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Nov
6
Mark Jablonski of CSU’s The Cauldron, on Wide Open
Filed Under Blogging, Media, Politics, Wide Open | 3 Comments
Thanks for taking the time to cover it, Mark.
You can read his thoughts here. The gist:
Obviously, newspaper reporters must maintain neutrality and report the news in a non-biased fashion. The Wide Open bloggers, however, were not hired as reporters, but as partisan commentators. Their respective ideological slants were clear. For The Plain Dealer to expect partisan activists who are heavily involved in public affairs — as these folks were before being hired — to have never contributed either money or time to a political campaign is, in this student’s opinion, absurd.
Traditional journalists, read that: it’s from a student, from the future, who is here, now.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:19 pm November 6th, 2007 in Blogging, Media, Politics, Wide Open | 3 Comments
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Nov
6
Cleveland Free Times contributes to the Wide Open demise conversation
Filed Under Blogging, Campaigning, Elections, Government, Media, Ohio, Politics, Tech, Writing | 1 Comment
From the article by Anastasia Pantsios, in which she demonstrates who gets it and who doesn’t:
In the flurry of online hand-wringing that followed [Jeff Coryell's and my departure], those who supported the PD’s action missed one essential point: the no-contributions rule was intended to maintain the appearance of print reporters’ impartiality, but the Wide Open bloggers were hired because they are not impartial.
But most interestingly to me, Sabrina Eaton makes a crucial error. I like Eaton – I’ve exchanged emails with her over time or left comments on her posts. But this quote contains a very, very obvious error, if one were to check out what she’s asserting:
Eaton points out a potential problem with partisan online features at a traditional daily’s Web site: “If you get to it through Google, it just leads you to that page and you don’t know that that writer has a bias. It just says Plain Dealer Wide Open. A politician could take a quote from Wide Open and put it in their literature and attribute it to the Plain Dealer.” It’s a valid concern, yet anything in the paper, from an op-ed to a quote from a fanatic can be – and in instances has been – taken out of context and attributed to the paper it appeared in.
Problem is – it doesn’t say “Plain Dealer Wide Open.” Never has, never did.
(Sorry Sabrina, believe me, I did a double-take before we started and I think I may even have mentioned this fact to the group in a conference call or email at least once.)
Sigh.
There’s a whole lotta illogic going on.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:59 pm November 6th, 2007 in Blogging, Campaigning, Elections, Government, Media, Ohio, Politics, Tech, Writing | 1 Comment
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Nov
6
A Jewish Tawana Brawley?
Filed Under Jewish, Media, Mental health | 3 Comments
Okay. I just confessed that maybe newspaper journalists just simply hate bloggers, but now I received notice of this incident at George Washington University:
George Washington University officials said a Jewish student who complained about swastikas showing up on her door put them there herself.
The student lives in Mitchell Hall, where half a dozen swastikas had shown up on her dorm room door in the past several weeks.University police set up a hidden camera. They said the girl admitted responsibility Monday.
[snip]
According to reporters at the newspaper, the student said, “I wasn’t looking to create this sort of insanity. I wasn’t looking to become a media darling. I was just looking for acknowledgment from the university that someone drew a swastika on the door.”
I guess the major difference between this case and Tawana Brawley is that Brawley apparently maintains that she did not make up the story.
Sometimes the world can really make you question everything you thought you knew.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:15 pm November 6th, 2007 in Jewish, Media, Mental health | 3 Comments
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Nov
6
(updated) John Corlett leaves Center for Community Solutions, becomes Medicaid director
Filed Under Blogging, Health Care, Ohio, Social Issues | 2 Comments
You can hear John Corlett’s Meet the Blogger’s session here. He is outstanding. The Center will have a big hole to fill, but hopefully our state will benefit enormously from having John at the Medicaid helm.
Best of luck, John.
Read the news here on the Columbus Dispatch’s The Daily Briefing.
