HorsesAss.Org

As newspapers and other large media corporations struggle to develop new business models for the twenty-first century, I wonder if we aren’t already seeing the future of journalism gradually evolving before our eyes… a future that, from the consumer’s perspective doesn’t really look all that remarkably different from the past?

I was reading the New York Times this morning (online of course), and clicked through on a headline in the Technology section, “Why It’s the Megabits, Not the MIPs, That Matter.” It’s an interesting bit of analysis, at least to a techno-geek like me, but what I found truly fascinating was the fact that the Times had picked up the piece from the GigaOM technology news network.

Of course, this kind of arrangement is nothing new. Newswires like Reuters and the Associated Press have played an integral role in our media since shortly after the invention of the telegraph, and syndicated columnists have long been a mainstay of opinion pages nationwide. Hell, there are often days when less than half the stories on the Seattle Times front page are written by Seattle Times reporters.

What’s different today is the explosion in number and quality of web sites and networks like GigaOM, and their ability to expertly specialize in subject matter far beyond that of traditional news wires like the AP. As the Internet and other related technologies continue to tear down the barriers of entry to the media market, there will be many more, not fewer, opportunities to enter the field of journalism. These opportunities may not always pay well (or, at all), but they are there none the less.

The result may be that journalism is gradually transformed from a profession dominated by generalists to one of specialists, each focused on their own particular field of expertise. And as traditional media outlets grow increasingly comfortable with the notion of outsourcing their content to a growing number of third party sources, we may see an end to the kind of duplicate efforts that have long characterized certain types of coverage.  (For example, do we really need four TV cameras at the same press conference, when the same sound bite inevitably ends up on all four evening newscasts?)

Under such a model one could imagine an entrepreneurial journalist setting out to provide in-depth coverage of Seattle city government, a notebook computer and compact high-def camera in hand, serving as a one-person, city hall news pool for any and all media outlets wishing to subscribe. The fact that the same footage might appear simultaneously on KING-5 and KOMO-4 has little downside considering that few viewers watch both broadcasts at once, and if properly done, the only thing keeping the Seattle Times from supplementing their city hall coverage with this wire-like reporting might be a misplaced sense of pride.

Neighborhood sites like West Seattle Blog could fill a similar role, distributing hyperlocal coverage to regional, state and national outlets. On the flip side, a political site like Publicola could serve as a sorta Capitol news bureau for West Seattle Blog and other neighborhood sites.

Yes, such a model would surely lead traditional news outlets to hire fewer full time reporters, and produce less and less original content, but that’s already happening as it is. And as the Internet continues to tear down barriers to market, those newspapers and broadcasters who transition to a more portal-like product while failing to provide a richer and more varied experience to their audience will inevitably face serious competition from upstarts who will.

All that’s lacking now is a standardized distribution and payment network… a kinda AP representing bloggers and other journalists that allows media outlets of all sizes to reproduce content in print, on air and online, without having to negotiate a hundred different contracts. Ideally, this would take the form of a cooperative owned by the content creators themselves, but I suppose the market will have a say in the final details.

Or maybe not. This model of distributed journalism is clearly playing a larger and larger role in the news industry. The only question remaining is whether the journalists themselves will reap a fair share of the profits.

The NY Times reported on Saturday about the first Washington State patient to die under the death with dignity law. I’m going to ignore the headline that erroneously calls it “assisted suicide” and focus instead on this paragraph:

In November, voters approved the Death with Dignity Act, 58 percent to 42 percent, making Washington the second state — after Oregon — to allow assisted suicide. The laws in both states have been deeply controversial, particularly among religious groups. Washington passed its law after the United States Supreme Court in 2006 rejected an effort by the Justice Department to block Oregon’s law, which took effect in 1998.

It passed with 58% of the vote. You’d be hard pressed to get 58% on a vote to declare puppies adorable. Yes, the initiative had it’s critics, and I have no problem with the Times getting their point of view. But to characterize something that passed with a significant majority of the vote “deeply controversial” implies that the opposition was more widespread than it actually was.

