Georgia's, uh, Crisis Not Sexy Enough

Just when Sonny was, finally, back from Japan and seriously on his A-game, sounding every bit the powerful crisis-management leader, then wouldn’t ya know… along comes Schwarzenegger again, with his “perfect storm” sound bite and perfect bod and way-cooler disaster. Sonny got bumped down to second tier for America’s Best Crisis Governor all over national news last night.

We were reduced to a mere VO on ABC, while over on CBS’s second block, some babbling dope kept yammering about how “panicked” we were here in Georgia, yet failed to display anything remotely resembling this ”panic” we’re having. (You in a “panic?” I’m in a “panic” because my car has to go to the damn car spa — again.)

It’s just hard for a southerner to lead a national newscast nowadays when you’ve got Suzanne Summers and Ryan O’Neal evacuating estates in only their underwear. Between Malibu fires and Malibu Barbie (Valerie Plame Wilson) raging all over the national airways, Georgia’s water emergency never stood a chance at #1. Heck, even Tyler Perry’s movie dropped in sales over the weekend.

We are soooooo B-list.


This entry cross-posted at Peach Pundit.

Atlanta's Fat Ass

Jeff Haynie, a successfull web-based entreprenuer from metro Atlanta has a fascinating blog entry he's titled: How To Build A Successfull Startup Environment in Atlanta. Note his use of the critical word "environment." Jeff's really on to something here, something we need to help him grow:

I can’t even compare our environments to other major areas like the Valley or Boston - it’s just not much of a comparison. So, I won’t. Atlanta can become it’s own community and has the ability to not only do what others have done before us - but also innovate in it’s community environments. And, we need more people - “completely unknown” around town - to step up and make it happen. We need 100 Billy Payne’s passionate about making Atlanta a successful startup community, as much as the real Payne did for the Atlanta Olympic quest in the late 80s.

Full post here. I urge reading it carefully. There's just so much good stuff all through it. I've had to the good fortune to work with Jeff on media issues and making some cool new media. He's completely inspiring to be around. He gets things like, oh say, SoCon07 done. And Southern Fried Tech.

Like others who have come to get to know one another through SoCon07, PodCamp Atlanta or Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs, Jeff is anxious and willing to help build a strong e-entrepreneur community right here in the SE. Let's hope our entrenched media establishment, some of which he talks about in his blog entry, will keep the faith, the open mind and the initiative needed to help drive just this very thing -- a vibrant web-based entrepreneurial environment and community. Not only is it in our interest, their audience base and eyeballs, it would seem to be in their own self-preservation interests too.

FYI... Jeff's on to BarCamp Atlanta come October! I say... whatever was strong in Mr. Payne, is also strong in Mr. Haynie. Let's move beyond the entrenched way of doing things, the good 'ole boy network. Let's learn, create -- and above all -- share.

MSM Visitation

I used to do MSM editorials quite regularly. Not so much since I started blogging, because blogging is simply a more expressive, more freewheeling (my word du jour), more honest medium than the 19th century corset required for mainstream editorial consideration. Of course, lots of people think of blogging as dripping blood on the keyboard for all our knuckle dragging.

Anyways, don't feel like going down the same 'ole same 'ole garden path about blogging vs. MSM. There's a time and place and platform for whatever you need to say nowadays, and that's the good part. Let's focus on that. Here's today's AJC editorial, which is really nothing more than a blog entry cleaned-up for public consumption.

Another Atlanta blogger who excels at this blog-to-MSM process, although his typical blog posts aren't exactly written to inflame the senses, just sensibilities, is Leonard Witt, the go-to guy on citizen journalism issues in his blog, PJNet. Check it out when you can.

MSM Smackdown

It doesn't matter what you think about Michael Moore. What's delightful is watching him just smack the holy shit outta Wolf Blitzer! Heeheehee!

Old Media Noticing New Media In Georgia Politics

(This post cross-posted at Peach Pundit too.)

