Quote and Comment

April 28, 2013

"I admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate."

—

That’s what Obama said about CNN at last night’s White House Correspondents Association dinner.

Let me explain why that is such a great line. CNN sees itself as “in the middle” between left and right, MSNBC and Fox. Just recently, in fact, CNN president Jeff Zucker praised the middle as the place to be. But CNN also sees itself as a great newsgathering organization that is all about truthtelling rather than ideology. “Keeping them honest,” as Anderson Cooper, face of the brand, likes to say.

Put them together and what do you have? Keep ‘em honest, but stay in the middle. Which doesn’t work. For what happens when one side is BS-ing us more than the other? What happens when independent and honest reporting shows that these people on this side are mostly right in what they’re saying, and those people on that side are distorting the case?

CNN wants to believe, tries to believe and I think does believe that this problem does not exist. Therefore we have to remind them about it, because it does exist. And that’s what Obama did: “cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate” is saying to CNN: Accuracy and truthtelling will be sacrificed to your ideology— the middle, no matter what it takes.

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(Notes: 712)

March 29, 2013

Use this before you click “share” or “publish.”

The series: Social media wiz shares wizdom.

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(Notes: 18)

March 25, 2013

How to make something go viral.

(From my series of pro tips on online effectiveness….)

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(Notes: 17)

March 24, 2013

I’ve decided to reveal my own SEO secrets. Here’s my top pro tip.

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(Notes: 37)

January 14, 2013

When to reflect on decisions made that are now entangled in the suicide of Aaron Swartz.

Contrast these quotes.

MIT president L. Rafael Reif:

“Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.”

For the university, now is the time to reflect.

United States Attorney, District of Massachusetts

“We want to respect the privacy of the family and do not feel it is appropriate to comment on the case at this time,” Christina DiIorio-Sterling, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said in an email to the Los Angeles Times on Sunday when asked for reaction to the family’s comments.

The government: We decline to reflect. Now is not the time.

The family of Aaron Swartz, January 13.

“Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death.”

The family: Our son is dead. We make public these reflections.

Photo credit: Idandersen, Creative Commons license. For my own reflections on Aaron’s death go here.

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(Notes: 15)

January 13, 2013

“If someone is in need of knowledge and you can provide it, but you don’t, you are guilty of a crime against the human spirit…”

Since Saturday morning I have been deeply affected by Aaron Swartz’s death by suicide at age 26. Because I never met him, this reaction has taken me by surprise, and I am trying to explain to myself why I was on the verge of tears all day and dreamed about him all night.

I think part of it is that he was the same age as many of my graduate students. In the same way that you imagine, “what if that was my child?” after a school shooting, I could almost imagine what the suicide of one of my students would mean to me.

Another part was the point stressed by Lawrence Lessig and Glenn Greenwald in their columns on Aaron: that this person of immense talent and crazy brilliance devoted himself almost completely to public goods— like the RSS 1.0 specs, the Open Library, and the fight against SOPA. He could have tried to develop the next YouTube and sell it to Google for a billion dollars, he had the skills for that, but the only thing that really mattered to him was the fight for internet freedom, which included taking part in democratic politics. That conception of the good, in someone so young, is deeply moving to me.

A third part of why I was so affected by his death is captured in this photo of Larry Lessig meeting Aaron Swartz when Aaron was a teenager. Here is a world renown Stanford law professor listening to a 14 year-old because the 14 year-old could help the professor realize one of his dreams. And he did. Swartz was the initial architect of Creative Commons, the licensing system that has done so much for knowledge sharing on the web. Aaron had lots of substitute parents looking out for him, Lessig included, but he also looked out for them in a lot of the work he did.

Then there is the utter frustration that the prosecutors who have behaved so badly and ignorantly in Aaron’s legal case—United States Attorney Carmen Ortiz and her deputy Stephen Heymann—will never have to pay, they will never face any public accounting, they won’t even have to answer honest questions about how they see their actions now. That’s depressing and infuriating, and it makes me feel powerless and stupid.

On Sunday, MIT announced that it will review its own decision-making in the legal case that arose from events Aaron initiated on its campus. “Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT,” said its president, L. Rafael Reif in a statement.

I guess that’s the another reason I was so affected by this loss. Reflecting on my actions, I haven’t done nearly enough for the causes I shared with Aaron Swartz. In 2012, I declined to serve on the board of this academic journal because it was not open access. But that is… not nearly enough.

