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Vivian Norris de Montaigu: Real Journalism and the Road Ahead

2009-12-04T13:08:21Z

The first thing you do in a war is take out and control your enemy's communication system. Our news has been taken over by entertainment, propaganda and massive corporations. Huffington Post is one alternative to this. But we need to look at news overall, internationally, and how journalism will move forward in the years ahead. Otherwise we risk not having any real news at all.

This is not a new story but it is an extremely important and urgent one. Friends and acquaintances of mine who have been working as salaried journalists and as independents are becoming more disturbed by the reality of what is happening in journalism today. These journalists are, for the most part, working in the West, in Europe and the U.S, as foreign correspondents are virtually disappearing. The result is little or no news coming in from many parts of the world. We saw it with embedded journalists in Iraq, and the rest of the so-called war correspondents holed up in hotel rooms, with no permission to leave protected Green Zones. We see it with the budget cuts and the fact that journalists are now re-edited and controlled in order to fit the advertising revenue (or lack thereof) instead of the truth.

Much news is now made in offices: phone calls are made, other people's information is repackaged and resold, but no real reporting is taking place. These are now places where workers, not journalists, cut and paste information found on the internet. Very few people travel to the site of where the news is taking place anymore.

Yet, there are still small pockets of resistance where hard work and real reporting to be found. There are indeed those who are spending often their own time and money to bring us serious journalism. At the Amsterdam Documentary Festival last week, I saw several important films about Latin America and political change there, as well as about the Middle East, with several hour discussions to follow. But who will see these films? They are made on shoe-string budgets by dedicated professionals who feel a true responsibility to providing us with facts, yet it is harder and harder to make and sell these works.

At the festival, there were also fantastic docs such as the one on Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, and I, Psychopath, which force us to question whether our society is becoming a sick place where fear and narcissism and the control of information, power and money, are changing our worldview. We are simply being manipulated by media and images. The cinemas at the festival were mostly full. But how are these docs being distributed and who is watching them? And, even more so, who is acting on the information received from watching them? They are showing us a truth we are not seeing on the nightly news. In other words, why are we not protesting about how we are being manipulated by the media?

There has always good news and bad news. But when propaganda, on either side, be it positive or negative, is used to try to sway public opinion, something has to be done. If the citizens are not receiving the truth about a negative situation, how can they hope to come up with real and sustainable solutions? It simply becomes a cover-up, with false answers We have to dig deep and to do so takes time and good journalism takes money. You cannot run a news organization by paying journalists so badly they cannot support their families. New models for covering news are being created, but they need responsible investors to back them.

One way to improve and revive investigative journalism is the foundation support model, instead of relying on advertising. But these foundations must be dedicated to making sure there is no infiltration by monies that mean to sway opinion. News needs to be objective and honest, otherwise it becomes propaganda. Corporations back our Public Broadcasting through foundations. This also needs to be looked into and kept in check by Public agencies. Public private partnerships can be both good and bed. Self-censorship can be an unwanted result.

Another model is one like the independent citizen photojournalism site, Demotix, which encourages both professional and citizen journalists to contribute, and it pays when it sells and has a true profit-sharing model. Huffington Post is partnering with foundations to provide investigative journalism. But we need more people on the ground, local journalists who are trained to report; to verify facts; to go to where the news is being made. Twitter also helps, but this too can be manipulated. And journalists on the ground in many places need to be protected -- at times even post anonymously -- yet facts must be checked by responsible individuals and organizations.

I believe in real journalism. I know that when one is on the ground -- living in places with the people who every day are experiencing injustice, poverty and hardship -- that many solutions and uplifting stories can also be found. But first we need to see the truth. It is a moral duty to make sure people all around the world have access to information. Let's make sure technology for the bottom billions also includes serious content, news and education. Let's bring back real reporting. Let's stop censorship and self-censorship, which kill true reporting. Let's not buckle to corporate advertising money in pursuit of the truth.

People know when they are being lied to, but if fear is being used to sell false information, people do not know where to turn for real information that can help them live better and make wise decision for themselves and their communities. We need to continue to take back the media. No one owns the truth. The Truth belongs to all of us.

NPR: Carl Kasell To Give Final Newscast

2009-11-23T11:29:51Z

According to National Public Radio, Carl Kasell will be stepping down from his post as newscaster on December 30, 2009.

Born in 1934, Kasell joined NPR in 1975 as a part-time newscaster for All Things Considered and became the full-time newscaster for Morning Edition in 1979.

He will continue to appear as official judge and scorekeeper on the weekly news quiz "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!". "I'm just changing jobs, not disappearing," he said.

Fred Schulte, Senior Reporter For HuffPost Investigative Fund, Talks Digitizing Medical Records On NPR (AUDIO)

2009-11-21T12:56:33Z

Fred Schulte, a senior reporter for the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, talked with NPR's Scott Simon Saturday morning about the overlooked technology companies that stand to make huge profits in the push to digitize the nation's medical records.

"The government's $45 billion plan to jump-start a national shift to electronic medical records has touched off a gold rush among scores of technology firms - even as many experts question whether the benefits of the products are being oversold," Schulte writes in an article on the digitization of medical records, on the Huffington Post Investigative Fund.

"There's a sort of a gold rush going on," Schulte explained on NPR's Weekend Edition. "Some of the biggest companies in the world--Microsoft, Dell, Google--all of these huge tech companies are very interested in the billions of dollars that is going to derive from health care in cyberspace."

"There are cash registers ringing," Schulte said.

The Huffington Post Investigative Fund's examination of the medical records business is ongoing. Click here to follow the coverage, and listen to the full interview below.

John Hood: Interviewing Terry Gross

2009-11-16T14:05:05Z

The Host of NPR's "Fresh Air" on the Art of the Interview

There may be no better interviewer working today than Fresh Air host Terry Gross. Not even Errol Morris, who concentrates on a single subject, or Ira Glass, who most concerns himself with the unknown, can boast Gross's alacrity and insight. The list of people Gross has interviewed over her nearly 35 years as host of National Public Radio's standout show is as lengthy as it is illustrious, and includes everyone from Hollywood heavies to Nobel Prize-wining authors. But it is the low-key and inimitably graceful manner in which Gross interviews her subjects that puts her at the forefront of our nation's interrogators.

Last week I had the great, good pleasure of interviewing the esteemed interviewer in the lobby of Miami Beach's Gansevoort Hotel as she was about to host a sold-out evening on behalf of South Florida's National Public Radio affiliate WLRN. This is what she had to say:

John Hood: I recently interviewed Chuck Klosterman who in his latest book Eating the Dinosaur writes about how he still finds it hard to believe that people answer questions at all. Of course there's the old "selling a product" aspect of an interview. But no one is really obligated to answer anything, yet they do, and for the most part they do so truthfully. What's your take?

