Are you following the election coverage? Here are some recent stories: The media pounds candidate Hillary Clinton to release her tax forms, because the public has a right to know. And she does release her and her husband's returns, going back a decade. The media trumpets how much income they have been receiving, how rich they are, and drills down into details. If you follow the news, it is inescapable. At the same time candidate John McCain releases only partial forms that show all assets are now in his wife's name, and he won't release his wife's tax returns. The media is mostly silent on this; most of the public has little opportunity to learn of this.
It's taking place today (Saturday), from noon to 5:15 p.m. with reception to follow. Kind of short notice, but heck, you Californians still have three hours before it starts!
Or should I ask: Do state employees have to assume that newspapers will put their name, title and salary into a searchable database. Or what about a more specific question: what is the added public benefit from having names attached to salary and title information?
Why am I asking all of these questions? Well, the SacBee decided to create a searchable database of state employees' salaries on their website. Needless to say state employees are upset. Yesterday SEIU 1000 staged a protest in front of the newspaper's offices. The leadership presented 3,000 signatures demanding that the database be taken down. SacBee:
Union President Jim Hard told the protesters that he was "disgusted" by what he described as the paper's "crass commercialism" and "callous disregard" for his members' safety.
"Our union is completely in favor of public access to information regarding the use of their tax money, the pay scales, the classifications, the number of state employees and comparisons in any reasonable fashion to counties, cities and the public sector," Hard said. "But to post my name up there, I'd like The Bee to explain how that helps any public policy of public finance discussion or issue."
There is no significant need or public sunshine benefit to attaching people's names to salary/title information.
Senator Dianne Feinstein doesn't get a whole lot of props around here, but I will make note of her appearance on a Senatorial Bandwagon today. She announced that she will now be cosponsoring Byron Dorgan's (D-ND) a response to the FCC's ignoring a Senate Resolution (not law), Media Ownership Act of 2007.
This bill would"void the FCC's December 2007 rule change and reinstate the previous rule that prohibits cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations in the same market." However, there's one big stumbling block: this bill is going to require a veto-proof majority as the President is sure to side with his media buddies, like Murdoch, on this one.
Let's see what Senator Feinstein's radical centrism can get for us this time. Let's see if she can help Dorgan whip up the 67 votes in the Senate, and perhaps lay the foundation for 2/3 over in the House as well. It seems a tall task given the Republicans repeated love-affairs with the Murdoch's of the world.
I hate to admit this, but I get the "dead trees" version of the San Francisco Chronicle. I know, not very eco-friendly, or really bloggy-centric, but what can I do. On occasion, I like to read something on a piece of paper. Don't worry, I'm sure the paper-based Chronicle has an expiration date in the fairly near future. But, while the questions of the Chronicle's form are being answered, there are other questions about just how the Chronicle is reporting on the presidential campaigns yet to complain about.
For example, take the "Today on the Campaign Trail" highlights a national poll on the Democratic primay, and a poll on the Ohio primary. First of all, why does it matter what the people of, say, California or Iowa, think of the Democratic nomination race. It's cute, but not all that relevant to the fight for the nomination. We keep getting berated about what each poll means, but we actually learn nothing of real substance. And, it turns out that John Diaz, of the Chron's editorial board, thinks all the horserace coverage kinda sucks too, over the flip:
A few weeks ago, I wrote in about the promotion of celebrity, glitz, race, and gender issues directly by the media and subtly by the campaigns of Senators Clinton and Obama. Interestingly, Senators Clinton and Obama and their respective campaigns have both stated that neither of them are promoting the gender or race, respectively, card. Then, lo and behold, it comes out that the Clinton campaign set a "trap" for the Obama campaign on the issue of race and the Obama campaign bit "hook, line, and sinker". Only time will tell whether the strategy of pandering to bigotry by the Clinton Campaign and foregoing South Carolina by promoting race as an issue and the extreme willingness of the Obama campaign to bite without any questions asked will pay off for either Campaign and/or hurt the Democratic Party on Tsunami Tuesday, February 5 and beyond.
There is an interesting and troubling pattern emerging. The California media is being greatly outclassed by papers from out of the state and country on the developing story about the residents of Potrero pushing back against Blackwater's attempts to move a massive base into their town. This seems like it could be chalked up to the major cutbacks at California newspapers over the past year, but it is a stark reminder about the impacts of those losses. California stories are no longer being covered by California newspapers.
It was the Guardian UK who had a lengthy, detailed article on the push for a recall of the Planning Group members who had voted to approve Blackwater's plans. They talked to Brian Bonfiglio, Blackwater's Vice-President who is deployed to San Diego County to work on the project. The Guardian also interviewed a number of the town residents, including several people who were on the ballot this week.
This week it was the New York Times who dispatched a reporter to Potrero to preview the recall. The reporter ended up breaking news, even though I don't believe he knew it:
Muuuwaaaahaaaa haaa haaa. Yes, this is indeed a gloating post, for I sooo called this back when the Sacramento Bee first launched their extraordinarily expensive CapitolAlert premium package for breaking political news and early versions of print articles.
