I think.  What really bothers me as someone who worked in Peace Corps Administrative Offices when they were first putting Afghanistan into training and then sending them off  in 1963, is why so few of them show up telling us about their little region, what they learned given two years in a particular area.  Yep, on their own message boards they say a little -- but I want much more. 

But I think therein lies the secret to how the blog world gets reporters, people who have been Peace Corps, people who have been exchange students, people who have observed first hand, and who can report under a nice fake name, but who also comprehend that they will be taken apart by bloggers who have alternative analysis. 

 

 

What's going to happen to the Murtha plan?

by Kagro X

When Condoleezza Rice told America on Sunday that the president would defy legislation restricting his options in continuing the war in Iraq, she may have sparked more questions than answers.

You may have asked yourself, "What business is it of the Secretary of State to issue a statement like that?" And that'd be a good question. You wouldn't be the first to wonder whether grafting the former National Security Adviser onto the Department of State had left us without a functioning diplomatic capacity.

Maybe you asked yourself on what grounds the president would feel entitled to defy an Act of Congress. I discussed that at Daily Kos the other day.

Or maybe you asked yourself, "How does Rice know for sure that the president is going to do that?" The answer to that one is, because he's already done it.

Reading and Discussion: Cheney's Iran-Contra views

by Kagro X

Cross-posted at Daily Kos, but I thought this might get a very different discussion here. Maybe not, but here it is, anyway.

As we move ever closer to the inevitable Constitutional showdown between Congress and the Bush "administration," it becomes increasingly important that we understand to what lengths this gang will go to claim the "right" to do as they please.

When Condoleezza Rice declared on Sunday that the president would defy legislative constraints on the war in Iraq, she was reiterating a belief held throughout this "administration" that the president is unconstrained and unconstrainable by both the courts and Congress in his conduct.

I pointed to John Yoo's explanation of this bizarre interpretation of the Constitution yesterday. Today, it's time to examine some of Darth Dick Cheney's views on the matter.

Pioneering Corruption--and Political Payback

by emptywheel

I've written two  posts  on the remarkable number of Bush Pioneers and Rangers who have either been indicted (or, like Kenny Boy and Abramoff, found guilty) of felonies or are intimately tied to some criminal wrong-doing. Back in May 2006, there were already enough of these Pioneers of Corruption to man two prison flag football teams. I'll do a new count sometime soon–but first I'm going to have to figure out a sport that requires more players than football…

It seems that the whole corrupt GOP enterprise created by Tricky Dick has morphed into a system shamelessly called "Pioneers and Rangers," as if their creative means to bilk the American people were somehow noble.

Well, last week, we learned of another way the GOP is pioneering new ways of political corruption. Michael Isikoff  revealed how some of Bush's top donors brokered GOP campaigns against GOP opponents.

Flu stories: Chicken Little? Nah, It's The Little Red Hen

So here's an interesting way to look at things... rather than look to Chicken Little ('the sky is falling!') as the model of how the potential threat of pandemic flu should be approached, let's look at a more realistic model of how the world works.

Stephen Flynn, former Coast Guard commander and author of The Edge of Disaster, says that the United States medical system is unprepared to handle a catastrophic emergency such as a flu pandemic or a major terrorist attack. The problem, Flynn says, is that hospitals have been trying to cut costs. "The medical community has been moving in the direction of much of our economy," he says, "which is wringing out the extra capacity in order to essentially focus on the bottom line."

Given that baseline reality, and the likelihood that the current federal budget will not assist localities in coping better, any new or extraordinary stress on the system will not be simply absorbed.

Each year, more than 300,000 people are treated in U.S. hospitals for the flu. The common flu is dangerous; more than 30,000 Americans die from it every year. But Flynn is even more concerned by the prospect of pandemic flu, such as the outbreak that occurred in 1918. Flynn estimates that a pandemic flu outbreak today would result in 80 million infected Americans. If the death rate were similar to that of the 1918 flu, then a current flu pandemic could result in 800,000 deaths in the United States.