With the 10th Congressional being one of the few political shows in town, in the country for that matter, won’t be long before Big Media notices all our Little Media efforts here in Georgia, just as the Athens Banner-Herald has. Especially if Marlow makes it to a runoff on June 19th. Then the big guys will be all over us, trust me, because we can then, and only then, say that New Media is likely impacting the political process in the Peach State. Likely.

I caution anyone to use extreme caution when believing a word out of a political advisor’s mouth right now about new media. Not only do they tend not have a clue about new media as a whole, they don’t have a clue about the impact of new media on voter behavior. So when people make statements like this from the OnlineAthens story:

Unless a (newspaper) story’s written about it, the people viewing it (an online video) probably know how they’re going to vote anyway,” (Emil) Runge said.

…trust that they’re pulling statements out of their as* book of facts.

No one, at this point in time, has a clue whether a “traditional” print story about a YouTube video will impact voter behavior or not. Just as no one has a clue whether watching a YouTube video will translate into feet to the polls. There simply is no data right now to support any kind of “new media” political reality.

Let’s hope that some of our fine Georgia (national?) pollsters will seize the momentum of this special election on June 19th to get out there and gather us up some good, hard data on whether or not “new media” influenced not only:

a.) how people voted.
b.) But also did new kinds of media get folks off their butts and actually out of the house to vote at all?

In the meantime, don’t believe any hype coming from “traditional” campaigns on any side about what the Internet vs. traditional media will or will not do for them. They simply don’t know. Anyone trying to dazzle you with statements about the impact of any kind of media on politics right now is simply flying by the seat of their (old media advice) pants.

This Video Belongs To You And Me

To piggyback on Buzzbrockway’s post at Peach Pundit about YouTube warriors, consider the case of Congressional floor (speech) video…. who owns that material, and why has only C-SPAN had ownership and rights to that material… up until now?

Others are at least getting into the biz of selling back to us something that really should belong to us in the first place, least I feel that any and all video generated from the floor of OUR Congress should belong to us — and it should be free to access for any and all YouTube Nation tribal members to use as they see fit.

As the mighty media blogger, Jeff Jarvis says, and I fully agree:

Just as with the presidential debates, that democratic discussion should belong to the people and to truly give it to us, Congress should be doing everything CQ (Congressional Quarterly) is doing — for free.

Jarvis’ post in full is here. Times like this, we need to remind ourselves that we are now The Media.

And if we are, then why are more "traditional" journalists not acting as if they are now The New Media, rather than just waiting around for their bosses to tell 'em how to behave? (Jim Long is just about the lone exception to this sorry state of affairs, bless his new media heart!)

Matt Waite, a reporter for the St. Pete Times, tells it like it is. Preach on Brother Waite, preach on:

I can hear people I know gnashing their teeth already. Why should I do something that costs me time and maybe even money to benefit my employer when I don’t get paid for it? Here’s my response, and it’s two-fold: If you don’t, you run the risk of being first up for layoffs (so you’ll REALLY be uncompensated) and the more skills you have, the better off you are for whatever newspapers evolve into.

Or even if they go away completely. Let’s play fantasyland for a second: newspapers collapse, and all that content goes away. Someone is going to step into that void. Let’s pretend it’s Google and Yahoo and MSN. Do you think for a second they aren’t going to want new media skills? That they’ll be impressed with your paper clippings and your stubborn insistence that you can only write a story for a printed publication?

Come on. Wake up.

Journalism On The Crowdsourcing Verge

This site is sooooo awesome -- a citizen journalism project for tracking crime and crime stats in Chicago. It could only be cooler if it was... Atlanta of course.

Think the AJC will work with any techy-minded citizen journalist types to come up with something this civic-minded? Wouldn't put my money on it, but it's worth circulating ideas to MSM about if you have the chance. Or APD. Then again, last time I talked to anyone at APD about anything, I got the usual "what's a blog?" question. Cyber to them means cyber crime still. I hope we understand cyber assistance too.

Another MSM crowdsourcing journalism project, about funky utility rates in a Florida community is here. This is very interesting because my condo complex received some ugly water bills lately that were, historically, way out of proportion with our typical usage/rates.