Newly confirmed drug czar Gil Kerlikowske was interviewed on KUOW this week. Pete at Drug WarRant has a post up with excerpts from the interview. Here’s one Q&A that was reminiscent of drug czars past:

Q: Marijuana. Do you support legalization of marijuana?
Kerlikowske: No.
Q: And why is that?
Kerlikowske: It’s a dangerous drug.
Q: Now, why is it a dangerous drug?
Kerlikowske: It is a dangerous drug. There are numbers of calls to hotlines for people requesting help from marijuana. A number of people that have been arrested, and we test people and have data on this, that are arrested throughout the country, come in to the system with marijuana in their system, as arrests.

One of the reasons why people have been optimistic about Kerlikowske’s appointment is because he was the police chief in a city that tolerated the annual Hempfest gathering. At Hempfest, hundreds of thousands of people gather in a park near downtown Seattle, many of whom use marijuana while they’re there, and yet bad things almost never happen. People listen to music, they discuss drug law reform, they buy bongs, they hang out on the rocks along the Sound, and they happily mingle among the Seattle Police officers on duty for the event.

If marijuana were such a dangerous drug, how would that even be possible? I’ve been to 5 Hempfests so far, and I haven’t seen so much as an argument, let alone a fight or some other incident (ok, I’ve seen arguments in the Hemposium tent, but those are over politics).

I understand that Seattle is a bit more progressive on this when compared to the rest of the country (although you wouldn’t know it by looking at the state legislature), but that’s not an excuse for Kerlikowske to lie. As the police chief who sent his officers to 8 Hempfests, he knows full-well that marijuana is no more dangerous a drug than alcohol. In fact, I dare him to find any of his former officers who says they’d rather be assigned to keep the peace at an event the size of Hempfest where people were consuming alcohol instead.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcNQuHsrxXY[/youtube]

Huh. I suppose the boys in the backroom at the RNC who concocted this “Pelosi Galore” ad patted themselves on the back for dreaming up such a clever a pun, but if Republicans are serious about closing the ever widening gender gap, I don’t think calling the highest ranking female in US history a “bitch,” a “hag,” and a “pussy” is the most effective way to do it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUkj9pjx3H0[/youtube]

Anybody who has followed the dramatic collapse of the newspaper industry knows that publishers have blamed much of their woes on Craigslist for stealing away the lucrative classified advertising revenues on which the dailies had grown fat for decades. And so it strikes me as more than a bit ironic to learn that when the Seattle Times has a job for hire, they wisely choose to spend their advertising dollars where else, but Craigslist:

Executive Assistant for Top Media Co! (Seattle, WA)

Reply to: hr.resumes@seattletimes.com
Date: 2009-05-11, 2:55PM PDT

Do you enjoy the challenge of working in a fast-paced, ever-changing, results-driven environment? Can you juggle ten projects effortlessly while exhibiting professional savvy and poise? Are you the go-to person who is in charge of making it all happen?

Then The Seattle Times Company, the region’s largest and most trusted print and online destination for news, information and advertising, seeks you as our new Executive Assistant.

Yup, we’re the region’s most trusted destination for “news, information and advertising”… except, you know, classified advertising.  For that, even we go to Craigslist because, we may be fifth-generation inbreds, but hey, we’re not stupid.

It sounds like a demanding job. Amongst the many prerequisites you must have well-honed “email etiquette” skills, the “ability to exercise discretion,” and be a “technical guru who is proficient on PC systems such as Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint.”

Huh. If proficiency in Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint is all that’s needed to qualify one as a “technical guru” at the Times, I think that explains a lot as to why they’re now advertising on Craigslist rather than the other way around.

Oh… and one word of caution:

We offer a dynamic, drug-free work environment…

Really? I guess Nicole Brodeur must work from home.

In education news:

Contrary to popular lore, John never drove a pink Harley. John vehemently insists it was a salmon colored Harley. Not that knowing the difference between pink and salmon comes off as any less emasculating.