Terry Gross: Well, I think it's usually a pleasure to think somebody cares enough to ask, and cares enough to listen. And I think there's something that kind of a privilege about sharing your life, or sharing your thoughts, or sharing your area of expertise with people who genuinely want to hear about it. Where I would agree with him is when the questions become really invasive, and are just designed for voyeuristic reasons. Do you know what I mean?

JH: Or to provoke...

Terry: Or to provoke. But people are just genuinely interested in why you write your books, or how you make your movies, or what happened in your life that led to this sensibility that created this art that we love. I think people are grateful for the chance to talk about it, unless they're so kind of besieged by the press and so sick and tired of being asked the same questions all the time. And also, there's a part of the personality press that's all about trying to reveal something embarrassing about the person being interviewed. In a situation like that of course your guard is up.

JH: Gotcha journalism.

Terry: Yeah, I mean who wants to answer that kind of question?

JH: Well, he went ahead and asked two really amazing people, he asked Ira Glass and Errol Morris, what they thought and how they got people to open up, and I'll tell you what they said in a moment. But first I'd like to know what you think makes for a good interview?

TG: Well, I don't like the idea of people being these locked boxes, and if you find the right combination you get them to open up. It's like you collapsed them open, like there's this secret or act of aggression where you've broken them.

JH: But surely, there's a key to making a good interview?

Terry: In the kind of interview I do - and I'm referring now to more like arts cultural kind of interviews, as opposed to the political interviews - I think it's just genuinely wanting to know, and also seriously caring because you've read their books, because you've seen their movies, because you've watched them act, because you love their music. And it's sincere. I love this therefore I want to know how you do it, why you do it, who are you. As opposed to, "You're #1 at the box office therefore I want to know who you had sex with last night."

JH: Well, they both Morris and Glass concurred, that listening was the key.

Terry: Right, if you listen and you care.

JH: Much ado has been made about the silences in your interviews. Was that natural, organic. I mean or do you say, "You know what. I'm just going to be quiet for a second"?

Terry: Usually if I'm quiet it's because I'm thinking. (laughing) You know, because suddenly it's your turn. If somebody just said something that you didn't expect them to say, you really have to think about, "Um. So, what exactly is my response?" Particularly, if it's something sensitive, or controversial, or provocative in some way. You have to figure out Where am I going with this? Then, our show is edited and we have debates about whether we tighten the silence or do we edit it out completely. So we try to reflect that silence or we might shorten it a little bit. If there was an awkward pause, we'll keep it in.

JH: How edited is the show?

Terry: I usually report about an hour of material, and we edit it down typically between 20 and 40 minutes. It can be shorter.

JH: Do you ever cut things out to not embarrass people?

Terry: Yes.

JH: Do they ask you sometimes?

Terry: Yes, sometimes they do. Our rule of thumb is - I mean we wouldn't do something to excuse a politician if they said, "Oh please edit that out." They can't edit the tapes. But, if someone calls up and says 'Something I said, it's going to hurt my mother's feelings so badly.'

JH: Why not take it out.

Terry: Why not take it out. It's not like Abu Ghraib or something where lives are going to be saved if you reveal this, and people are going to be spared torture. Our show doesn't need to have somebody's mother feel bad for the rest of her life because of something somebody said. That's not integrity or good journalism, necessarily.

We will deliberate [though]. We don't automatically take it out if somebody's asked it to be taken out.

JH: But if it's a harmless little thing, why not?

Terry: Exactly.

JH: How many interviews do you think you've done?

Terry: I really haven't counted but I've been doing interviews since 1973 or '74.

JH: Oh, I thought it was '75.

Terry: I started "Fresh Air" in '75, but I was hosting a couple of different shows in Buffalo before that.

JH: In '75, did you ever think you'd be doing this 35 years later?

Terry: Never never never.

JH: You must have a least favorite?

Terry: Ugh. I don't have...

JH: Besides Gene Simmons. (laughing)

Terry: Well, you know I feel like I owe Gene Simmons a favor. We got so much attention from that. I'm sure he thought he was ruining me.

JH: Is he still adamant about it not being aired in its entirety, or at least available in its entirety on the site.

Terry: We never got back to him. After the initial turndown, we never got back to him.

JH: It's still up everywhere.

Terry: You can just Google it so easily, I know.

JH: What about - I just go the fourth edition of the Paris Review Interviews. It comes in this nice little box set. Have you read them?

Terry: I've read a bunch of them but not in a long time.

JH: Are you a fan?

Terry: Yeah, when I read them, yes.

JH: Pen or pencil? You know that question at the end?

Terry: For me computer, yeah yeah.

JH: Do you have a one set question that you ask almost everybody?

Terry: No.

JH: Everybody's different? And do you really read a book a day?

Terry: Yeah, sometimes more than that. When I say read I put quotation marks around "read" because [sometimes] it's like skimming reading. You have to read it so quickly. I read really differently.

JH: I wanted to ask you about other interviews. Did you watch anyone in particular growing up? Have you watched anybody or have you followed anybody since?

Terry: I wasn't really very aware of interviews when I was growing up. I didn't pay a lot of attention to them. But people who have influenced me over the years include a couple people from the CBC, because I used to live in Buffalo and listened to it as I went to college there. Barbara Frum, who is actually David Frum's mother, and I think is very, very different from her son.

JH: She had a little show?

Terry: Not a little show, she had a big show. It's the show All Things Considered was kind of modeled after. It was called As It Happens and it was their evening news show. And it was fabulous, it was just fabulous.

JH: How long did that run?

Terry: A long time. It outlived her. She died very young. Then there's somebody called Peter Gzowski, had a morning show that was great. Dick Cavett's public television show really influenced me a lot. Because he just asked all these off the wall questions.

JH: But he had done his homework. He wasn't just flying by the seat of his pants.

Terry: No, he'd done his homework. But he would feel free to ask anything even something that sounded stupid. I thought it gave me permission to not worry about sounding stupid, or just asking a half-baked question sometimes. A lot of people on NPR: Ira [Glass], Scott Simon. I think Robert Siegal is a terrific news interviewer. He just knows his stuff in and out. Ted Koppel. MacNeil Lehrer when it was The MacNeil Lehrer Report and they would do their two-some thing.

Oh, I think Rachel Maddow is a terrific. I think she's very good at what she does.

JH: But you have no desire to start your own show - "Fresh Air Live on TV"?

Terry: I think it's better as a radio show. I'm glad I've been able to spend my career in radio and not have to worry all the time about how I look.

JH: But you look dynamite.

Terry: Oh, thanks. It's just really freeing to not have to think about that in addition to thinking about everything else.

Great Author Interviews With Barbara Kingsolver, Sapphire, and Mary Karr(AUDIO)

2009-11-10T15:46:08Z

NPR has a host of great author interviews every week, and we thought we'd bring you the best of the recent ones. Listen below for three really great ones: Barbara Kingsolver on "The Lacuna," Sapphire on "Push," the novel behind "Precious," and Mary Karr on "Lit."

