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Oct
31
Plain Dealer’s Wide Open experiment, 1.0, shuts its doors
Filed Under Wide Open, Writing, Announcements, Media, Blogging | 27 Comments
Earlier today, I resigned as a freelance blogger for the Wide Open blog. Jean Dubail gave me the choice to post about my decision, or let him do it. I decided to write about it, and that’s why this post is cross-posted at Wide Open.
Jean and several other people at the PD and in the blogosphere know that for almost two solid years, I’ve asked and written about and pushed issues related to integrating traditional journalism, new media, bloggers and citizen journalism - all in the name of providing better and more content for readers who consult more and different types of sources for reading news and information. Someone confirmed to me this afternooon, when I said to him, “I know there must be some folks saying, about how my efforts to integrate these groups were in vain, ‘I told her so,’” that, yes, some people are saying, “I told her so.”
But their agenda isn’t my agenda. And I’m exceedingly okay with that.
Given this ideal I have about integration or at least collaboration, the decision made by the Plain Dealer to tell Jeff Coryell that either he stop writing about particular political figures or he could no longer write at Wide Open leaves me feeling incredibly sad and more than a little discouraged about the prospects for news gatherers and distributors across the spectrum to be able to produce, together, content that readers want.
However, I am not giving up on my hope and expectation. It isn’t going to happen on Wide Open, not under the current conditions. But it is happening in other places and I will continue to seek out those places, write about those efforts and, with luck and pluck and work, be involved with them too.
[I’m a person who, several years ago, walked into a glass door not once, but twice, within two seconds, because I couldn’t believe the door was there the first time I hit it. It hurt, a lot, but I eventually got the door open and walked through. We will get this door open and we will walk through.]
What strikes me the most about the experience and the place in which I find myself right now:
1. Wide Open was an experiment. Political bloggers were sought out to blog, unfiltered, unedited. That’s what we did.
The PD’s decision to say to Jeff, essentially, either follow what we require of our traditional journalists when it comes to political donations and stop writing about a particular political official and his opponent, or leave, is an intolerable restraint for a blogger. It turns the blogger into nothing more than a traditional journalist, already subject to such restraints, who also has to blog.
There is nothing wrong with newsroom journalists being made to blog - we have excellent evidence of that in Ohio. However, Wide Open loses its width and its openness as soon as there is such a restraint. The restraint silences the unique voice that readers seek out from blogs - which is what was sought out by Jean Dubail, and rightly so. And the restraint replaces the blogger’s voice with someone who has editorial restraints placed on him or her, just like a traditional journalist.
Do some political bloggers on some blogs agree to such restraints? Very possibly. But this experiment can neither be Wide or Open if I’m going to be told that I can’t write about Sherrod Brown or his opponent or Marc Dann or his opponent because I gave them money. Jeff didn’t hide his contributions, nor have I - they are discoverable with a one minute search at the Ohio Secretary of State’s office website, Ohio Money Tree and the FEC.
If someone really needed to know before they allowed us to write for them.
2. Susan Goldberg talked about being “platform agnostic” when she began at the PD. But this failure at Wide Open suggests to me that what she meant, intentionally or unintentionally, is that she can really only tolerate overseeing an operation in which traditional journalists, complete with the usual restraints - and not bloggers or citizen journalists who give money and give time and give efforts to their political passions - will provide news on any and all platforms. That’s fine, but it’s not Wide Open.
3. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this situation absolutely, unequivocally would never have occurred were it not for Congressman Steve LaTourette of Ohio’s 14th Congressional District calling the PD and making Jeff Coryell’s involvement an issue.
How do I know this? How can anyone know this?
It is simple:
What if Jeff had given money, not to Bill O’Neill, but to LaTourette? Does anyone, anyone, actually believe that LaTourette would have called Brent Larkin to say, “You won’t believe this! You just allowed someone to sign an independent contract with you to blog on Cleveland.com who gave me $100! Vaporize him!”
I don’t think so either.
If you want to know more about what I think on this situation, I’ll be writing more after I do trick or treat duty etc. I have barely scratched the surface, but plenty of others have gone further. (No one believes that this is all I have to say, now do you?)