UPDATE:
Plain Dealer editorial from 11/7/08, a day after John’s appointment, on the topic of Medicaid (no mention of John though).
I’m not really sure what it’s purpose is though. It says someone needs to keep an eye on Medicaid, it says that Ohio Gov. Strickland, thus far, appears to be indicating that he and his administration are keeping an eye on Medicaid, so…I guess the editorial is an attaboy? I don’t really know. Especially since it doesn’t mention John’s appointment as another kudo for going in the direction of keeping an eye on Medicaid.
But it’s nice. I think.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:17 pm November 6th, 2007 in Blogging, Health Care, Ohio, Social Issues | 2 Comments
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Nov
6
‘Roots News: Voter turnout, OH-05 predictions
Filed Under Blogging, Elections, Ohio, Politics | Comments Off
From Ohio Daily Blog, on the road:
On the road I called Dr. Mike Zickar, Wood County Democratic Party Chair, and asked him about turnout. He said that turnout was light at his particular precinct, near Perrysburg, and he saw no volunteer activity in the vicinity. The only sign near the polling place was for Buehrer.
The forecast is for the weather to get worse for the after work time frame, so all indications are for very low turnout in this special election. I’m tempted to say that the low turnout will skew the election toward hard-core partisans, which on the GOP side bodes well for Buehrer.
Also from Ohio Daily Blog, on the OH-05 primary:
I spoke on the phone this morning with investment advisor Ben Nienberg (D-Glandorf), who won 39.92% of the vote against State Sen. Steve Buehrer (R-Delta) in the 1st Ohio Senate District race in 2006. I asked him to comment on the GOP primary from his perspective in the western part of the 15th Congressional District.
Between Buehrer and State Rep. Bob Latta (R-Bowling Green), he said, it is a like a tragedy, or maybe a joke. It looks like Buehrer will be spending over half a million, or have that much spent on his behalf, and Latta has over $300,000, but “they’ve been calling each other liars and accusing each other of stealing money for the entire campaign.” It seems to all being done in TV commercials, he said, he hasn’t heard anything on the radio.
Yeah, just bloggers spewing opinion primary source work from their basements on the road in their pjs in their raingear.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:07 pm November 6th, 2007 in Blogging, Elections, Ohio, Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
6
We didn’t start the FEMA/faux news/faux press corps fire
Filed Under Blogging, Media, Wide Open | 4 Comments
From Jonah Goldberg’s column in the LA Times:
The problem of parsing fact from fiction, news from entertainment, has been inherent to broadcast journalism from the beginning. Radio newsman Walter Winchell got his start in vaudeville. But in the modern era, I blame “Murphy Brown,” the show about a fictional TV newswoman who talked about real newsmakers as if they were characters on her sitcom. When Brown had a baby out of wedlock, Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the writers of the show. Liberals then reacted as though Quayle had insulted a real person. Ever since, journalists and politicians have been playing themselves in movies and TV series, perhaps trying to disprove the cliche that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people.
TV news is, and always has been, the shallowest branch of journalism. This is why TV journalism in particular operates like a trade guild — not because it’s so hard to do but because it’s so easy. (The Brits more forthrightly call their TV anchors “news readers.”) For instance, in 2000, Sam Donaldson led a successful internal revolt over a plan to have Leonardo DiCaprio interview President Clinton for ABC News. The essence of the complaint was that viewers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between DiCaprio and a “real” TV reporter. Let’s face it, that’s true. Even DiCaprio can read questions off an index card or TelePrompTer.
“Yes, it’s a changed business,” Donaldson said at the time, “and we ought to recognize that. But we also all have to recognize that we have to do things according to the standards that will help us retain our credibility.”
I think Donaldson was right, but I also don’t mind that TV news is trying to be relevant to viewers not on the AARP’s mailing list. What I find dismaying is that “relevance” is literally coming at the expense of reality.
We have to do things according to the standards that will help us retain our credibility. Where have I heard that before.