Barbara Kingsolver on "The Lacuna," how she came up with the name (and how her family felt about it) and her own recent relocation:

Sapphire on "Push," the novel behind the new movie "Precious," talking about how she never wanted the book to be a movie and more:

Mary Karr on "Lit," discussing her relationship with her ex-husband, her son's foray into the family history, and lots more:

Bruce Judson: Will Extreme Economic Inequality Lead to Terrorism? A Chilling Moment on NPR's OnPoint

2009-10-21T15:50:19Z

In general, discussions of economic inequality assume that people continue to view the existing economic system as legitimate. As foreclosures rise, jobs disappear, and the divide between the have's and have not's increases, our ability to take this for granted becomes far less certain.

If people start to feel they no longer have a stake in our society, that the game is rigged, that they will never get out from under, they become alienated and our fundamental economic system loses its legitimacy.

Here's a chilling example of what can happen:

Last week, my new book It Could Happen Here was the subject of a 45-minute segment of Tom Asbrook's OnPoint, which airs nationally on NPR. To demonstrate, how income inequality can divide a nation, It Could Happen Here, which is a nonfiction book, opens with a fictional scenario involving American terrorists who threaten the nation with dirty bombs demanding an end to foreclosures by "vulture banks," and free access to healthcare and higher education for all. Tom Ashbrook asked hard questions about this scenario. I said to him think of a laid off engineer who works with radioactivity to create medical devices...

Here's the transcript of the discussion:

"BRUCE JUDSON: First off, here's a flash point for you. In the scenario, in the fictional scenario, I talk about ... It is very easy to imagine that an engineer, or someone else with the necessary knowledge who works on, let's say, medical devices and has used radioactivity to create a better world ... to save lives, is laid off. You can imagine that he suddenly is facing foreclosure. He's an educated person unable to put his kids through college."

A few minutes later the show took calls. The show received a chilling call from an out of work nuclear engineer -- who had helped to build 13 nuclear power plants but had not worked in two years. You can read the transcript of his call below, or click to listen to his call here.

Click here to listen to out of work Nuclear Engineer:

"TOM ASHBROOK: Certainly inequality's a big issue. Let me get a call right here from New London, Connecticut. And

Don. Hi, Don. You're on the air.

CALLER: Hi.

TOM ASHBROOK: Hi.

CALLER: I think you should be listening to this guy, Judson. I'm an unemployed nuclear engineer. I've worked on 13 nuclear power plants. Making a dirty bomb is not a big deal. I'm not going to go out and tell everybody now to do it, but I'm just saying things like that can happen. And it sounds like you're just being dismissive of all his ideas and what he's saying. Because there's a lot of anger out here, and there are a lot of people who feel that the American Dream is slipping away from them, they don't have a chance. And the only entrepreneurial opportunity for them is to sell drugs and to be an outlaw. It's happening.

TOM ASHBROOK: [OVERLAPPING] I hear you, [PH] Don. We've got Bruce on for an hour. So, I can't say we're not listening to him. But let me ask you, you've got a lot of expertise in your field, nuclear engineering. But does that mean you're unhappy if you're unemployed? Do you really feel like the country's ready to revolt?

CALLER: I'm not an expert in revolution, and I don't really know how they happen. All I know is I'm 60 years old. There's not a lot of people who want to hire a nuclear engineer who's 60 years old. And there are a lot of people out there like me who are out there who, you know, once you have so much gray hair, you're out of here. And there's just a lot of people that are just not happy with the way that the country's going right now.
And I don't know ... where it's going to take it, or what's going to be its spark, or what's going to be the event. But people feel like there's just no way to climb out of the hole. Like there's just nothing that's going to get them out. This attitude, that I've seen, over 60 years, I've never seen anything like it. It scares me.

TOM ASHBROOK: Up against it. And with an education, a particular education. Don, thank you for your call."

Earlier this week, in a New York Times column Safety Nets for the Rich, Bob Herbert, details our emerging have and have not society, where two-thirds of the entire income gains of the nation between 2002 and 2007 went to the top 1% of Americans. Herbert writes:

"And we still don't seem to have learned the proper lessons. We've allowed so many people to fall into the terrible abyss of unemployment that no one -- not the Obama administration, not the labor unions and most certainly no one in the Republican Party -- has a clue about how to put them back to work.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is living it up. I'm amazed at how passive the population has remained in the face of this sustained outrage."

Unfortunately if we do not change course, Herbert's amazement may end in circumstances that we do not want to contemplate. We are witnessing the unfolding of a chain of dangerous events associated with our collapsing middle class and increasingly two-tier economy. Sadly, the dynamics outlined in It Could Happen Here that lead to political instability are occurring with increasing ferocity. More on this in my next post..

Harut Sassounian: Turkey Exposed: Cannot Pretend to be Both Pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israeli

2009-10-20T17:12:30Z

Playing the skillful political games of their Ottoman predecessors, Turkey's current masters present their country under various guises -- as European and Middle Eastern, Islamic and secular, pro-Arab and pro-Israeli.

It now appears that the end is near for at least one of these Turkish charades. Israeli officials have finally awakened from their prolonged coma to discover that their erstwhile "strategic partner" is far more hostile than their Arab enemies.

For a long time, Turkish leaders have been calling the Israelis all sorts of unsavory names and accusing Israel of committing barbaric acts, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Strangely, Israel has shown little indignation, even in the face of persistent racist and anti-Semitic outbursts by large segments of the Turkish public.

The latest display of Turkish hostility was the exclusion of Israel from a multinational military exercise which was to start in Turkey on October 12. In protest, the United States, Italy and Holland pulled out of these maneuvers, causing their cancellation. In a move designed to further irritate the Israelis, Turkey announced that it would instead hold joint military exercises with Syria, Israel's main adversary.

Turkey's Prime Minster Rejeb Erdogan told the Anatolia Press Agency last week that he had banned Israel from the military drill in response to the wishes of the Turkish public. "Turkey does not take orders from anyone in regards to its internal affairs," Erdogan boasted. Some Turkish officials indicated that the ban was instituted because the Israeli jets assigned to the exercise had participated in the Gaza bombings earlier this year.

This episode marks a major escalation of the long-standing Turkish bitterness towards Israel. For the first time, the Turkish military joined the civilian government in adopting an anti-Israeli position. Furthermore, Turkey went beyond mere verbal condemnation to taking concrete action. For years, the Israeli government was willing to swallow insults from Turkish officials, as long as its Air Force was permitted to make practice runs in the vast Turkish airspace, shared intelligence, and sold military hardware to Turkey.

Making matters worse, Israelis were deeply offended by the broadcast of a Turkish show on state TV last week, depicting graphic scenes of Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian children and committing other atrocities.

Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reacted by summoning the Turkish ambassador and accused Turkey of inciting hatred against Israelis. Lieberman stated that not even Israel's enemies would air such a hostile TV series. Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom urged Turkey "to come to its senses." Another Israeli official stated: "We need to stop accepting the Turkish dictates and humiliations. It is inconceivable that they should insult us at every opportunity, and we should continue to hold our tongues."