I want to thank Dave and Tom for trying out this experiment, I want to thank Jean Dubail because I believe he really cared about the integrity of the experiment as being able to withstand the fact that each of the four bloggers are, hello, partisans. I also want to thank Chris Jindra for her time and, of course, Jeff for his personal and professional support and friendship as we tried out this thing. Thanks to the readers too, no matter how nasty and obnoxious your comments might have been.
This experiment is, in my estimation, over. It may continue on, but it will be something else, some other experiment because every reader will know that every one who blogs at Wide Open has restraints hanging over them, just like traditional journalists, restraints which Jeff and I reject as intolerable in what is suppose to be a Wide Open forum.
And there is nothing experimental about people writing under restraints that neutralize their passions.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:10 pm October 31st, 2007 in Wide Open, Writing, Announcements, Media, Blogging | 27 Comments
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Oct
29
Polensek nemesis gets two years, could be out in 6 mos.
Filed Under Courts, Crime, Culture | 7 Comments
The teenager berated by a Cleveland councilman is going to prison.
This, after Arsenio Winston pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking.
The teen was called a “crack dealing piece of trash” who was “dumber than mud” by Councilman Mike Polensak.
A judge sentenced Winston to two-years behind bars - but said he can get out in six-months if he behaves himself.
But if he gets into trouble again, it’s back to jail to serve out the remainder of his sentence.
Anyone taking bets on whether he gets out and gets into trouble again, or can’t behave in the first place and stays in for two years?
How about after two years? Any predictions?
He’s 18 - is he amenable to any other life, at all? Don’t you want to say yes? I wish I could. Maybe…?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:47 pm October 29th, 2007 in Courts, Crime, Culture | 7 Comments
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Oct
29
Another field trip! Preview “Meet the Bloggers goes to BlogWorld”
Filed Under Announcements, Writing, Cleveland+, Education, Tech, Blogging | Leave a Comment
I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make this - right now, I have no coverage available at that time of day - of course, I could make it a real field trip and just bring the kiddies, ‘cept they have Hebrew school that afternoon…
Anyway - here are the details and please try to make it - I really wish I could, I’m having major league MTB withdrawal:
Thomas Mulready of CoolCleveland.com, Jim Kukral of JimKukral.com, Eric Olsen of BlogCritics.org and I [George Nemeth] will be heading out to the BlogWorld expo in Las Vegas Nov 7-8. We’d like to show you what we’re presenting at the expo, get your feedback, and use the occasion to celebrate the NEO blogosphere. The event takes place at Cleveland State University’s Nance College of Business in their auditorium, 1860 E. 18th St., Rm. 118, starting at 5:30PM on Thu 11/1. Can you attend
Register here.
Thomas did video interviews with the three of us:
Jim Kukral
Now, if you’re an MTB’er:
Hey MTB’er. MTB is going to be featured prominently in our talk at the BlogWorld Expo in LV and also promoted at the upcoming BlogWorld preview that Thomas put together before the trip.
Was wondering if you can:
1). Attend
2). Show up early to check people in
3). Live blog
4). Spread the word by emailing your contacts and/or blogging about itAny help you lend is greatly appreciated. I wish we were all going to LV together, but since we aren’t, at least we can have our own event here in CLE.
Check out this link for more info on the forum this Thursday at 5:30 at CSU.
I’m thinking my kids haven’t had a real field trip in a while.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:07 pm October 29th, 2007 in Announcements, Writing, Cleveland+, Education, Tech, Blogging | Please comment
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Oct
29
Field trip! Details for dinner and Diane
Filed Under Women, Writing, Social Issues, Announcements, Media, Politics, Cleveland+, Blogging | 5 Comments
Here are the plans. Everyone is welcome:
5:30pm Dinner at #1 Pho.
7:00pm Make way to Trinity Cathedral and GET INSIDE!
7:30pm Diane Rehm speaks at Trinity. Details here.
Now, I called Trinity last week and didn’t get a ton of answers, the way I like to. However, I’m told that there are no tickets to be had (because they don’t exist, as in, they never existed - it’s open to everyone and free to everyone), they couldn’t tell me when the doors, so to speak, open since they’re always open - it’s a cathedral after all, but they did tell me that there are 350 seats and that 7pm would be a good time to shoot for, if not earlier.