This one gives me some good ideas about crowdsourcing neighborhood water bill data and information from around my 'hood, starting with the neighborhood discussion board. Lemme get on that...


HT: via much linkage from PJNet.

Who's The Redolant Remora Fish Now?

NEWSFLASH: MSM now working for us. See here and here. Shall we commence cultural re-educational initiative today or next week? Lemme check with the cabal first.

Bloggers Suddenly Not "Redolant Remora Fish"

Not only has the MSM political elite, in this case the Washington bureau chief for Time, Jay Carney, given a HT to political bloggerati, the dude's gone so far as to take his hat completely off to bloggers. This time the blogosphere gets kudos for what many consider the inevitable resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales... over his ugly little mass-firing of U.S. lawyers who were apparently not towing the (R ) party line the way Karl Rove likes to see it done.

Heck, before you know it, MSM will be munching-up on those puppies. Keep the heat on, bloggers!

Song appropriate for this, Whip It by Devo, but not available on Pandora, due to licensing issues. Speaking of Internet radio, my beloved always true Radio Paradise is circulating a petition to try to get royalty rates to stay at an affordable rate, a rate that will keep Internet radio alive. According to Mr. Bill at Radio Paradise:

"The US Copyright Office has released their new set of rates for the payment of royalties by Internet Radio -- royalty rates so high that they threaten to put RP (Radio Paradise) and every other US-based indie webcaster out of business. With your help, we will not allow this to happen!"

I signed. Hope you will too.

This post put together by Aztec Camera, We Could Send Letters. "Just close your eyes again. Until these things get better. You're never far away. We could send letters." (Wow. I'd forgotten what a gem this song is!)

You Are As You're Linked To

Hmmm... the SGR made MSM again, but I can't for the life of me find a single referral hit from this piece on the stats. Could this be to the dubious influence of Cox news service, or just to a total lack of interest in this blog?

Nothing else powers the sensation of having a voice like blogging!

Power Up

Think the Spacey Gracey Review could be termed an "educational" outlet? Heck, call it what you will, but I sure would like me one of these here FM radio frequencies The Man is doling out to the media needy and downtrodden. Than again, if you can't make money off of it, where's the measurable value? Who wants just the same 'ole lipflapper, informational bullshit? Give me cash any 'ole day.

Either way, The Man's gonna get his share. Somehow. Someway.

Greatness Makes Our Happy Meals Possible

First Stephen Colbert sticks a red hot poker in the eye of the media elite at the '06 White House Correspondent's dinner. (Some say Colbert should have been Person of The Year. Ain't that the truthiness.) Now Bill Moyers is preaching from the Church of Social Media to kick-start '07.

Wonder if they're listening out there in La-La Land? Rest assured, the liars and charlatans like Edelman, the networks, Madison Avenue and certain music industry types aren't ever gonna get it. They'll just keep charging, flailing up to the front of the parade they think they're gonna lead, the parade they never even knew existed until it about turned the corner for Main Street. They'll be overrun by the circus freaks and clowns and geeks and monkeys from the back - again.

This Moyers speech is so important I hope you will take the time to read it all. This excerpt is from Craig Aaron of FreePress. net, covering the National Conference for Media Reform, taking place this weekend in Memphis. (And yeah, I'd have sold my momma, again, to have been there, but some of us are busy committing original content in our own backyards; others are simply conference addicts.)

Journalist and author Bill Moyers denounced Big Media corporations Friday in a fiery speech that opened the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis.

Moyers told a packed house of more than 3,000 activists and organizers that the independent press is under sustained attack, with a few corporations conspiring with political leaders to create an Orwellian world "in which language conceals reality, and the pursuit of personal gain and partisan power are wrapped in rhetoric that turns truth to lies and lies to truth."

Full video and audio of Moyers' Speech is available at http://www.freepress.net/conference

Evoking the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Moyers compared big media corporations to plantation owners and American media consumers to their slaves.

“What happened to radio, happened to television, and then it happened to cable. If we are not diligent, then it will happen to the Internet, [creating] a media plantation for the 21st century dominated by the same corporate and ideological forces that have controlled the media for the last 50 years.”