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu categorically rejected any future mediating role for Turkey in talks with Syria. An unnamed "senior Israeli official" was quoted by Haaretz as stating that the strategic ties with Turkey may "have simply ended." Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post quoted some Israeli defense officials as stating that "advanced weapons sales to Turkey would now be reviewed."

There were also widespread calls last week for the Israeli public to boycott Turkish resorts. National Public Radio (NPR) reported that Israel's largest labor union would no longer plan for thousands of its workers organized tours of Turkey, and would direct them to go instead to Greece and Bulgaria. Since January, there has been a 47% drop in the number of Israelis spending their vacations in Turkey, according to Time magazine. An Israeli coffee shop chain expressed its displeasure by announcing that it would no longer serve Turkish coffee to its customers. In an unprecedented move, several Israeli cabinet ministers declared that they would turn down the Turkish Embassy's invitation to attend Turkey's Independence Day celebrations later this month.

Many outraged Israelis advocated that, in retaliation, Israel acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. Dan Margalit of "Israel Hayom" newspaper accused the Turks of not only committing Genocide, but also the "ongoing crime, which is expressed in energetic Turkish activity to deny the atrocity and to incite against any country and government and artist who wish to express their horror."

Ephraim Inbar, head of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, reminded the Turks that they are still in need of "Israeli influence in Washington to prevent the passage in Congress of a resolution declaring the killing of Armenians during World War I a genocide."

In an unprecedented action, the "Im Tirtzu" Israeli student movement held a protest last week in front of the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv. The students displayed bloody pictures of victims of the Armenian Genocide, handed out books on the Genocide to passersby, and carried signs calling on Turkey to formally recognize the Genocide.

To atone for its past sin of siding with Turkish denialists, Israel must officially affirm the Armenian Genocide as well as actively lobby for its recognition by other states. Israel should also permit the erection of a monument at a prominent location to commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide and reverse its long-standing ban on TV broadcast of documentaries on this subject. It is certainly in Israel's own interest to side with the victims of genocide rather than with its perpetrators!

Instead of maintaining at all cost its unholy alliance with Turkey, Israel should earnestly pursue a peace settlement with the Palestinians and live in peace with its Arab neighbors, thus obviating the need to curry favors with the Turkish denialist regime.

Bill Lichtenstein: NPR Gets in News Staff's Facebook

2009-10-19T14:42:31Z

For those keenly watching the ever-increasing overlap of journalism and new media, and what it means for both, National Public Radio's newly-released "News Social Media Guidelines" are of obvious interest.

They provide an important insight into how the prestigious national network considers its news staff in this age of "media is everywhere," and where it draws the lines regarding its employees' personal and professional use of such social media web sites like Facebook and Twitter.

NPR's new guidelines, released October 15, come at a time when social media web sites like Facebook and Twitter are increasingly becoming a first-line source of news and information for millions of Americans, particularly with regard to breaking news stories, and commentary (e.g. I first learned of the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy through a post on Facebook, and these days I am more likely to watch a Jon Stewart Daily Show commentary on Facebook than on cable TV).

According to NPR president and CEO Vivian Schiller, who emailed her staff last week about the network's new social media guidelines, the rules are mandatory for those working at NPR in news, programming, digital media, communications, and legal divisions, as well as corporate officers. "But even if you fall outside those boundaries," wrote Schiller "you'd be smart to review the guidelines and follow them. NPR is first and foremost a news organization, which means staffers from Finance to Facilities represent the face of NPR's journalistic integrity."

Among the new NPR social media guidelines that have left some staff members puzzled and unhappy about the network's reach into their personal self-expression are:

"You must not advocate for political or other polarizing issues online. This extends to joining online groups or using social media in any form (including your Facebook page or a personal blog) to express personal views on a political or other controversial issue that you could not write for the air or post on NPR.org";

"Your simple participation in some online groups could be seen to indicate that you endorse their views. Consider whether you can accomplish your purposes by just observing a group's activity, rather than becoming a member. If you do join, be clear that you've done so to seek information or story ideas. And if you "friend" or join a group representing one side of an issue, do so for a group representing the competing viewpoint, when reasonable to do so."; and

"You should conduct yourself in social media forums with an eye to how your behavior or comments might appear if we were called upon to defend them as a news organization."

NPR's guidelines, including the limits on NPR staff joining social media groups and asking that social networking conduct be based on whether NPR could defend it, seem to be a bit skittish, and appear to demonstrate a modest naïveté about how people are actually using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, which are increasingly becoming a locus for people to share and discuss critical current events and matters of social importance. This while NPR has been publicly proclaiming its interest in expanding from radio into the area of social media, which inherently involves often freewheeling and open discussions and comment.

Meanwhile, at the Washington Post, Raju Narisetti, one of the newspaper's two managing editors, closed his Twitter account in September after being criticized for his posts about the health care debate. ("We can incur all sorts of federal deficits for wars and what not," read one Narisetti Twitter post. "But we have to promise not to increase it by $1 for healthcare reform? Sad.")

On September 25, the Washington Post announced that Narisetti would be closing his Twitter account after he "chatted" with Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli. At the same time, the newspaper released its new social media guidelines, which state, in part: "Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything – including photographs or video – that could be perceived as reflecting political racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility."

Almost immediately, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz offered this tongue-in-cheek response via his Twitter account, while seeming to stay within the paper's new guidelines:

“Under new WP guidelines on tweeting, I will now hold forth only on the weather and dessert recipes,” Kurtz wrote, adding in a subsequent Twitter posting, “Actually, I always assumed you shouldn’t tweet anything you wouldn't say in print or on the air. Diff betw having thoughts and being biased.” [sic]

Perhaps not surprisingly, theNew York Times, which has demonstrated a broad interest in merging traditional journalism with new media, and has even created its own Facebook-like social media site, "TimesPeople," has voiced what seems like a more measured and insightful position with regard to the use of social media by the newspaper's staff, with guidelines that include practical advice about using social media sites as part of the reporting process and detailed specifics regarding personal and professional conduct on-line.

The year-old internal New York Times social media guidelines, provided to Poynter.com earlier this year, begins with the the use of social media sites for reporting: "Facebook and other social networking sites -- MySpace, LinkedIn, even Twitter -- can be remarkably useful reporting tools, as the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 proved." The New York Times guidelines continue, "As we've discovered from the experts on our staff, Facebook pages often tell a lot about a person's work, interests, friends, and thoughts, and, as one page leads or links to another, Facebook can help reporters do triangulation on difficult-to-research subjects."

With regard to the posting of material on social media sites, the New York Times guidelines suggest that employees, "Be careful not to write anything on a blog or a personal Web page that you could not write in the Times -- don’t editorialize, for instance, if you work for the News Department."