There is a parking lot but it could fill up.
Good luck and hope to see you there. So far, we have a nice little group of women bloggers, writers and assorted smart-mouths (just teasin’ ladies) meeting at #1 Pho - but please, the more the merrier. And we do mean merry!
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:59 pm October 29th, 2007 in Women, Writing, Social Issues, Announcements, Media, Politics, Cleveland+, Blogging | 5 Comments
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Oct
29
Why, the media really is biased
Filed Under Campaigning, WH2008, Media | 1 Comment
Hattip to Catherine Candisky at the Coumbus Dispatch for the aptly titled, “Biased? Us?” post at The Daily Briefing.
The data she cites comes from the Program for Excellence in Journalism’s report called, “THE INVISIBLE PRIMARY - INVISIBLE NO LONGER: A First Look at Coverage of the 2008 Presidential Campaign.” You can read the report here (contents are listed and linked on the right-hand sidebar). The money table (as in, you’ve got it on the money if you think Dems were more favorably covered):
The overview of the report also includes interesting info from Pew about what the media covered:
Just 12% of stories examined were presented in a way that explained how citizens might be affected by the election, while nearly nine-out-of-ten stories (86%) focused on matters that largely impacted only the parties and the candidates. Those numbers, incidentally, match almost exactly the campaign-centric orientation of coverage found on the eve of the primaries eight years ago.
and what the public wants covered:
A new poll by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press conducted for this report finds that about eight-in-ten of Americans say they want more coverage of the candidates’ stances on issues, and majorities want more on the record and personal background, and backing of the candidates, more about lesser-known candidates and more about debates.
If I can master uploading images, I’ll plug in the graphs that show these two sets of information.
Now, of course, the question is - how conscious is all of this? Is it only conscious to the extent that it sells? When we’re arguing that less of “it” sells, it’s hard to argue that they’re publishing it because they think it will sell, but then, why wouldn’t we see more article about what the public says they want? (Maybe because the public doesn’t really know what they want? Or they lie? How many people admit that they want more Paris and less Hillary?)
If the Pew numbers are to be believed, then other stories would sell too. But would other bias sell as well?
Part of me wants to say, no matter which side a woman or a person of color ran with, they’d get the coverage for the sheer novelty. But, arguing against myself, that is only partially true - the novelty aspect - since if that were more true, I would think we’d see more about Romney in that top chart.
Anyone else?
Cross-posted from Wide Open.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:50 pm October 29th, 2007 in Campaigning, WH2008, Media | 1 Comment
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Oct
29
True, or just media-driven: Evangelical schisms
Filed Under WH2008, Campaigning, Government, Media, Religion, Politics | 5 Comments
I’m asking this question because, as I read the New York Times Magazine’s cover story from yesterday, “The Evangelical Crackup,” I couldn’t help but hear echoes of other stories I’ve read in the traditional media (and sometimes repeated or re-slanted on blogs) that push certain interpretations - usually ones with which I disagree.
For example, anything that promotes the idea of “the Mommy wars”? Fabrication. Big-time media-driven fabrication. (If you listen to that NPR Talk of the Nation piece from last spring, I actually got on the air with an anecdote and comment about the fabrication.)
Ditto the idea that Jews don’t know how to be Jewish and those that know how to be Jewish are shunned by those who think that they know how to be more Jewish.
There’s some truth in all these opinions, but not worth the amount of ink used and the cost of paper being spent to perpetuate them as gospel.
So, as a blogger, and a thinking person, I have a few choices:
I can read the piece and say, See! See! They are torn asunder by themselves!
Or, I could say, Huh? What? They sound pretty monolithic to me.
Or, I could say - would someone who is actually an Evangelical, who attends church, who follows politics, who really, truly isn’t fringe, tell me - how much is media-driven and how much is true.
So, since we’ve had some pretty heated threads around here that discussed religion and Christians as minorities within their own religion, I thought I’d take the skeptical approach while reading that article and ask for opinions.
If you can’t get opinions from bloggers, I don’t where else we’re going to get them.
Other Ohio blogs on this subject: Progress Ohio, Psychohorsey and Dayton OS.