But the 1918 flu is not worst case, and Flynn's estimate underplays the reality.

And Now For Some Polling Goodness...

by DemFromCT

Pollster.com (yes, they're around, even in the inter-election period) has a nice bit of graphic data on the Republican and Democratic state of mind, with regard to the front runners for 2008 (more here from Polling Report).

While we tend to focus on the Dems (and Hillary-Obama), the Republican numbers are fascinating. John McCain, battered by his iraq support and befuddled by his religious right base problems, can no longer legitimately be considered the front runner. while Rudy has his issues, particularly in Republican primary-land, he is starting to run up some impressive numbers against McCain and Newt, the third place finisher in the latest polls.

Given the unhappiness of the religious right about all of these candidates, it's about time the DC press corps starts doing some straight talk about McCain's diminishing chances to be President. Besides being a panderer when it comes to issues that used to matter to him (the link is to a story about his Discovery Institute-sponsored talk, which puts him in bed with creationism), Iraq is killing his chances with thinking America.  McCain is just another 'do anything to be President' candidate, and is likely to be rejected by everyone across the political spectrum because of it. The numbers don't lie.

Libby's Manic Scribblings

by emptywheel

While we're waiting, I thought I'd take a look at one of Libby's collected and annotated articles that the Defense tried mightily to prevent Fitzgerald from admitting. It's a column by MoDo that, as far as I know, no one but Scooter Libby thought to be of any interest. Before I get into his manic annotations, let me just repeat that point--this is a MoDo article, ferchrissake! It's not David Ignatius or someone with gravitas calling you on your lies. Nevertheless, it apparently was important enough to Libby to scribble away, all over the damn column.

Here's Libby's annotated copy. Libby marked at least five paragraphs of the column (note most was redacted in evidence-I've underlined the things that, in the unredacted passages, Libby did, and marked in blue his notes).

The Bush administration has known all along that the evidence of the imminent threat of Saddam's weapons and the Al Qaeda connections were pumped up. They were manning the air hose.

[snip]

It was Ms. Rice's responsibility to vet the intelligence facts in the president's speech and take note of the red alert the tentative Tenet was raising. Colin Powell did when he set up camp at the C.I.A. for a week before his U.N. speech, double-checking what he considered unsubstantiated charges that the Cheney chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and other hawks wanted to sluice into his talk. Notebooks

When the president attributed the information about Iraq trying to get Niger yellowcake to British intelligence, it was a Clintonian bit of flim-flam. Americans did not know what top Bush officials knew: that this ''evidence'' could not be attributed to American intelligence because the C.I.A. had already debunked it. Not us. Tenet, Rice (VP)

Ms. Rice did not throw out the line, even though the C.I.A. had warned her office that it was sketchy. Clearly, a higher power wanted it in.

Not OV And that had to be Dick Cheney's office. Joseph Wilson, former U.S. ambassador to Gabon, said he was asked to go to Niger to answer some questions from the vice president's office about that episode and reported back that it was highly doubtful.

Libby's Missing Document

by emptywheel

So here's what I've been thinking about while I wait on the jury (and reunite with my MilleniaLab, who missed me quite a bit). There's a potential smoking gun document that seems remarkably absent from any of the trial exhibits.

You see, as Libby has testified [big PDF] (and his lawyers reminded us over and over during their case), there are no notes from any of the conversations Libby had with any of the three reporters in question: Russert, Cooper, and Judy. So we can't just look at his notes, compare his notes with those of Matt Cooper and Judy Miller, to discern the truth. It's Libby's word versus Russert's word and Cooper and Judy's notes.

But there is a document from his July 8 conversation with Judy. Or at least, there should be.

George Will attempts a narrative, and fails.

by Kagro X

I've known for a long time that it's a waste of effort to read George Will, but every once in a while you like to remind yourself just how shameless even a fellow with Important Looking Glasses can be.