The New York Times guidelines also differentiate between activities in the real and virtual worlds by addressing whether a reporter can ethically write about someone who is a "friend" on a social networking site, saying "In general, being a 'friend' of someone on Facebook is almost meaningless

and does not signify the kind of relationship that could pose a conflict of interest for a reporter or editor writing about that person. But if a 'friend' is really a personal friend, it would."

Additionally, the New York Times guidelines address whether there is a problem if their reporters becoming an on-line, virtual "friend," on a social networking site like Facebook, with someone they cover. ("Mostly no" say the New York Times guidelines, unless disclosure could embarrass the reporter, such as an on-line "friending" between a political reporter and a campaign manager.) And, the New York Times guidelines allow for reporters to contact someone through a social media site like Facebook, but note "Ethical Journalism says, 'We do not inquire pointlessly into someone's personal life.' "

There are hardly clear ethical "rights and wrongs" in the emerging world of social media as it relates to journalism, and, as with the evolution of TV news coverage over the past six decades, there are many practical and ethical questions that will need to be addressed by news organizations about the uses of this new social medium.

At the same time, in the "new media world" that has evolved on the internet, with sites like Facebook and Twitter, it seems hopelessly outdated to think that news readers, viewers and listeners can, or even should, be kept in the dark about a journalist's interests, activities and even personal views. Perhaps this sort of transparency could be good for journalism? At the same time, journalism has to deal with the fact that the evolving world of social media further blurs the line between personal and professional for those working in what is already a very public profession.

Likely Howard Kurtz has it right, and Facebook, Twitter and social media sites are just virtual extensions of the real world, so the same rules should apply. For example, it would seem to make sense that if reporters at a newspaper are prohibited from wearing campaign buttons, they likely shouldn't be identified with a particular candidate's social networking group.

Interestingly, NPR's recent broad social media mandates were coupled with this caveat to news staff about posting on social media sites: "And a final caution - when in doubt, consult with your editor."

One has to wonder just what the editors at NPR will say if they are asked "is it OK to post a link to last night's Jon Stewart rant or to Frank Rich's recent editorial on my Facebook page?"

Welcome to Journalism 2.0. The water seems fine. It may just be a matter of jumping in.

According to NPR, these guidelines are mandatory for everyone working in news, programming, digital media, communications, legal divisions and officers of NPR . . . and anyone using NPR-issued equipment or writing from their NPR email address (or providing that address for response) must also adhere to them," according to an email NPR president Vivian Schiller wrote to staff.

Among the new guidelines that have left some NPR staff members grumbling about the networks intrusion into their personal life are new rules that:

"You must not advocate for political or other polarizing issues online. This extends to joining online groups or using social media in any form (including your Facebook page or a personal blog) to express personal views on a political or other controversial issue that you could not write for the air or post on NPR.org."

and

"You should conduct yourself in social media forums with an eye to how your behavior or comments might appear if we were called upon to defend them as a news organization."

NPR's guidelines, including the limits on expressing personal views about political issues on social media sites, demonstrates a modest naïveté about how people actually use Facebook, which is surprising given NPR's President Schiller's oft stated goal of pioneering the uses of new media for journalism.

Meanwhile, at the Washington Post, one of the paper's two managing editors, Raju Narisetti, caught heat for Twittering about the health care debate. ("“We can incur all sorts of federal deficits for wars and what not,” read a recent one. “But we have to promise not to increase it by $1 for healthcare reform? Sad," wrote Narisetti on Twitter), which led to a ban on Washington Post journalists expressing themselves on social network sites like Facebook or Twitter. On September 25, 2009, Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli released new social media guidelines, which state, in part: “Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything – including photographs or video – that could be perceived as reflecting political racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility.”http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ombudsman-blog/2009/09/post_editor_ends_tweets_as_new.html

Almost immediately, Washington Post media critic

It’s enough to give any MSM tweeter pause, or at least a bit of writer’s block. Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz still found a way to crack-wise within the guidelines, tweeting in response to the new mandates.

“Under new WP guidelines on tweeting, I will now hold forth only on the weather and dessert recipes,” he wrote, and then added, more seriously, “Actually, I always assumed you shouldn’t tweet anything you wouldn’t say in print or on the air. Diff betw having thoughts and being biased.” http://twitter.com/HowardKurtz/status/4401785751

Perhaps not surprisingly, The New York Times, which has demonstrated its broad interest in merging traditional journalism and new media, and has even created its own Facebook-like social media site, "TimesPeople," http://timespeople.nytimes.com has voiced a more measured position with regard to the use of social media by staff with guidelines that also offer practical advice about using social networking sites as part of reporting.

Earlier this year the New York Times' policy on Facebook and social networking sites was provided to Poynter.com by Craig Whitney, The New York Times' assistant managing editor who oversees journalistic standards. The guidelines first and foremost focused on the use of social networking sites for reporting, beginning with, "Facebook and other social networking sites -- MySpace, LinkedIn, even Twitter -- can be remarkably useful reporting tools, as the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 proved." With regard to postings, the New York Times guidelines ask news staff to "Be careful not to write anything on a blog or a personal Web page that you could not write in The Times -- don’t editorialize, for instance, if you work for the News Department." It also differentiates between virtual and real worlds by addresses whether a reporter can ethically write about someone who is a "Friend" on a social networking site, saying "In general, being a "friend" of someone on Facebook is almost meaningless and does not signify the kind of relationship that could pose a conflict of interest for a reporter or editor writing about that person. But if a "friend" is really a personal friend, it would." Also, should a New York Times reporter refrain from being a "Friend" on a social networking site with someone they cover? ("Mostly no" unless disclosure of the friend could embarrass the reporter, such as a political reporter and a campaign manager.) Finally, the New York Times guidelines allow for reporters to ask questions by e-mail through on Facebook, and notes "Ethical Journalism says.”We do not inquire pointlessly into someone's personal life."

There is hardly "right and wrong" in this emerging area, but, as with the development of TV News coverage, there are lots of ethical and practical questions about this new media, in need of specific answers. NPR's broad brush approach was coupled with this caveat to news staff: "And a final caution - when in doubt, consult with your editor." What will the editors say when asked, "Is it OK to post last night's Jon Stewart rant on my Facebook page?" Welcome to Journalism 2.0.

Huff Radio: Arianna Discusses Obama Nobel Prize Fallout, Passing Health Reform On NPR's "On Point" (AUDIO)

2009-10-14T18:23:44Z

Arianna appeared on the NPR show "On Point" today, along with Byron York and Jack Beatty, to discuss the fallout from both the left and the right for President Obama after he received the Nobel Peace Prize: the right complains that he is all talk while the left complains that he hasn't moved fast enough to enact a progressive agenda.

The panel also weighed whether the growing momentum to pass health care reform will shift the tone back in the President's favor.

Click here to listen to the show.

Rob Fishman: Trial by Firefight

2009-10-07T09:54:22Z

In The Life of David Gale, a 2003 film starring Kevin Spacey, an innocent man is put to death.