It simply was not worth the money for the product they were offering and they were walling off content. Much like the Times Select they were reducing their google and blog traffic. The new revenue stream kept them from another: online advertising. I would imagine that the numbers of subscribers eroded over time so that the calculations were no longer working. Here is what they emailed out to past trial subscribers:
[crossposted at Daily Kos; please visit that diary as well to increase visibility of this event]
For those of you who haven't been tuned in, Clear Channel is threatening to add San Diego's KLSD (K + Liberal San Diego) to the long list of radio stations to lose progressive talk. The company's modus operandi seems to be:
(1) Buy up as many stations as the FCC will allow one company to own (which is a lot).
(2) Stick progressive talk on the weakest signal in town and...
(3) Hope no one notices.
(4) If, despite a dearth of promotion or local staff, ratings soar and a loyal audience gathers, then flip the station to another format and...
(5) Hope no one notices.
A concerted effort thwarted this plan in Madison, however, and will hopefully throw sand in the gears in San Diego as well. A big crowd turned out for an August 27 rally, and the hope is to get even more people to show up at a rally this Friday morning (link to more details near end of diary).
Before the August rally, I interviewed Jon Elliott, one of KLSD's hosts, who has joined the struggle to save progressive talk. In honor of Friday's rally, I've interviewed another Jon involved in the battle, fellow Kos community member Jon Monday.
On Saturday I blogged here and on Daily Kos about how we need to save KLSD, the lone progressive talk radio station in San Diego, which may be flipped to sports unless enough listeners make themselves known. I mentioned the rally that will be taking place this morning (Monday) at 7:30 a.m. Pacific time outside the Clear Channel office (9660 Granite Ridge Drive). See details on the SaveKLSD.com website.
I live near Boston myself, but every progressive talk radio station is crucial. In the words of noted radio expert Ben Franklin, we who are trying to defend progressive talk "must, indeed, hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."
Yesterday I spoke with Jon Elliott, a talk show host on the station, and followed up with Kate Reifers, his director of research. His show is syndicated across the country, but his residence and his heart are in San Diego. Below the fold I'll tell you about my conversation with Jon.
[cross-posted at Daily Kos -- any suggestions for other CA/San Diego blogs would be welcome]
I've been posting on progressive talk radio a fair amount this year, focusing on the efforts of our Boston group to buy a station as a solid home for progressive talk. Relying on the kindness of Clear Channel and similar media behemoths, as we have discovered, doesn't work.
While we're making good progress (hey, we're progressives, after all), many stations across the country are still dependent on the whims of these media giants.
Now San Diego's KLSD (yup, that's the real name) is in trouble. This is a call to action, not an extensive analysis, so much of the content comes from the SaveKLSD.com website. If I have a chance, I'll update it later. Thanks to NonStopRadio.com and Daily Kos member rougegorge for alerting me.
(Bowen rocks no matter how much they lie about her - promoted by Bob Brigham)
Washington, DC based media watchdog group Media Matters has noted that articles appearing in several newspapers repeat misleading criticisms of Secretary Bowen's "top-to-bottom" review of electronic voting machines.
I hope you enjoyed your fireworks. There actually wasn't that much fog in SF, so you could see them this year. That's always fun. But how did the 4th go across the internets? Well, I actually found this kinda funny:
Why is this funny? Well, funny is a strong word. Let's say sad. Get a "fuller spectrum of news" over the flip.
I have a conflicted relationship with the LA Times. On the one hand, they still do a stellar job covering international news; I would put the paper's Iraq reporting up with any other news organization in the world. But on the editorial side, the paper has taken up the neoliberal consensus with a vengeance, and turns a blind eye to vital issues to this community, like inequality and poverty. Nancy Cleeland, an excellent writer, has decided to leave the paper for just this reason:
We don't do enough on this site to defend our own Speaker Pelosi from ridiculous media hit jobs. Sure, blogswarm put this one in the Quick Hits, but it deserves wider attention because it falls into a predictable pattern. The nutjobs in the House Republican Caucus put out some kind of non-factual press release, a still-unsuspecting-after-all-these-years news organization dutifully types it up, Drudge and the right-wing noise machine links to it, and by the time the charges are completely discredited, the media schoolchildren and Republican outrage-bots have moved on to the next thing. The entire idea is to "get it out there," to plant a seed of malfeasance in the mind of the voter despite the complete disregard for the facts. This has happened at least four times that I can think of, in just the first four months-plus of the Pelosi Speakership. And I'm sick of it.
For those of you who are interested in the rough-and-tumble intersection of new and old media (and why the blogosphere went after the SF Chronicle's David Lazarus) I've got some thoughts on it here
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today moved California's presidential primary from June to February, giving the nation's most populous state a greater stake in selecting nominees and shaking up the 2008 political calendar.
"Now California is important again in presidential nominating politics ... and we will get the respect that California deserves," Schwarzenegger said during a bill-signing ceremony.
Hopefully, all of us will now use this opportunity to truly SHAKE THINGS UP. Now that California voters will now be "The Deciders" in who gets the party nomination, let's get out there and tell our family, friends, and neighbors why their votes matter. I know I'm excited about the change, and I'll explain to you why I'm so excited after the flip...
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.