No – we all have to do things according to the standards that will help the audience discern the truth.
Narcissists. Feh.
NB: Yesterday’s post and the PD’s editorial on this topic.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:44 pm November 6th, 2007 in Blogging, Media, Wide Open | 4 Comments
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Nov
6
Techno//Marketer comment – excellent, unexpected reinforcement of my last post, especially as to why the money doesn’t make a difference
Ohio Daily Blog, also from last night
Bad American on Roldo on Wide Open and the PD
Brewed Fresh Daily “Media” category entries – read the comments, read the comments – and leave some too
I’ll add more if more come up. My understanding is that there will in fact be more coverage so when it happens, I’ll post it.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:12 pm November 6th, 2007 in Blogging, Media, Wide Open | Comments Off
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Nov
6
Foundation of suspicion behind Susan Goldberg’s “logic,” more updates, & tx to Dan
Filed Under Blogging, Campaigning, Elections, Government, Media, Ohio, Politics, Wide Open | 18 Comments
On WCPN’s Sound of Ideas yesterday morning, Plain Dealer editor, Susan Goldberg repeated her position as to why the voices of the currently closed for business Wide Open political blog are now silent (at least at that blog; you can find Tom Blumer here, Jeff Coryell here and our beloved just “Dave” here).
You can listen to Goldberg here.
Goldberg, as she stated on CPN, says that she viewed us as having been hired and paid by the PD. She says that she saw the experiment as “working very well” until they “discovered” that one of us (and “as it turned out” two of us – Jeff Coryell and myself) – had contributed to a political campaign.
STOP
How did Susan Goldberg, editor of the PD, “discover” that one (yeah, two) of us had contributed to a political campaign? It was not because she has it in her head every single day that, as she says just a moment later, it is the paper’s standard to not allow “people to cover campaigns that they have an interest in” and therefore, as impliedly must be done with every single newsroom hire, the HR department had run my name and the other three through the FEC, the Ohio Secretary of State or the Ohio Money Tree database to clear us of conflicts, or “discover” conflicts so that we could discuss what would best serve the readers and the writers.
No. Goldberg’s commitment to that standard (flouted by the Miami Herald spectacularly and in a way that the Herald editors say might become routine) is not what caused her to learn about the contribution.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:58 pm November 6th, 2007 in Blogging, Campaigning, Elections, Government, Media, Ohio, Politics, Wide Open | 18 Comments
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Nov
6
Blogswarm: list of Pakistani blogs, their news of pushback against Musharraf
Filed Under Blogging, Foreign Affairs, Government, Media, Politics, Social Issues, Tech, Writing | 1 Comment
I’ve written about The Media Line before as a unique source for news about and from the Middle East. If you sign up as a blog user (free and simple compared to others’ processes), you can get a list of blogs from more than 20 different countries in the Middle East. I can’t vouch for how they are selected but the list is a place to start.
Here are a few to try in Pakistan. And if you’re not sure why you should be following Pakistani blogs, all you need to know is this, from the New York Times above the fold this morning, “Ousted Justice in Pakistan Urges Defiance.” And from The Media Line, an article that examines the turmoil’s impact on Pakistan’s economy.
Metroblogging Lahore Pakistan – a group blog out of Lahore – video of protests
Nessland – writing from Karachi – he writes:
In this sad state of affairs and complete chaos within just one person, the whole nation stands at such crossroads that the future seems uncertain infinitely. I don’t really have a lot of words but I can say that I would love to have this power and I would hate to abuse it, especially like the way it is being abused now.
PAK::Affairs – read the post, Martial Law Lite: What does this mean and why now?
Political Pakistan – The Glasshouse – read the post, Reconciliation and All Out War
Is Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of martial law objectively outrageous? Or is it not so black and white?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:52 am November 6th, 2007 in Blogging, Foreign Affairs, Government, Media, Politics, Social Issues, Tech, Writing | 1 Comment
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