Our favorite irascible media tyrant is in the news once again, and once again it's time for me to bring you a story of doing one thing while wishing for another.
We have heard a lot about the...how can I put this politely...challenges Murdoch seems to face associating factual reality with his reality, and we could have lots of fun going through his factual misstatements-but instead, I want to take on one specific issue today:
Rupert Murdoch says he hates it when people steal his content from the Internet to draw readers to their sites...which is funny, if you think about it, because he has no problem at all stealing my content (and lots of yours, as well) for his sites.
It has been an amazing week in Iran, and you are no doubt seeing images that would have been unimaginable just a few weeks ago.
For most of us, Iran has been a country about which we know very little...which, obviously, makes it tough to put the limited news we're getting into a proper context.
The goal of today's conversation is to give you a bit more of an "insider look" at today's news; and to do that we'll describe some of the risks Iranian bloggers face as they go about their business, we'll meet a blogging Iranian cleric, we'll address the issue of what tools the Iranians use for Internet censorship and the companies that could potentially be helping it along, and then we'll examine Internet traffic patterns into and out of Iran.
Finally, a few words about, of all things, how certain computer games might be useful as tools of revolution.
Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article about political candidates courting bloggers. Though the article was a bit shallow, I was glad to see the Chronicle recognizing the influence of bloggers on politics, and even happier to see my friend Sean from BearFlagBlue interviewed for the article.
The article opens with this story:
Dennis Herrera is running for re-election as San Francisco's city attorney and loudly rumored to be eyeing the mayor's office down the road. So a few weeks ago, he invited about a dozen influential folks to a local restaurant for drinks (on his campaign's tab) and some face time. Those folks were local bloggers.
At first, I thought, great, this is really smart on Dennis Herrera's behalf. He must have some savvy staffers. But then I thought about the fact that bloggers were accepting drinks from a candidate they hadn't endorsed. I'm not suggesting that these bloggers would be influenced by a few drinks and would be more likely to endorse because of this, but I'm not sure that this kind of behavior fits into my own blogger code of ethics.
The more I thought about it, and talked to others about it, the stickier the issue became. I racked my brain and realized that though I've never accepted a drink (or anything else) from a political candidate, I'd certainly allowed elected officials to buy me drinks without thinking twice. I do write about some of these officials, and of course most of them are likely to run for re-election or another office in the future.
There's also the issue that bloggers, unlike journalists, usually don't get paid for our work. And for all of the bloggers I know, time is a very precious thing. So then maybe that makes it ok to accept a drink from a political candidate who'd like to meet with us - after all, they are requesting our time and often our advice.
On Friday, Brittney Gilbert addressed a similar issue - the Federal Trade Commission passed new rules that allow the FTC to sue bloggers who make false claims about a product that the bloggers received from companies for free. It's clear to me that products and political candidates are a different, but these new regulations raise interesting questions about a blogger's responsibility to be truthful and not swayed by free products or free drinks.
I have no final answer here. I'm pretty sure that I will continue to not accept free drinks from political candidates, but I'm not sure where the ethical line ultimately falls. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this tricky issue.
This has been another eventful week for me and I wanted to share something I wrote for our new local blog, I think it's universal and true for many here so that is why I share it.
Orange County, California is still a solidly red County but those of us living in "The OC", who are proud progressives, want to find a public space to voice our ideas and to push our agenda locally and eventually on the state and federal levels. Not only that but we want to encourage our fellow progressives to run in local elections and support them up that harrowing climb to higher office.
As we all know, none of this can happen though until many things are fixed about our election financing process and so on, but the progressive blogosphere has somewhat leveled the playing field but supporting such candidates and generously funding their runs for office.
It's yet another testament to the success of the progressive blogosphere that some of the most innovative labor unions in the country are now beginning to take blogging very seriously. A case in point is SEIU United Healthcare Workers West (disclosure: my former employer), which recently invited bloggers Elliot Petty from the The Courage Campaign and Calitics' Brian Leubitz to blog about the union's recent bargaining convention, and which sponsored the Yearly Kos a few weeks ago.
Now UHW is making room for a full time online campaigner to help build the labor movement's outreach to the netroots. If you're interested or know someone else who might be, the job description is beneath the fold:
From the Courage Campaign
I thought I was doing a pretty good job of energy conservation. I always turn off the lights when I leave the room, and I use those compact florescent bulbs to replace the inefficient incandescents when they burn out. I've got a pretty good track record when it comes to turning off the TV. I rarely get caught accidentally leaving the refrigerator door open. And I'm very proud to say that my fan even has a thermostat.But this blogging business can really run up the electric bill! I've got a power-intensive workstation. My computer is nearly always on, because I hate waiting for it to boot up. Recently, I got a second monitor -- trust me, the benefits to having more than one monitor (especially if you're a writer) are amazing, but I'm sucking down twice as much electricity! I've got a speaker system with a 80 watt subwoofer. Add a couple of external hard disks... yeah, I'm a bona fide energy hog.
