Comments on: Using Distributed Media (and People) to Ask Hard Questions http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/ Creating a User's Guide to Democratized Media Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:16:28 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Mayhill Fowler http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/#comment-17 Mayhill Fowler Sun, 17 May 2009 18:30:29 +0000 http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/#comment-17 Mr. Gillmor, As long as I was writing for OffTheBus, I felt that I should support my editors in their public comments.  However, now that the election is over, I feel free to defend myself.  I did not write the OtB/HuffPost piece about Clinton, although it went up under my name.  Since Bill Clinton did not know who I was, I never intended to use any of his remarks without his pemission.  I was in Webster, SD waiting to talk to Clinton for a second time, even though my editors whom Deanie Mills so admires had sent me frantic emails all in caps ordering me not to approach Clinton for permission, when the piece went up.  Finally, when I asked Clinton my question, I was asking as a fellow human being who had been much maligned in the press and knew what that felt like.  I do believe that the Purdum "Vanity Fair" article is a hatchet job.  The circumstances of South Dakota and Huff Post avidity is a much longer story, both sad and funny--but this is not the place. Mr. Gillmor,
As long as I was writing for OffTheBus, I felt that I should support my editors in their public comments.  However, now that the election is over, I feel free to defend myself.  I did not write the OtB/HuffPost piece about Clinton, although it went up under my name.  Since Bill Clinton did not know who I was, I never intended to use any of his remarks without his pemission.  I was in Webster, SD waiting to talk to Clinton for a second time, even though my editors whom Deanie Mills so admires had sent me frantic emails all in caps ordering me not to approach Clinton for permission, when the piece went up.  Finally, when I asked Clinton my question, I was asking as a fellow human being who had been much maligned in the press and knew what that felt like.  I do believe that the Purdum “Vanity Fair” article is a hatchet job.  The circumstances of South Dakota and Huff Post avidity is a much longer story, both sad and funny–but this is not the place.

]]> By: Harry Waisbren http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/#comment-11 Harry Waisbren Sun, 10 May 2009 05:23:49 +0000 http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/#comment-11 I couldn't agree more with you post Dan and am looking forward to doing whatever I can to help accomplish these goals! I have long been preparing a national plan to support efforts just like Ask the President through Campus Progress (the student arm of the Center for American Progress). Recently this project has expanded to the #p2 (the progressive umbrellatag) twitter hashtag as well as to the Center for Media and Democracy. Campus Progress has already given me 6 flip cameras for this effort, and I am working on the specfics for how this coalition will operate. There are a myriad of reasons for why we students are the top demographic to take part here, yet for some reason the fact that we have the maximum amount of free time for this sort of activism/journalism is amazingly ignored by media institutions of all stripes. I am hopeful though that participants in this project will be forward thinking in this regard, as I believe it would be immesnely beneficial to coordinate our work as much as possible! Scott Horton's observation that Condi got caught because she wasn't remotely prepared to deal with "the Daily Show generation" ( <a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/hbc-90004883" rel="nofollow">http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/hbc-90004883</a>) was spot on. I am quite hopeful that we can work together to prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt! I couldn’t agree more with you post Dan and am looking forward to doing whatever I can to help accomplish these goals!

I have long been preparing a national plan to support efforts just like Ask the President through Campus Progress (the student arm of the Center for American Progress). Recently this project has expanded to the #p2 (the progressive umbrellatag) twitter hashtag as well as to the Center for Media and Democracy. Campus Progress has already given me 6 flip cameras for this effort, and I am working on the specfics for how this coalition will operate.

There are a myriad of reasons for why we students are the top demographic to take part here, yet for some reason the fact that we have the maximum amount of free time for this sort of activism/journalism is amazingly ignored by media institutions of all stripes. I am hopeful though that participants in this project will be forward thinking in this regard, as I believe it would be immesnely beneficial to coordinate our work as much as possible!

Scott Horton’s observation that Condi got caught because she wasn’t remotely prepared to deal with “the Daily Show generation” ( http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/hbc-90004883) was spot on. I am quite hopeful that we can work together to prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt!