The RNC has apparently reached an internal compromise on how much to call us socialists. Instead of “rebranding” us, they are going to claim we wish to pursue “socialist ideals.” The original resolution was sponsored by Washington state RNC member Jeff Kent.

The GOP’s willful ignorance and inability to distinguish between regulated capitalism and socialism must really make them proud. Let’s see if we can give a simple example in hopes they can finally understand the difference, with the caveat that there are all sorts of variations and degrees of capitalism and socialism. As many others have pointed out, most systems contain elements of each. But you have to write slowly for conservatives.

Let’s say you buy a clock. You have a reasonable expectation that the clock will work, but you generally get what you pay for. Caveat emptor and all that.

The free market has provided you with nearly limitless options for time pieces, so you generally don’t want the government making clocks or telling companies how many clocks to make each year. As long as the clock doesn’t catch on fire when you plug it in, and is otherwise safe, society has little justification to intensely regulate the production of ordinary consumer items.

Now let’s say you also wish to purchase electricity to run your new clock. You may live in an area with a public utility, or maybe it’s a private one, but you have a reasonable expectation of reasonably priced, reliable power.

Now let’s say the free market for electricity is being distorted by a corporation engaging in monopolistic and criminal practices. Let’s call the electric utility company “Enron.” Now imagine their traders are deliberately causing brownouts and blackouts in your area, so when the power is off your new clock doesn’t work. You don’t really have to imagine this, because it really happened under Republican rule, and the GOP response was basically to applaud it.

Is it “socialism” to regulate key industries to prevent monopolistic practices, and all industries for basic consumer safety? And please, when conservatives get all up in arms about the government taking over failed companies, they act like it was some long-term deal instead of what it actually is, a desperate attempt to clean up the gigantic economic mess created during Republican rule.

Now suppose you wanted to buy a mortgage, or some stock mutual funds for retirement…I think you get the point, if you’ve made it this far.

Democrats don’t want socialism, we want to prevent the criminal greed-heads from ripping everyone off and causing economic meltdowns. Because for people who claim to be such hard-headed realists about human nature, conservatives often seem to overlook the fact that some percentage of people will always be criminal greed-heads who would sell their own mothers to make a lousy buck. If you want a perfect free market, contemporary examples include Somalia and the trade in illegal opiates, both of which are completely unregulated in any meaningful sense.

This makes Democrats the party of law and order, and no matter how many silly little resolutions the RNC passes, everyone knows they’re the party of the criminal greed-heads who broke the economy.

It’s gonna be pretty hard to re-brand that. Neener neener neener.

Progressives have often argued that superb law enforcement and intelligence work, performed by often unheralded but dedicated officers from multiple agencies, is one of our best lines of defense against terrorism. Now here’s further evidence.

Four men arrested after planting what they thought were explosives near a synagogue and community center and plotting to shoot down a military plane were bent on carrying out a holy war against America, authorities said Thursday.

The suspects were arrested Wednesday night, shortly after planting a 37-pound mock explosive device in the trunk of a car outside the Riverdale Temple and two mock bombs in the backseat of a car outside the Jewish Center, a few blocks away, authorities said.

—snip—

The defendants, in their efforts to acquire weapons, dealt with an informant acting under law enforcement supervision, authorities said. The FBI and other agencies monitored the men and provided an inactive missile and inert C-4 to the informant for the defendants, a federal complaint said.

If you read the full article, it sounds like three of the accused may qualify for the label “homegrown fanatics.”

Just as in the case of would-be millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam, it was front-line law enforcement workers who thwarted the criminals, not twisted old politicians with Torquemada complexes.

I guess we don’t know yet if anyone was waterboarded in this case, although one would tend to think not, since the case relied upon clever deception. Waterboarding would have kind of been a sign that we’re on to them, you know.

Maybe now the torture fetishists like Dick Cheney will STFU for once.