“Something is wrong with this system,” Moyers added. “This is the moment freedom begins, the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story, and it’s time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself.”

Moyers honed in on the issue of Net Neutrality, which he dubbed the “Equal Access Provision of the Internet,” and praised SavetheInternet.com’s grassroots and online organizing efforts, saying that Washington hadn’t reckoned with this movement “that once again reminded the powers that be that people want the media to foster democracy, not to quench it.”

Moyers called the SavetheInternet.com campaign critical, as soon virtually all media will be delivered to homes via a single high speed broadband connection. “We now have it in our means to tell a different story than Big Media,” Moyers said. “This is the great gift of the digital revolution, and you must never let them take it away from you.”

All coverage from Memphis is here.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges

Or do we? Damn the syndicate?

The revolution is, once again, masked as ye 'olde power-grab. Now the Media Bloggers Association (yes, I'm a member so who really wants to be in that club?) wants to clean-up us bloggers real nice like so that we can be credentialed for big news coverage events, in this case the pending Scooter Libby trial in Washington. From today's MBA emailed (by Robert Cox) missive:

Dear MBA Member,

I was not quite ready to announce this but as this news is probably going to be mentioned in a major newspaper tomorrow I figure I had better go ahead and fill you all in tonight. As you know, I've been working on creating new opportunities for bloggers including "access" for bloggers.

Those efforts are now bearing fruit as we have our first high-profile opportunity. The U.S. District Court in Washington, DC has agreed to provide the MBA with two seats at the upcoming Scooter Libby Trial.

Those members interested to participate need to send me an email expressing their interest and some preferred dates. Our plan is to put together a schedule of 15-20 bloggers. Each blogger will be given one of our two press credentials for a few days (we can play with exact dates once I have expressions of interest from members).

The blogger can either be you or someone who blogs on a group blog you run (technically members of your group blog are already members, something we are sorting out with the new membership database but that is a different matter). I am hoping to create some overlap in the schedule so there is always one "veteran" and one "rookie" in our two seats. Bloggers who participate are expected to crank out a good deal of material and participate in the syndication of the content through the MBA web site.

Maybe this is a good thing, but as Leonard Witt at PJNet asks, do we really want Robert Cox of MBA bestowing privileges we can likely access on our own, thank you very much?

Without benefit of MBA and while MSM slept, we have quietly been committing journalism (and been credentialed as "real" media too in the case of my company, WaySouth Media, Inc.) without need of anointment by the Washington media power structure, old or otherwise.

Lemme give you a quick link list of independent Atlanta bloggers who have stumbled into genuine journalism, should you need a refresher...

Drifting Through The Grift (exclusive Loveshack porn saga coverage)
Georgia Podcast Network (podcasts on new media you won't find elsewhere)
TrueGritz ( media "rights" to the Olympics)
Peachtree Screed (Mayor Franklin's racial tones)
Bernaisesource (overall excellent, original PR industry analysis)

Are there others? I'm sure there are. Send the Atlanta-based ones to me and I'll add to the list.

Is having an umbrella organization, a syndicate, act on our behalf and thus bestowing that group and its leader, Robert Cox, with the power of our compliance, at utter cross purposes with the very nature of independent blogging itself? I'd be all for getting a stinkin' badge, but under these rules?

Members also could seek credentialed status by undergoing training or demonstrating other work as professional journalists. They also must agree to the organization's ethical standards and adopt formal editorial and corrections policies.

Still A Positive Idiot After All These Years

Good grief, how long have we had to endure Laura Bush-isms? Fortunately she seems too woosey and drowsey in the media, on meds I suppose, to take seriously at all. When she does open her mouth, she only makes the the B-Admin look more clueless than ever. Even (real) conservatives want her to "Prove it, Baby."

Rich Lowery in the National Review online writing a column titled When The Media Is Right:

First Lady Laura Bush spoke for many conservatives when she excoriated the media’s coverage of Iraq the other day. She complained that “the drumbeat in the country from the media ... is discouraging,” and said “there are a lot of good things happening that aren’t covered.”