What's worse is that I'm apparently not alone. A new study shows that when considering production, use, and disposal, annually computers put as much climate-change-causing CO2 into the atmosphere as airlines. You read that right -- computing worldwide hurts the atmosphere as much as the aviation industry.
Sounds like a huge crisis to me, and we as bloggers (and blog reading computer users) need to be on top of this.
cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.
we have noticed, as of late, a disheartening trend in various comments and blog posts around blogtopia*. several writers have seemingly fallen into the dumps because things are progressing as progressively as progressives would like. they cite the dems' refusal to discuss impeachment, the iraq defunding which looks to be dead in the water, and the general tendency of those in charge to ignore the common citizens they are supposedly hired by to run things.
however, we here at skippy international are feeling pretty good about things, and we wish that the rest of you in blogtopia* would join us. after all, there are several major accomplishments that have come to fruition recently, all of which were done, if not completely, then certainly with major efforts, by the netroots.
to start with, blogs and bloggers really came into their own as true-to-life journalists with the libby trial. thanks to the kids at firedoglake, and to marcy wheeler (also known as "emptywheel "...and maybe some day she'll explain what the hell that screen name means), as well as swopa of medianeedle, jerlayn merritt of talkleft and margie burns for bradblog (plus others we have surely missed, and our apologies if we have), the idea of blogs as actual journalism came into existence.
where before blogs were seen mainly as an outlet for cranky powerless people to whine, suddenly it was proven that they could be used as an outlet for cranky powerless people to disseminate information on a national level at a level far deeper and wider in scope than any electronic media, and most dead trees media.
I've gotten into chats with a few people here who are looking for other ways to reach beyond the "netroots" and into their local communities. LTEs always come up, as do local protests and gatherings. One thing that I (and I'm sure a lot of other people) are doing is using the small local media as your own megaphone via their blogs. Someone recently asked me to write this up, so here goes...
Though I'm currently living in Oakland, CA, I hail from the no-longer-so-small-town of Bakersfield. (In case anyone is worried about me being outed, my name is Tom Webster. There.) While it's all well and good talking to you folks here in Oakland or on dKos, I've spent a considerable amount of time talking to my fellow Bako folk over the last six months on the local paper's blog. Your local paper probably has one of these as well. You can check now. I'll wait for you on the other side of the break.
I was lucky enough to get an exclusive audio interview at Political Interviews with Sarah R. Carter, the talented young woman who has become the Blogsphere voice of the Jack Carter for Senate campaign.
With her influence,I'm sure, we had a former President join the Blogsphere one day then come back to answer some questions that were posed to him.
In my opinion, Sarah is positive proof of the power of a Campaign Blogger. The fact that she is family as well makes it that much more interesting.
The California angle? Well, as she pointed out to me, we don't have a competitive Senate race this year and the Carter Campaign intends to invite us back to Nevada for their primary and General elections. For those focused on the Senate, Nevada is a real opportunity to pick up a seat.
Listen for yourself. She is a fascinating person who is having a real impact on the campaign while balancing a lot of other things in her life.
Hello calitics! I'm spending this summer in Claremont, CA and I thought, what better way to spend some of my time then to start a blog to cover the local congressional race. CA-26 is home to Rep. David Dreier, 13-term incumbent. His opponent looks to be Russ Warner, recently endorsed by Wesley Clark; the primary isn't until next week, but no one else seems to be doing much fund-raising. I couldn't find much blog coverage of the race, and Warner's website, though nice, doesn't have a blog. I've been very impressed by other blogs covering specific races, like the various Ned Lamont blogs. So I took the plunge:
So, someone stole my car yesterday or the day before. Not a huge deal in and of itself. It's a cheap car, and I'm not that attached to it. The thieves took it from street parking near my house, and dumped it in someone's driveway across town, where DPT promptly (and rightfully) towed it yesterday morning.
Democratic Leader Pelosi is behaving in inexplicable ways for someone who wants to lead the Democratic Caucus:
1) Congresswoman Pelosi is supporting the regulation of blogs (and by extension any form of online activism or reporting) under the campaign finance laws. No other media outlet is regulated. It's astonishing that she would do this, given that blogs are one of the few places that there is a strong pro-Democrat pro-liberal message, and that the blogs have gone to bat for Pelosi over and over again.
2) Congresswoman Pelosi is criticizing Senator Feingold's proposal to censure George Bush for breaking the law by wiretapping American citizens without a warrant. This is an issue which (a) has a tremendous amount of support from the Democratic base, (b) has a plurality of support from the American people in general, and (c) is simply not in her scope of responsibility.
If you live in SF, Nancy Pelosi answers to you. Call her offices today. (Try to be nice. The staffer is probably just as frustrated as you are.)