In real life, David Grann, a writer for the New Yorker, reported last month that an innocent man was put to death. While there are marked differences between the fictional account and the real-life execution it might have presaged—Spacey's character, for instance, is accused of rape and murder, while Cameron Todd Willingham, the man put to death in 2004, was convicted of killing his three children by arson—the similarities are eerie.

In the two stories, both are down-on-their-luck. Both drink. Both forge relationships with female advocates who work fruitlessly for their release. Both maintain their innocence until the end. Both are executed in Texas, where 18 inmates were executed in 2008. And after death, both lay claim to what Grann calls the "grisly Holy Grail among opponents of capital punishment": a verifiable case of wrongful execution, what Sandra Day O'Connor once decreed a "constitutionally intolerable event."

Life can imitate art, but only up to a point. A point breached last week, when Texas Governor Rick Perry replaced the chairman and two members of the committee that was to hear new evidence on the Willingham case. The new commissioner, John Bradley, has been called "one of the most conservative, hard-line prosecutors in Texas." Sam Bassett, the outgoing commissioner, worried, "I certainly hope this change is not about political concerns." Yet on the same day that a leading arson expert was set to testify, Bradley suspended the hearings. As Time reports, the expert testimony has "been put off until Bradley sets a hearing, and he has not indicated when, or if, he will, saying he needs to talk to state leaders about the role of the commission."

It's clear that Willingham was (mis)tried by a kangaroo court, but will justice be better served by the media zoo that's ensued?

Grann's exposé hasn't quite triggered a tipping point, but it has become a powerful rallying point for liberal pundits. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert resolved: "It was an accident. No crime had occurred." Dahlia Lithwick announced on Slate that "we have finally found one." Decided Barry Scheck, the Innocence Project co-founder who was interviewed for the New Yorker article, "He was innocent." Grann has since been interviewed on MSNBC and NPR. As in David Gale, it would appear to be an edifying finale.

But that's where the credits refuse to roll. For his part, Governor Perry has derided what he calls "latter day experts" for ignoring "clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that [Willingham] was in fact the murderer of his children." Similarly, John Jackson, the original prosecutor, and now a Texas judge, issued a rejoinder to Grann, in which he reaffirmed the guilty verdict, and argued that Willingham "should not be anyone's poster child."

Grann's response seemed to crystallize the adversarial nature of the media storm: "The Prosecution Defends Itself."

The he said, she said becomes intellectually frustrating for readers. On the one hand, we want to believe Grann's deft, poignant and eminently compelling story. But on the other hand, we're stung by shards of evidentiary doubt, such as a news story from 2004 that attributes a string of epithets to Willingham in the moments before he died—in direct contradiction to the last words Grann reports.

Which is not to cast doubt on the reportage, but only to acknowledge the inherent limits of the medium.

"The one thing that I hope doesn't happen," Grann told me, "is that it becomes simply about blame, and that overshadows what's most important, which is what the case addresses."

As journalists, our job is to hold up the mirror, as Walter Cronkite famously put it. Grann has masterfully accomplished that task. Beyond that, a sustained media circus is an ill wind that blows no one but Rick Perry any good. The press cannot be jury, judge and exonerator. As Grann said, what's at stake here are "systemic issues," not just of truth and justice for one man, but of the American way.

The great danger is that Willingham will be doubly denied justice: found guilty in a drumhead court-martial, and innocent in a mock trial. Neither an act of God nor a piece of journalism will vindicate Willingham or confute the death penalty. The example that disproves the rule, the cinematic finish, the elusive Holy Grail is now, as before, a question of law.

Alison Teal: The Past Is Never Dead

2009-09-29T15:05:51Z

Denver author Harry MacLean's new book, The Past Is Never Dead, is marketed as true crime and it is that, but it's much more. His story about the 2007 trial of klansman James Ford Seale for the hideous murder of two young black men in 1964 is also a story about growth -- both that of the author who came to see Mississippi in all its complexity and that of the Mississippians and their ongoing struggles with the state's past. It is a book that reminds those of us in the north that even though the south has its devils to deal with, the issues of race may be more nuanced and perhaps even more honest in the south than in the north. (If you think racial bias is behind you, an issue of your past, try taking Project Implicit's race test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/takeatest.html. You may be unpleasantly surprised by the results.) This is a very timely book.

Edgar Award winner MacLean is being interviewed by National Public Radio for "Weekend Edition," which will be aired October 3rd and 4th.

He will be at the Tattered Cover on Colfax Avenue in Denver on October 9th at 7:30 p.m. Don't miss it.

http://www.harrymaclean.com

Tom Sullivan: If You Like Medical Bills, You'll Love These

2009-09-21T18:19:30Z

Activists in the blogosphere are studying well over 500 amendments to Sen. Max Baucus' Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill, including three "public option" amendments. All sides will hotly debate, soundly trash, and amend the hell out of the Baucus bill, H.R.3200 (on the House side) and any others that come out of the woodwork by October.

But those aren't the only kind of bills Americans should be worrying about.

My sister died at 37 from a metastatic sarcoma (the same cancer that took Ted Kennedy, Jr.'s leg). I watched her die, went to her funeral, and then went back to her apartment to sift through stacks of medical bills.

In exhaustion and grief, we couldn't tell which bills were paid, which were not, which were rejected, which were under review, and which were still in the pipeline and wouldn't arrive for weeks or months. This doesn't happen in most industrialized countries and shouldn't happen here. It's a disgrace, a disgrace that none of the bills pending in Congress will cure. A disgrace that health insurance conglomerates and their allies in Congress are fighting hard (and spending hard) to preserve, along with the profits the billing process helps generate.

Over 60 percent of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are from medical bills. Over three-quarters of those are in families who had health insurance, were probably satisfied with it, and thought their coverage was adequate until a serious illness proved otherwise. But it's the burdensome billing process itself that the health care reform debate has not addressed.

At the America's Future Now! conference in June, Dr. Salomeh Keyhani of Mt. Sinai Hospital detailed the number of weeks doctors, nurses and their staffs spend each year dealing with insurance paperwork and procedures. Insurers make it as difficult as possible for customers to collect. Bottom line: if patients and doctors get frustrated and go away, the insurer won't have to pay. Keyhani described the labyrinthine claims process as "passive aggressive" by design.

Keyhani's name came up again last week in connection with a nationwide poll published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Keyhani helped conduct the survey funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of 5,000 physicians representing a spectrum of specialties and regions, including American Medical Association members. The survey, Keyhani told NPR, found that "nearly three-quarters of physicians supported some form of a public option, either alone or in combination with private insurance options." That included AMA members, whose organization opposes a public option.

Yet only a single-payer-style plan promises to eliminate the mountains of bureaucratic paperwork that make our patchwork system cost nearly twice what other advanced countries pay. But since a nationwide single-payer system is off the table, even if a strong public option gets to the president's desk, most Americans will be sifting through confusing stacks of insurance paperwork for years to come. Some reform.