What are those things, one wonders? One can only imagine how Mrs. Bush can figure that they outweigh the horrors in Iraq.

Full column here.

Remora Fish Hate You

What's the sound of a white, (prematurely) aging, white again, male suit whining? An editorial in the Wall Street Journal! Those MSM dudes would be kinda funny, with their chronic ink-stained hand wringing, if they weren't so deadly humorless. I smell a nespot, or something equally elitist and pampered and clueless.

Joseph Rago, assistant editorial features editor at the WSJ, has this nasty little shoutout for us bloggers. Hey, at least this is a fairly transparent flame of pure hatred, well written of course, rather than that patronizing joke of a TIME magazine cover, conceived by yet another suit. Wonder who's job is on the line? (Surely not mine!) Says Mr. Rago:

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.

More success is met in purveying opinion and comment. Some critics reproach the blogs for the coarsening and increasing volatility of political life. Blogs, they say, tend to disinhibit. Maybe so. But politics weren't much rarefied when Andrew Jackson was president, either. The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful.

Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling. Every conceivable belief is on the scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in pronouncement than persuasion . . . The way we write affects both style and substance.

The loquacious formulations of late Henry James, for instance, owe in part to his arthritis, which made longhand impossible, and instead he dictated his writing to a secretary. In this aspect, journalism as practiced via blog appears to be a change for the worse. That is, the inferiority of the medium is rooted in its new, distinctive literary form. Its closest analogue might be the (poorly kept) diary or commonplace book, or the note scrawled to oneself on the back of an envelope -- though these things are not meant for public consumption. The reason for a blog's being is: Here's my opinion, right now.

Full not-for-public-consumption babble here. And my opinion? Right now? What fish could even GET up an ass as tight as Mr. Rago's? Henry James would never have bothered, that boring little poofster. How about a nice, loquacious bitch-slap to the WSJ for Christmas? Oh dear... a full Python moment has suddenly overtaken me. Sing along:

I'm a Blogger-Journalist and I'm OK.
I work all night and I sleep all day.
I fan the flames, I blog some more,
I go to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays I may take a shower,
and opinionate some more!

Free Speech Rampage Rampages On Into The Night

First Newt, now McCain. Lordy, why don't we just put those two on a ticket together and shut down the Internets now? From William K. Wolfrum (Who the f is he? Yet another Libertarian-golf writer type I assume. There's no info on his blog whatsoever, but whoever he is you cannot miss the Scientologists and Chiropractor post. It's begging for caption comments. Hilarious!):

Remember, when they finally pull the plug on the Internet it will be to “save the children” or “fight the terrorists.” And guys like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Mark Steyn will be fighting tooth and nail to help shut down the greatest free-speech technology. And then the pulpit will truly only belong to the select few.

Yep, why share the goodies when you've got 'em all?

Who Polishes The Best Turds?

Or rather, who best polishes the simple turd? According to the Turdpolisher's blog description:

Turdpolishing is slang we TV photogs use for turning an utterly worthless story into something that sticks to video tape -- polishing a turd. Be careful or you'll get some on you.

A perfect case-in-point is a bit from this Turdpolisher entry, Got AIDS?, about trolling for news only the suits can use:

Can I tell you... the only thing worse than attending a poetry reading about AIDS is actually having AIDS. But it gets better, the poets are 11 years old. What do these kids know about AIDS, how one contracts it, lives with it, or prevents it? Luck was on our side...we were late. We got there just in time to shoot the winners getting their checks. But there's still that nagging need for a story tonight.

Having just produced a network shoot this past Saturday, I was reminded, yet again, of just how elaborate the T polish can be applied.

See this hardworking crew dress a set for instance. The crew used-up about an hour of good manpower time creating a curtain to block light so that they could pop-off a couple of interior shots, a couple of shots inside a filthy shack. Of course, you simply can't get a good shot with full sun blaring right into your lens, whether you're using a $150 DV cam from Circuit City or a customized Betacam, as this crew was using that can run you or your network 50K or more.