Cross-posted from Wide Open.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:48 pm October 29th, 2007 in WH2008, Campaigning, Government, Media, Religion, Politics | 5 Comments
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Oct
29
Explain it: Crude futures@$93.53/barrel
Filed Under Economy, Foreign Affairs, Business, Ohio | 3 Comments
December crude oil futures rose for a fourth day and closed at a record high of $93.53 a barrel on New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday, after bad weather forced a halt to production in Mexico and the dollar touched the lowest level against the euro in more than eight years. The contract reached a new intraday high of $93.8 earlier.
Why is it happening and what does it mean?
I’ve seen and heard virtually no stories on these questions, certainly not in the blogs. Crain’s had a short item about it a couple of weeks ago here.
But otherwise, I can’t find any local or Ohio stories that speculate.
Is there an elephant in the room, or not?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:42 pm October 29th, 2007 in Economy, Foreign Affairs, Business, Ohio | 3 Comments
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Oct
29
WANTED: Josh Mandel’s private e-mails, text messages (updated)
Filed Under Statehouse, Government, Ohio, Tech, Politics | 1 Comment
UPDATE: This Columbus Dispatch piece ran in the same edition as the article that reported on a case in which elected official’s private e-mails, about official business, were not turned over in a public records request. The article discusses how the Ohio legislature had a committee study record retention and concluded that legislators should not be using private e-mails for official business:
State and local government officials should no longer be allowed to skirt Ohio public-records laws by using private e-mail accounts to conduct official government business.
That is the view of a 22-member committee created by the legislature to examine public-records issues. The panel approved its final recommendations yesterday [10/25/-07], including one that says electronic communication “in the course of public business should be treated consistently under existing public records laws and court decisions.” [my emphasis]
“We want to make sure nobody is gaming the process by doing public work on private devices,” said Sen. David Goodman, R-New Albany, a co-chairman of the Privacy/Public Records Access Study Committee.
Disclosure: Sen. Goodman is a former law school classmate of mine, whom I consider to be a friend, even though he is a Republican (that’s a joke, David). He is term-limited in 2008 and is running for a judicial position.
In regard to official business conducted through private e-mail accounts, the article reports:
The Ohio House and Senate took action in early October, instituting written records-retention policies that discourage members from using private e-mail accounts to conduct official business. The policies also say that e-mails discussing official business should be kept according to each chamber’s retention schedule, regardless of what e-mail account is used.
Still, similar to the issue with who gets to cover the legislature’s activities, there’s just something odd to me about them making the rules that govern their behavior, even if that’s how it’s always been done or is done by many, maybe even more states’ legislatures.
ORIGINAL POST:
This story comes from the Columbus Dispatch. Which is fine.
However, State Representative Josh Mandel represents the 17th District [full disclosure: I live in his district, I did not vote for him but he and I, and now his staff, communicate somewhat regularly], which sits squarely in the Plain Dealer’s readership. Anyone want to respond to why the PD isn’t reporting on this story?
Oh - the story. Sorry.
Jeffrey L. Glasgow, a retired Franklin County assistant prosecutor, is testing the limits of Ohio’s public-records law by demanding that Mandel, R-Lyndhurst, turn over e-mail messages from his private account that pertain to state business.
Glasgow’s case, now before the Ohio Supreme Court, is thought to be the first courtroom test of an emerging area of open-records laws: whether e-mail and text messages from a government employee’s private accounts are public records if the messages have to do with official business.
Glasgow contends that Mandel and fellow Rep. Shannon Jones, R-Springboro, have been less than forthcoming in their responses to his demand for records about the two representatives’ quest to get Ohio pensions to withdraw their investments from companies that do business with Iran and Sudan.
“I just want to know who’s talking to whom in making the law,” Glasgow said. “That’s the motivation. I just think secrecy in government is a bad idea.”
Hmm. Secrecy in government. Bad idea? Where have I heard that before?
Seems that there’d been a public records request that was fulfilled, except that it didn’t contain any records of some e-mail exchanges known to have occurred - between Mandel and a Dispatch reporter, on official business issues, through Mandel’s private e-mail account.