George Will knows well, and relishes, the role he plays in America's newspapers. And so it is, I am sure, with no shortage of delight that he uses the leverage he has as America's breakfast table pundit to announce The Bad News: After four years of George W. Bush getting everything he wants in Iraq, the Democrats are to blame for the failure of his plans.

Why? Because they've come to the realization that this incompetent boob of a president is never going to succeed, and the price of his continued grasping is the blood of American troops -- to say nothing (as Republicans do) of the lives of Iraqis we're "liberating" from the oppression of having a pulse. And it is the unfortunate curse of Congressional Democrats that they take that rather seriously.

Second Riff off Max Weber.

By Sara

My first Max Weber Riff was last summer when I detailed my Utopian Reform of Campaign Finance.  Remember, it had to do with the constitutional authority of congress to coin money, and I proposed creating Election Dollars to be equally distributed among registered voters at the beginning of even numbered years, and that only Election Dollars (E$) could be used for any campaign expense.  All this would be done electronically, it would shorten campaigns, make them much more dependent on local parties and volunteers, and it would make folk equal in the value of the vote plus the value of the contribution. 

Well now we have another need for a Weber Riff -- how to reform the media.  Jane and Marcia are out there talking about how profoundly corrupted it all is -- most of us agree, but we are not getting reform proposals or agendas that make sense.  In my mind too much of it is personal, the bad Timmy, the sins of judy judy judy, and all the rest, and all I see about these guys is that they conform to the dominant corporate paradigme.  Good lord, folk conform to the requirements of their institutions.  So -- what's needed is different institutions. 

I really begin with two premises -- Media should be locally owned and managed, and -- all media ought to be non-profit.  My idea of media is essentially a distribution system.  Local TV, local press -- I would point out that the Guardian in GB and the Observer, part of the Guardian, both were once family owned for-profit papers -- the Observer was the property of the Astor Family, famed as the owners of Cleveden where once all the 1930's Appeasement advocates weekended with Nancy Astor and Neville.  What the Brits call "death taxes" required that the Observer either be donated or sold off, and the Astors linked up with the owners of the Manchester Guardian (you all remember reading that on tissue paper) and put the weekly into a trust.  What we would call a 501(c)3.  (Oh -- by the way, Bill Gates currently owns Cleveden as a hotel-conference center, with rooms beginning at about $1000 per night.) 

My point is that the British Government made it possible for family owned press to become non-profit (Trusts) foundations -- and today we admire both the Guardian and Observer because they survived and still do real journalism.  They take advertising, they operate as normal press entities, they only thing they do not have is stockholders.  No one, as Wall Street is doing, is demanding 20% profit or better.  If they do well, they can just re-invest and hire more reporters, or get a better webtech.  If their output is bad, they may have to cut staff.  But none of it is dependent on the "shares Market." 

Media in the US have gone in the opposite direction.  They have combined so much stuff that no one knows motivation.  Apparently for instance, the Washington Post's profit center is Kaplan -- which not only tutors kids for college, it actually offers classes on line for degrees.  Recent word is that Murdoch is trying to buy a 1/4th interest in the LA Times -- which looks like it might be controling interest.  Could we not just say halt, that local interests should own local media and fix our media ownership and tax law to that end? 

My own sense of it is that above all we need a means by which the wealthy who own media stock can contribute it in the same way that they can designate fine art to a museum.  Not really appreciated value, but more like purchase price plus a little, but there is no other real market for it.   

What Congress needs to debate is the essential value of a free press with "free" meaning that all sorts of wild hoologians have access to put their point across.  Yes, they need to comprehend the problem of the Chicago Defender -- a great -- Historic -- African American paper that lost inheritance matters because the sole owner did not understand the necessity of making arrangements for the death of the owner.  Given the Defender's mission, one can well understand why the owner held on to control.  Think for a time on the Pullman car workers who dropped a few copies of the Defender in this or that Mississippi town when that was life threatening dangerous.

Can we ask Congress to make the free press something protected from the crap game of the market and at the same time, something totally open to the innovations of new technology?  How do we state that as an issue for candidates?   Should "free press" really mean something that is on auction on the stock exchange?