Light blogging for me today as I fill in for Ken Schram on The Commentators, 10AM to 2PM, KOMO 1000. Tune in as John Carlson and I butt heads on… well… I don’t yet know what topics we’ll be taking up, but no doubt there will be some head butting.

Goldy declares it “Line Item Veto Day” in Washington, and the panel rips into the state’s electeds for treating progressives like a cheap date. Yeah, there were some progressive victories—the ones that didn’t cost anything!

A domestic partnership bill was signed into law this week, giving registered same-sex and senior partnerships legal near-equality to marriage. The panel, including Equal Rights Washington’s Josh Friedes, discusses the law, the referendum it spawned, and the future prospects for same-sex marriage in Washington state and elsewhere.

Journalist and Blogger Dave Neiwert discusses his most recent book The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right (2009, Polipoint Press). The panel ponders today’s crop of racists, haters and right-wing extremists.

Goldy was joined by SeattlePI.com columnist Joel Connelly, author and managing editor of Crooks and Liars Dave Neiwert, advocacy director of Equal Rights Washington Josh Friedes, and Seattle Drinking Liberally host and donkeylicious contributor Nicholas Beaudrot.

The show is 59:09, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_may_19_2009.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

In honor of the 545 bus (the last bus of the night back to Redmond!!!) that never showed up on Saturday night, Seattle will no longer be the “Emerald City.”

It will now be called “The City That Sleeps.” Because a transit system that stops working at midnight on a Saturday is totally Squaresville, baby.

Ho hum. Another election cycle, another gaping money pit in WA-08 for the NRCC:

The National Republican Congressional Committee is launching a revamped incumbent retention program designed to help vulnerable House Republicans raise cash for their reelection campaigns — and warning members that the committee will not bail out those who are insufficiently prepared for competitive races.

The NRCC plans to unveil the first 10 incumbents who qualify for their Patriot Program at a Tuesday briefing to political action committees. … Among those on the list are Reps. Dan Lungren, Ken Calvert and Brian Bilbray of California, Judy Biggert of Illinois, Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana, Thad McCotter of Michigan, Erik Paulsen of Minnesota, Leonard Lance of New Jersey, Christopher Lee of New York and Dave Reichert of Washington.

No doubt I’ve been disappointed and indeed depressed by Darcy Burner’s failure to close the deal these past two elections against the profoundly mediocre Rep. Reichert, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t make a huge contribution toward the Democrats achieving their House majority. Every dime Darcy forced the NRCC to spend propping up the financially floppy Reichert is a dime they couldn’t spend in another district. That’s how the 50 state strategy works.

In Jennifer Dunn’s hands WA-08 was a cash cow for the Republican Party, exporting dollars into competitive races nationwide, but even after three terms, the ever vulnerable Reichert is still sucking at the party teat. And while that may not sound like much of a victory, it still provides some genuine consolation for those of us who understand the bigger picture.

Republican RNC member Jeff Kent of Washington state is running into some resistance to his proposed resolution “re-branding” the Democratic Party as the “Democrat Socialist Party” or “Socialist Democrat Party” or whatever the hell it is.

It seems even a maroon like Michael Steele can sense (yet another) public relations disaster in the offing for the GOP.

Party Chairman Michael Steele and others say the party should also drop the renaming resolution and focus on more serious problems. To avoid a party dispute over the renaming, Republicans were trying to compromise on milder language that would simply criticize Democrats for what they call socialist tendencies.

Some party leaders described the initial resolution as “stupid” and “absurd.”

Jeff Kent, a Washington state Republican who helped spearhead the effort, declined to comment on a potential compromise, saying he is still working to pass the resolution.

How bad is your idea when leaders in your own party are openly calling it “stupid?”

Stick to your guns, Jeff. The country needs to be protected from horrible “socialists” like me who advocate free, fair democratic elections, respect for the Constitution and human rights. I wouldn’t want to face a Republican Party that puts forth a logical argument about marginal income tax rates or health care, that would be too…logical. Your way is much funner.