Now, Attorney General Marc Dann’s office is defending Mandel and State Rep. Shannon Jones, Mandel’s co-sponsor on HB 151 (the forced divestment from Iran and Sudan bill aimed at five of Ohio’s pensions) and it will be tricky because Dann’s office has urged elected officials not to use private e-mails for official business:
Attorney General Marc Dann has said that e-mail and text messages are public documents if they deal with government business, even if they come from private accounts. Dann has urged public officials not to use private e-mail and text accounts to conduct their official business.
However, Dann’s office is representing Mandel and Jones in their responses to Glasgow’s lawsuit. The attorney general’s spokesman, Leo Jennings III, said he couldn’t comment on whether the two state representatives have complied with Dann’s directives.
“We have to represent them,” Jennings said. “The legislature is our client.”
Mandel’s staff maintains that they don’t have his computer so they don’t have access to the e-mails. However, as anyone who has traveled knows, you certainly don’t need your personal computer to access your personal mail, depending on your mail server.
Sounds like a great story to follow, by Mandel’s local paper. Wink, wink, BIG wink.
Or a blogger? Check out the Public Records Directory Blog.
Cross-posted from Wide Open.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:41 pm October 29th, 2007 in Statehouse, Government, Ohio, Tech, Politics | 1 Comment
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Oct
29
David Giffels and ripping the Ramones
Filed Under Culture | 2 Comments
Nevermind explaining why I’m reading the NYT Magazine at 1pm on Monday, when I was actually, even physically in NYC for three days.
I smiled at the Evangelical “crack up” cover story because we’ve been dancing on that one for days in the blogs, ho-hum.
Then, I browsed the two pages of contents to the end, where I saw that David Giffels had authored the Lives entry, Shirt-Worthy.
Which is completely time-worthy.
But more than that, it was just fun to see David Giffels’ name there - a college roomie of mine is connected to a first or second or third cousin to Giffels and, knowing how many people really like his writing (me included; I even liked him on the Michael Feldman show when he was on in the last year or so, though I can’t find that show in the archives, I can only find one from 2003 - I’m sure there was one since then, no? yes?), I just kind of thought it was cool that I knew a Giffels from Ohio who was related to that Giffels, even though I don’t know him.
But then, or maybe I really mean, now, his essay in the NYT mag is great reading. For many reasons - the parenting thing, the Ohio thing but mostly - for The Ramones thing.
There were many unique things about my wedding, but the most unique, next to the need for cooking food outside the synagogue on a late December night because the synagogue didn’t yet have its new kitchen operating, is probably how, after the rehearsal dinner, we all went to the Ramone’s concert at Toad’s Place, in the VIP booth above the floor. And this was when they were all still alive and kicking.
I was a Ramone’s fan during the right era too, during college. But to see all these rather zippered-up law school classmates and West Coast greenies mashing in the muck of the Toad’s cement floor, the night before my wedding?
That was pretty cool.
Almost as cool as Giffel’s really cool essay in the NYT yesterday.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:15 pm October 29th, 2007 in Culture | 2 Comments
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Oct
29
Attention to vouchers deflects attention from what we really need to fix
Filed Under Social Issues, Government, Education, Parenting, Blogging | 8 Comments
This post by Megan McArdle at The Atlantic.com completely collapses and deflects the real problems in public school education, which have very little to do with whether vouchers exist or not.
I don’t know anything about the D.C. voucher program (I don’t even know if D.C. has a voucher program), but there’s nothing in the post to indicate that vouchers are solving any problems anywhere in D.C. and therefore should be expanded beyond what currently exists. How can you argue that everyone should have them if you don’t provide evidence that anyone is benefiting from them?
The author of the post complains,
…every time I see some middle class parent prattling about vouchers “destroying” the public schools by “cherry picking” the best students, when they’ve made damn sure that their own precious little cherries have been plucked out of the failing school systems, I seethe with barely controllable inward rage. It is the vilest hypocrisy on display in American politics today.
Really now? And how often do you see that happen - you know, the prattling about vouchers “destroying” the public schools by “cherry picking” the best students?
That accusation alone indicates how little McArdle seems to know about how vouchers work, at least in some communities.
But the most outrageous insinuation is that private schools do a better job than public schools. Anyone who has studied any