The anti-reform forces had their Tea Party in Washington on September 12. They offered no alternatives and screamed loudly about not being heard, but not loudly enough to drown out a majority that decides to speak with one voice.

President Obama must know that he has only to say the word and a sea of pro-reform supporters will travel to Washington in support of real reform and a robust public option. If summoned, supporters should bring their collections of medical bills, rejection letters and appeal forms and wave them overhead.

Talk about "Don't Tread On Me." Medical insurance paperwork is universally recognized and universally loathed. It could serve as a potent symbol of everything wrong with America's dysfunctional, for-profit health insurance system.

Reform supporters might, en masse, flood congressional fax machines with their medical bills. Or stage media events with fax machines set up in public spaces for patients to fax their medical bills to Congress -- just to put an exclamation point on demands for meaningful reform.

There's something viscerally satisfying about feeding documents into a fax machine and knowing they're spitting out onto the floor of your congresscritter's office. It's the next best thing to being there.

(Cross-posted from OurFuture.org)

Michael Pollan Says Healthcare Reform Will Fail Unless We Change The Way We Eat

2009-09-15T08:07:06Z

First in The New York Times last week and then on NPR this weekend, Michael Pollan made that point that if we want to fix our health-care system, we have to fix our food system.

Yuna Shin: The Optimistic Scientist and the Pessimistic Politicians

2009-09-14T22:02:45Z

This morning during its Morning Edition, NPR played a refreshing interview Steve Inskeep conducted with the Secretary of Energy, Steve Chu. Chu is a non-politician in a political position, but no one doubts that he is a very logical choice to be in charge of energy policies in this country. He won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1997 at the young age of 51 and is hence uniquely qualified to bring scientific coolness to a hot, politically driven environment that is Washington, DC.

Today's topic was Chu's view on how to fight global warming by transforming where we get our energy. Most prominent in that debate, of course, is the role of technology. With the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 by the House in June, while at the same time conservative groups are organizing to take whole-page ads out in newspapers nationwide that question the very existence of global warming and climate change in the first place, the issue is becoming more and more pressing. Chu's role as the Secretary, therefore, is two-fold: to convince people that such thing exists and to do something about it while maintaining our lifestyle.

When asked by Inskeep, however, Chu is very optimistic about the future. What is the reason for his optimism? Chu states, "Scientists by their nature are very optimistic. It's very simple why. You know, we go to school, we learn about Newton, we learn about Maxwell, we learn about Einstein. And yet you want to do some science that can contribute on the shoulders of those giants. You've got to be pretty optimistic." Carrying on the task of advancing science is daunting. However, scientists have to think optimistically about what they are able to do in order to continue the work of those that have come before us. To think otherwise would be paralyzing.

Chu also gives other reasons for his optimism. For example, although we use more and more energy-driven gadgets now, energy consumption in California has actually stayed flat since the '70s due to rigorous energy efficiency standards. Therefore, he reasons that, if we apply the lesson of California to the rest of the country, we may be more than able to meet the future needs. We may even decrease energy consumption by developing the right technology and tapping into what is freely and cleanly available such wind and solar power.

Chu reiterates this unflinching optimism, even when asked the question whether or not his post in Washington, DC., has somehow dampened the optimism of a scientist. But Inskeep makes a very cogent observation about science vs. politics. He states, "science in this area, of course, is about what makes sense, what's efficient. Politics -- I don't want to automatically degrade that -- it seems to be about human nature. People tell you about their fears and their desires and their concerns."

And who can forget the folly of human fears and desires so well exhibited by Rep. Joe Barton of Texas back in April? During a hearing, Barton asked the new Secretary what he calls a "simple question": "How did all the oil and gas get to Alaska and under the Arctic Ocean?"

Chu is left incredulous and chuckling at first. He describes simply but eloquently the complicated mechanism of plate tectonics by which continents drifted over millions of years. But Barton will not have any of it. It seems that he does not listen to any of the words that the Secretary is saying, to put it mildly. Barton states, interrupting the Secretary: "At one time it was a lot warmer in Alaska and it wasn't a big pipe line that we created in Texas and put it under ground and shipped it up there."

Barton refuses to understand that years ago Alaska was not where it is now and, therefore, was capable of supporting the kind of life that resulted in fossil fuel and natural gas. Barton as a politician is the perfect example of the kind of human nature that Inskeep describes: the desire only to only know what he sees and to believe only what he knows. This is where his fears lie. That perhaps, because we can't see it now, we can't accept it. He refuses to listen to explanations given to account for the fact that what we see now is not what was before. This is where Barton's quest to know ends, and this is where his knowledge ends. And this, sadly, is pessimism at its core.

So here we have a perfect juxtaposition of the optimistic scientist and all the Bartons and all the conservative groups in their whole page ads in Washington, DC. Politicians have been pessimistic of the explanations science has given us for the reasons we need to do something about energy now. They are pessimistic, perhaps because they don't believe anything that science has to offer and that science is capable of giving the kind of advances we will need for meeting our energy needs. Scientists, on the other hand, keep working because, despite the ignorance that surrounds them, they have faith that science will deliver answers to our problems and make our lives easier and better through innovation and hard work. It is hard work because, as the Secretary tells us, "You've still got to come up with the goods." Nothing ever comes without hard work.

So, here is to "Dr. Chu Goes to Washington" to bring optimism and, we may only hope, change to Washington politics. Even if he can change it just a little bit, that would be huge in terms of the future of this planet and for the rest of us.

Lea Lane: The UR1HTR Virus ("Hate Flu"): Stop the Epidemic!

2009-09-14T11:37:35Z

It's the flu season and breaking news is that the H1N1 ("Swine Flu") virus can be moderated with one inoculation. But the ever-present UR1HTR virus (also called "hate flu" or "Republican flu") has been spreading rapidly since November, 2008.

Heavily Infected Areas

The hate flu seems to thrive in the southern United States, with pockets found throughout the country, especially in rural areas. The Republican Party, especially its southern congressional delegation, is already suffering an epidemic. Being around those infected with the virus carries special risk, especially in the very young, the vulnerable, and the uninformed.

Symptoms

UR1HTR virus symptoms include irrational hatred of people of color (especially those in positions of power), Jews, New Yorkers and all things French. Other symptoms include loss of brain cells, aversion to facts --especially scientific ones, minimal empathy, frequent invoking of God and the Second Amendment, chanting of slogans, love of NASCAR and World Wrestling Federation, screaming, fear of change, hypocrisy, and the ability to tolerate Dicks -including Cheney, Armey and Morris -- without vomiting.

Secondary symptoms include demonizing "the unfamiliar" or "other," linear thinking, weird hats, hooded sheets in the closet, lack of humor (except for The Cable Guy, Dennis Miller, and stale jokes about a priest, a rabbi, and a black man).

Extreme symptoms include placing leg up to shin in pie hole ("You Lie!" Wilson) paranoia (Bachmann, Dobbs), pride in ignorance ("Africa is a country" Palin) and megalomania (O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Beck). All of these symptoms are often shown by those infected early in life.

