Comments on: Who will tell the People? http://www.thecenterformichigan.net/blog/who-will-tell-the-people/ A Forum for Our State's Future Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:01:47 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Robert J. McElroy, M http://www.thecenterformichigan.net/blog/who-will-tell-the-people/comment-page-1/#comment-1038 Robert J. McElroy, M Sat, 06 Dec 2008 14:11:26 +0000 http://www.thecenterformichigan.net/blog/?p=1086#comment-1038 I have been interested in your website since first learning about it. Your post about the implosion of newsprint information is certainly timely,on the local, state and national levels. International TV news reporting is abysmal and recently I notice most of the few correspondents have a British accent and are not employed by US news organizations. A recent NYT piece indicated a trend to let go experienced local TV anchors that know their communities well. In their place are put young inexperienced bright faces that don't know the community or its history. Specifically I am most concerned about information in Michigan. I have access to what has seemed to me to be a very good local newspaper in Traverse City. However, the Record-Eagle does not have a Lansing bureau and it is difficult to find the legislative agenda,bills, etc. I find well over 90% of information about legislation is after the fact. Under these circumstances lobbyists and monied interests have a disproportionately influence on legislation particularly with inexperienced legislators resulting from term limits. An excellent example of this is the current Blue Cross Blue Shield legislation. As the number one health insurer in this state, any changes should be easily and readily available to citizens. Although many of us get substantial information from the Internet, the problem is one of reliability, experience and accountability particularly from sources that are not commonly or well known such as a newspaper. I have been interested in your website since first learning about it. Your post about the implosion of newsprint information is certainly timely,on the local, state and national levels. International TV news reporting is abysmal and recently I notice most of the few correspondents have a British accent and are not employed by US news organizations. A recent NYT piece indicated a trend to let go experienced local TV anchors that know their communities well. In their place are put young inexperienced bright faces that don't know the community or its history. Specifically I am most concerned about information in Michigan. I have access to what has seemed to me to be a very good local newspaper in Traverse City. However, the Record-Eagle does not have a Lansing bureau and it is difficult to find the legislative agenda,bills, etc. I find well over 90% of information about legislation is after the fact. Under these circumstances lobbyists and monied interests have a disproportionately influence on legislation particularly with inexperienced legislators resulting from term limits. An excellent example of this is the current Blue Cross Blue Shield legislation. As the number one health insurer in this state, any changes should be easily and readily available to citizens.

Although many of us get substantial information from the Internet, the problem is one of reliability, experience and accountability particularly from sources that are not commonly or well known such as a newspaper.

]]> By: Mike Anthony http://www.thecenterformichigan.net/blog/who-will-tell-the-people/comment-page-1/#comment-1037 Mike Anthony Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:46:20 +0000 http://www.thecenterformichigan.net/blog/?p=1086#comment-1037 Thanks for this Phil. I hear your concern for your old colleagues in this post. And I am as astonished by you at the near light-speed velocity of it all, rue the loss of coherence in our political and economic lives. I hope you’ll indulge me a few observations. Right now, I am not reading a newspaper; I am interacting with a news-maker. One of the leading lights of Michigan’s future. That fresh, crisp newspaper that lands at my doorstep every morning, the one I take up with a cup of coffee in the morning before the kids wake up, does not let me interact with thought leaders. So there’s a clue for you. For national news I “go” to WDC on the web. I’ll maybe read coverage on the same story once in the Washington Post and once in the Washington Times. On an international issue I’ll fetch out to the London “Independent” for the Tory view and to “The London Times” for the Conservatives view. That’s what you have to do these days: each side either ignores facts that are relevant to the other side or emphasizes different aspect of the same facts. If there was a doubt before the 2008 election, that doubt should be gone by now: there is no objective journalism anymore; even in the smallest local stories. Speaking as a news-consumer: You cannot sell Volvos & Birkenstocks, or F-150’s & guns being objective. Maybe you never could; but I’d trust your judgment on that. (An idea for a future post?) Maybe we needed the web to show us that there never was an impertinent question raised that did not have an agenda, that did not get close to “news-making” instead of “news reporting”. Back about 10 years ago, at Schipol (the Amsterdam Airport), my brother in law asked an “impertinent question” of Benjamin Netanyahu as he was passing through to meet with Yassir Arafat at the White House Rose Garden. My brother in law asked Netanyahu if he would shake hands with Yassir Arafat. Now, my brother in law was, and still is, a journalist working for a Christian news organization based in northern Europe. The question made international news – as much because of its impertinence, but because it had the practical effect of setting up the expectation of a handshake. The question had an agenda: as a Christian he wanted to see peace (and so do all of us) and it was a way of actually shaping the news by shaping the event. I’m not sure I like this either. Perhaps the best we can do is focus on keeping the market place of ideas healthy even as some newspapers go out of business. (i.e., Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”) As we have seen in the financial markets; the government did not do such a good job of watching the market. Let us turn our energy to watching the watchers, and not let the government foul up the marketplace of ideas. That means keeping an eye on the “journalists” working for Fox and NBC. And resisting that Orwellian-nightmare – the so-called “Fairness Doctrine”. Suggestion: Local news media workgroups should find a way to get local content on mobile phones; maybe charge a $1.25 dollar a week to a cell phone account to be able to download a report on the local school board meeting; new stores openinng, best place in town to buy gas, see your kid on the honor roll, holiday hours at the YMCA, show the picture of a neighbor’s daughter’s wedding at your workplace. I’d pay $5 a month for that. Excellent journalists can discover and write about great local stories. I think the reason talk radio is doing to well is that it serves those of us who are doomed to multi-tasking. Who these days has time to read a newspaper? Mobility rules. Its more productive when you have the radio on while you clean your garage, while you’re driving the kids to soccer practice. In America, if you’re not doing 8 things at once, you’re falling behind. Hope this helps Thanks for this Phil. I hear your concern for your old colleagues in this post. And I am as astonished by you at the near light-speed velocity of it all, rue the loss of coherence in our political and economic lives. I hope you’ll indulge me a few observations.