We were not there to do a story about poverty though, so the camera crew could light and frame to capture a "nice" setting anyway they saw fit, conveniently ignoring the ramshackle squalor our interviewees were living in. (Filth and grime and poverty? What's that to a feature story about overcoming anxieties!? But I diverge. I was just the hired hand on this one. The folks in NYC want a story about an anxiety disorder, that's what they're gonna get. It's not the place of a freelance producer to even THINK about contributing to the editorial direction. You show up on time, you smile and nod, and you ship the NY desk their tapes immediately. That's what they want from us folk on "the ground." Nothing more. Nothing less.)

So here's your case for "real" citizen journalism. And this does not mean just giving a newsroom of highly educated journalists a DV cam and a lesson on iMovie, as only when the stories bubble-up organically from the ground, by any means necessary I suppose, and then go straight up to the suits, and not the top-down method by which we're accustomed to receiving news, will turd polishing become less important. Only then will the TV news audience begin to recognize a genuine turd for what it often is -- the crap or non-news item or PC bullshit or outright lies (WMD) it often is.

And will the print folks ever be able to simply catch up? Should they even try to catch up with video? Should writing and video be mutually exclusive? Tune-in to the blogosphere to find out more. Exciting times we do live in, folks.

NOTE: Do not miss Turdpolisher's short story either, The Blond and The Klan. Hilariously underwritten in a loopy style perfect for capturing the sheer lunacy of a Louisiana local news station. Get this guy an agent!

Hyper Egos Scheduled To Ruin Network News

A perfect example here of why mainstream media/network news is doomed. Doomed I tell you. When egos rule the bottom line, then you've got yourself a house of hot air, stamp your feet say ME ME ME straw.

Only one business-class seat could be procured because the trip was hastily arranged. But "Murphy (Katie Couric's hairdresser) went to the foreign desk and screamed at people about how outrageous and incompetent this was. She threatened that heads were going to roll," an insider says... More here.

It ain't the bloggers who will bring down network news. MSM can do it just fine left to their own devices. Thank goodness for blogs though, as now more people can see what I suffered through in my network years.

Now where'd you put my goddamn conditioner, Zelma? (My dog.)

Big Media Dreaming, On Such A Yucky Day

I enjoyed writing this comment on John Sugg's blog so much that I'll just turn it into an open letter right here!

I have a Big Media dream... a dream that Atlanta media, alt and otherwise, will one day be free of the bonds of the fatuous, white male pomposity and uselessness that currently bind our local radio, TV and print to the wheel of cultural irrelevance as it continues to pass dull, relentless, tired 'ole opinionista babble off as some kinda fresh journalistic leadership.

Thank you Jesus, for most of us weary longtimers now have the power to tune-out the tired 'ole likes of Sugg and Shipp and Williams and Lindsay/Clark and Edelstein and Bookman and Wooten and Boortz, and move on to other perspectives via new media and mediums.

Your thought leadership is now hollering only in the vacuums of boring insignificance you've talked and written yourselves right into.

I gotta go pour another cup of coffee and power-up the iMovie.

Oh, one other thing... I'll toss Lois Reitzes in to the above pit 'o names to give you boys something to play with. Then again, you wouldn't know what to do with her. She doesn't crank-out silly trash-copy about sex and girlie-gay stuff; she just plays really hideous music on our public airwaves for 6 agonizing hours a day.

AAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH

Cox & Bush Country

Hi Ho. Hi Ho
It's off to vote we go.
Got no ID. Don't need to read.
Hi Ho. Hi Ho

The Georgia political landscape never ceases to... uh... get me to the polls for the usual fright-fest. See above photo. Although not applicable today, let's start getting this Cox conundrum straight in our pea brains now before somebody gets hurt. So many Coxes in this state running the whole show we should just exchange stadiums with USC.

Cathy Cox is a (D). Kathy Cox is a (R). And neither of either is in any danger of getting even remotely close to the Too Rich and Too Thin stratosphere of our Big Media belle, Anne Cox (Chambers), who remains mostly in NYC and Europe I'd imagine, riots or not.