]]> By: Pablo http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/#comment-9 Pablo Sat, 09 May 2009 20:25:54 +0000 http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/#comment-9 Mr. Gilmor, What you write makes a lot of sense.  Traditional media often avoids key questions, citizen journalists sometimes ask rubbish ones, but sometimes it works out.  Your ideas for determining & executing key questions make sense, too, I think.  I'm anxious to see you develop them.  However, in my opinion, the discussion here fails, as it does elsewhere, to address the quintessential challenge getting ordinary Americans to bite.  My perspective here is that of a guy who grew up in a place where people to this day don't know what CC stands for or what a TED Talk is; "geeks" are still the "losers" that get ostracised & not the wire-framed high-watermarks of a generation; and to be called an "activist" or "community organizer" is as offensive as being called a "watchdog" or "citizen journalist," terms that hearken the erosion of American "values."  It's Bill O'Reilly country.  Heck, Rush Limbaugh was actually born just right down the way.  My point here is that most people haven't yet to understand what exactly it is that people like you & Ari & Josh Marshall are doing; and that as a result, I think that the culture of crowd-powered journalism & citizen watchdogging is being effectively stigmatized as illegitimate.  Focusing on what questions to ask and how is definitely a key early step, but an equally-important next-step, in my opinion, is how to tell the story, or more-broadly, how to engage the unengaged majority.   I too disagree with what Ms. Fowler did, but I also acknowledge that while only a handful of wonks & an army of relentlessly anonymous avatars know or care about former-Secretary Rice's understatement, <i>everyone</i> knows about "guns and religion."   To wit-- How can we make key issues just as engaging with the status quo? Mr. Gilmor, What you write makes a lot of sense.  Traditional media often avoids key questions, citizen journalists sometimes ask rubbish ones, but sometimes it works out.  Your ideas for determining & executing key questions make sense, too, I think.  I’m anxious to see you develop them.  However, in my opinion, the discussion here fails, as it does elsewhere, to address the quintessential challenge getting ordinary Americans to bite.  My perspective here is that of a guy who grew up in a place where people to this day don’t know what CC stands for or what a TED Talk is; “geeks” are still the “losers” that get ostracised & not the wire-framed high-watermarks of a generation; and to be called an “activist” or “community organizer” is as offensive as being called a “watchdog” or “citizen journalist,” terms that hearken the erosion of American “values.”  It’s Bill O’Reilly country.  Heck, Rush Limbaugh was actually born just right down the way. 

My point here is that most people haven’t yet to understand what exactly it is that people like you & Ari & Josh Marshall are doing; and that as a result, I think that the culture of crowd-powered journalism & citizen watchdogging is being effectively stigmatized as illegitimate.  Focusing on what questions to ask and how is definitely a key early step, but an equally-important next-step, in my opinion, is how to tell the story, or more-broadly, how to engage the unengaged majority.   I too disagree with what Ms. Fowler did, but I also acknowledge that while only a handful of wonks & an army of relentlessly anonymous avatars know or care about former-Secretary Rice’s understatement, <i>everyone</i> knows about “guns and religion.”   To wit–
How can we make key issues just as engaging with the status quo?

]]> By: Tom Sparks http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/#comment-8 Tom Sparks Fri, 08 May 2009 19:07:46 +0000 http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/#comment-8 Excellent analysis, we need high profile people such as you, to keep the heat up and the ball bouncing. I appreciate your focus on the process of citizens making the hard questions harder for politicians to duck, I appreciate even more that you are keeping the Coni Rice Stanford story alive.  Excellent analysis, we need high profile people such as you, to keep the heat up and the ball bouncing. I appreciate your focus on the process of citizens making the hard questions harder for politicians to duck, I appreciate even more that you are keeping the Coni Rice Stanford story alive. 

]]> By: doug levy http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/#comment-7 doug levy Fri, 08 May 2009 18:51:21 +0000 http://mediactive.com/2009/05/08/using-distributed-media-and-people-to-ask-hard-questions/#comment-7 Dan, I think this is an outstanding concept with enormous potential to increase the flow of important information and to hold public officials more accountable for their actions (or inactions.). Dan,
I think this is an outstanding concept with enormous potential to increase the flow of important information and to hold public officials more accountable for their actions (or inactions.).

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