Right now, I am not reading a newspaper; I am interacting with a news-maker. One of the leading lights of Michigan’s future. That fresh, crisp newspaper that lands at my doorstep every morning, the one I take up with a cup of coffee in the morning before the kids wake up, does not let me interact with thought leaders.

So there’s a clue for you.

For national news I “go” to WDC on the web. I’ll maybe read coverage on the same story once in the Washington Post and once in the Washington Times. On an international issue I’ll fetch out to the London “Independent” for the Tory view and to “The London Times” for the Conservatives view. That’s what you have to do these days: each side either ignores facts that are relevant to the other side or emphasizes different aspect of the same facts.

If there was a doubt before the 2008 election, that doubt should be gone by now: there is no objective journalism anymore; even in the smallest local stories. Speaking as a news-consumer: You cannot sell Volvos & Birkenstocks, or F-150’s & guns being objective. Maybe you never could; but I’d trust your judgment on that. (An idea for a future post?) Maybe we needed the web to show us that there never was an impertinent question raised that did not have an agenda, that did not get close to “news-making” instead of “news reporting”.

Back about 10 years ago, at Schipol (the Amsterdam Airport), my brother in law asked an “impertinent question” of Benjamin Netanyahu as he was passing through to meet with Yassir Arafat at the White House Rose Garden. My brother in law asked Netanyahu if he would shake hands with Yassir Arafat. Now, my brother in law was, and still is, a journalist working for a Christian news organization based in northern Europe. The question made international news – as much because of its impertinence, but because it had the practical effect of setting up the expectation of a handshake. The question had an agenda: as a Christian he wanted to see peace (and so do all of us) and it was a way of actually shaping the news by shaping the event.

I’m not sure I like this either.

Perhaps the best we can do is focus on keeping the market place of ideas healthy even as some newspapers go out of business. (i.e., Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”) As we have seen in the financial markets; the government did not do such a good job of watching the market. Let us turn our energy to watching the watchers, and not let the government foul up the marketplace of ideas. That means keeping an eye on the “journalists” working for Fox and NBC. And resisting that Orwellian-nightmare – the so-called “Fairness Doctrine”.

Suggestion: Local news media workgroups should find a way to get local content on mobile phones; maybe charge a $1.25 dollar a week to a cell phone account to be able to download a report on the local school board meeting; new stores openinng, best place in town to buy gas, see your kid on the honor roll, holiday hours at the YMCA, show the picture of a neighbor’s daughter’s wedding at your workplace. I’d pay $5 a month for that. Excellent journalists can discover and write about great local stories.
I think the reason talk radio is doing to well is that it serves those of us who are doomed to multi-tasking. Who these days has time to read a newspaper? Mobility rules. Its more productive when you have the radio on while you clean your garage, while you’re driving the kids to soccer practice. In America, if you’re not doing 8 things at once, you’re falling behind.

Hope this helps

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