I didn’t know Aaron, though I knew of his legend, but from what I have read about him he was one of those people (Timothy Berners Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web and Richard Stallman, the founder of the free software movement, are both like this) who believe that if someone is in need of knowledge and you can provide it, but you don’t, you are guilty of a crime against the human spirit. (See this.)

The cause of Internet freedom, which is very often a radical cause, is radical in just this sense: let all who are hungry eat. Farewell, Aaron, my child. Your cause is just.

(Photo credit: Rich Gibson.)

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(Notes: 118)

November 17, 2012

“Confidently unaware…”

D.C. Muecke identifies three basic features of irony. First, irony depends on a double-layered or two-story phenomenon for its success. “At the lower level is the situation either as it appears to the victim of irony (where there is a victim) or as it is deceptively presented by the ironist.” The upper level is the situation as it appears to the reader or the ironist. Second, the ironist exploits a contradiction, incongruity, or incompatibility between the two levels. Third, irony plays upon the innocence of a character or victim. “Either a victim is confidently unaware of the very possibility of there being an upper level or point of view that invalidates his own, or an ironist pretends not to be aware of it.” (Source.)

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(Notes: 104)

November 16, 2012

Is there anyone with the same power and visibility who flat out makes stuff up like Roger Ailes?

I don’t think there is. (See this one, for example. Or this.) Here’s what he said the other day to TVNewser’s Chris Ariens:

When I saw the President say, ‘I know you all voted for me,’ and a thousand people stood up and cheered and applauded and then when the applause died down, he said, ‘Oh probably except you guys at the Fox table.’ I thought, ‘Am I the only guy in this room doing his job?’ They set up Freedom of the Press. The press is supposed to watch the powerful. And not throw in with them. And when I watched a thousand people stand and cheer and applaud I thought, ‘Uh oh. Somebody better do this job.’

As soon as I read that quote, I knew it was Roger’s fantasy. Because I had watched the speech. And if the Washington press corps had gotten to its feet at the mention of “all of you voted for me,” I would have remembered it. It would have been a big deal at the time. But it wasn’t. Because the standing ovation never happened.

See for yourself. Go to 1:35 in the above clip. Obama’s joke is, “I am Barack Obama. Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me.” Lots of laughter. Lots of applause. Some cheering too. No one gets to their feet. No “a thousand people stand and cheer and applaud.” Ailes just made that up.

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(Notes: 17)

November 8, 2012

“Unless they are going to secede, they are going to have to pop the factual bubble.”

Rachel Maddow at the peak of her talent. Just watch it. It’s from her review and commentary on the 2012 election.

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(Notes: 128)

November 6, 2012

These are my user’s awards for campaign coverage in 2012.

Well, the 2012 campaign is officially over.

These awards reflect my personal opinion upon attempt to use the enormous stream of election journalism that came my way. As you will see, these selections also show my biases. So be it!

My top reporter for 2012 was McKay Coppins, Buzzfeed. An intelligent filter of campaign news and an originator of it. “Tell me something I don’t know” journalism.

My top interpreter: Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine. Consistently put order to the campaign data for me.

News Scoop of the Cycle: David Corn and Mother Jones (Monika Bauerlein, Clara Jeffery, Editors) R omney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters.

Best in my “analysis” category: Ron Fournier, National Journal, Why (and How) Romney is Playing the Race Card. Predictive in its way.

Thought scoop of the cycle: Ron Brownstein, National Journal, “This is the last time anyone will try to do this.” (For an explanation: click.)

The “aggregator with comment” (also called blogging) site I found more valuable in 2012: Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish. A person’s voice, plus aggregation machine, plus user-submitted stuff… very effective.

Editor of the year, 2012 election: Josh Tyrangiel, Businessweek.

Blog post of the cycle: Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama, Conor Friedersdorf on atlantic.com.

Political journalist whose instincts and assessments seemed consistently the sharpest to me: Josh Marshall.

Signal to noise winner, daily coverage: Greg Sargent’s Plum Line, Washington Post.

Person whose prose I most looked forward to reading in campaign 2012: Mark Leibovich, New York Times magazine.

Pundit I most enjoyed listening to on television: Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal.

Best television interviewer, 2012 campaign: Soledad O’Brien of CNN.

Special award for going rogue on his colleagues in the press pack: Alex MacGillis of the New Republic.