In worst cases the flu causes dangerous behavior including sheepish following of idiots/idols, loud repetition of falsehoods despite indisputable facts, demonizing of those who are different or who disagree, and violence including tendency to harm others through gunfire.

Those infected with the UR1HTR virus tend to gather (Tea Bag parties, Sept. 12 rally, town halls) where the virus spreads rapidly and infects others through media enabling. Subgroups ("Birthers") often form. Disruptions (bitten fingers at town meetings) and Tourette-like statements ("He's an Arab") are common. Koolaid is usually copiously consumed.

Women with hate flu are often thin and blond, with loud whiny voices and secondary male characteristics (Coulter, Ingraham, Hasselbeck). Males often wear flag pins, often decrying same-sex relationships while displaying those tendencies (Rove, Craig, etc.)

While the UR1HTR virus cannot be yet eradicated, symptomatic relief can be achieved by removing: news organizations led by Rupert Murdoch or Roger Ailes, most talk radio, and websites like The Drudge Report. Virus victims have been known to make a fast recovery when something awful happens to them so that government intervention is needed, and if they travel to France and enjoy the snails.

At Special Risk

Children, older people, independents, family members of those infected, and those who: talk about religion excessively and /or are fundamentalists, have never left the country (or worse, the county), would benefit most from government programs, or do not have a college education (or have one from Oral Roberts, Bob Jones or any other institution with no SAT standards and a sexually-tinged name).

Those With Natural Immunity

Democrats, Union members, persons of color, atheists or agnostics, the over-educated, and travelers to more than 10 countries seem to maintain life-long immunity to the hate virus.

Boosters for Those Without Immunity

Washing hands, wearing surgical masks and coughing in elbow do not help. Quarantining those affected in southwest desert camps is considered unacceptable.

While there is no cure, the following seems to offer some protection against the virus (and may either exacerbate or moderate the symptoms in those who have already caught it): Michael Moore movies, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, NPR, Huffpost, salon.com, The Nation, following Arianna and Joan Walsh whenever they appear.

Important Request

Please spread this information about the UR1HATER virus (Facebook, email, twitter, digg, reddit, etc.) to help stop the spread. It is especially important to thwart the virus before November, 2010.

Stefan Sirucek: YouTube Shifts Policy, Starts Paying One-Hit-Wonders

2009-09-04T11:52:01Z

Well more like 20-million-hit-wonders.

On Sunday NPR reported that popular video-sharing site YouTube has begun paying those with hit videos, even if they only have one:

The online video Web site recently announced that users who create just one viral video are eligible for advertising partnerships with the company. Now, those behind the videos that become the next big thing on YouTube can cash in on their 15 minutes of fame.

This is news because while the YouTube Partners program has existed for a while, it was previously mainly for people with lots of high-quality videos -- filmmakers, comedians, how-to gurus -- people who were regularly producing entertaining content that drove traffic and therefore advertising dollars to YouTube. Early stars and YouTube royalty like Lisa Donovan (Lisa Nova) and Michael Buckley have been members since early on, receiving shared revenue from the ads on their videos. According to an article that appeared in the New York Times last December the top YouTube Partners do quite well, making comfortable six figure incomes by regularly producing videos for the site.

Yet the fact remains that fame in the Internet age is usually accidental. It's impossible to predict what sort of video will strike a chord and be the next to sweep the world. Therefore, some of the biggest hits on YouTube are, and will continue to be, accidental one-hit wonders.

For the above piece NPR interviewed David Devore, whose simple home video of his son, befuddled after a dentist's appointment, has garnered about 28 million views. (WATCH: "David After Dentist")

In the interview Davore states that his family has made about $25,000 dollars from the 2- minute video so far. At 28 million views currently, that's about 900 bucks for every million views. Since now a single video that goes viral can make a person eligible for the Partners program, essentially YouTube has just made it easier to randomly strike internet gold.

In the future that video of a kid's wacky 5th birthday may help pay for his college tuition.

Or his dental work.

Yuna Shin: Is Michael Steele's Position on Health Care Reform "Nuanced" or "Clear"? Answer: The New GOP Is the Old GOP.

2009-08-28T12:06:29Z

I wrote an article in December of last year about the interview Steve Inskeep of NPR's All Things Considered conducted with Mike Duncan, the then chairman of GOP. In that article I observed the GOP was heralding Bobby Jindal and Ahn Cao as the saviors of the party because it was merely trying to repackage itself rather than to change fundamentally. When a caller called from Oregon to suggest the GOP needs to distance itself from the religious right, Duncan gave a typical talking point: "we are the party of the big tent." But everyone knew, including Mike Duncan through his silence, this was not just ignorance, but also a deep denial.

And on August 27th, a little over 9 months after the election and 7 months into the Obama administration, Inskeep conducted an interview with the new GOP chairman, Michael Steele, on the topic of health care reform. (Read the entire interview here or you can listen to the entire interview here.) The interview was precipitated by Steele's op-ed in the Washington Post on August 24th, in which he declared the "GOP Principles for Health Care" for seniors.

Steve Inskeep calls Steele out on his contradictory call for no cuts in Medicare while at the same time asserting that Medicare, like other government-run programs, needs to "run better and efficiently." How can this be consistent? How is it possible to call to protect Medicare while at the same time calling to oppose President Obama's plan for a government-run health care system? Steele answers as follows: "Well, people may like Medicare, and liking a program and having it run efficiently is sometimes two different things. . . So let's focus on fixing it." In a nutshell: Medicare is politically popular, so keep it and fix it. But government-run health care is bad like other government-run programs ("We have Amtrak. You have the Post Office"), so don't start it.

I am left scratching my head.

When pushed to defend private insurers against the government-run Medicare, Steele asserts: "And sure, there are issues in the insurance market that we can regulate a little bit better and that we can control better to maximize the benefits to the consumers." Inskeep is quick to catch Steele's inconsistency and responds, " Wait a minute, wait, wait. You would trust the government to look into that?"

Steele gets defensive and accuses Inskeep of "doing a wonderful little dance" and "trying to be cute." He insists that "the reality of this is very simple. I'm not saying the government doesn't have a role to play." What is then the role of the government?" Steele goes on, "The government does have a role to play. The government has a very limited role to play." Inskeep admits readily that he is "a little confused" by the positions Steele tates "because you're giving me a very nice nuanced position here."

Now it's Inskeep who is left scratching his head.

Steele answers with a declarative statement: "I'm being very clear." When Inskeep pushes him further Steele mounts a counter-offensive by asking Inskeep in return, "What's nuanced? What don't you understand?" And here comes the clincher: "I don't accept your premise" So far, Steele has accused Inskeep of doing a dance, being cute, and now of offering a view of Steele's contradictory, or "nuanced," position which he flatly doesn't "accept." What Steele implies here is this: he is "being very clear" and it is Inskeep who doesn't understand.

As I stated at the beginning , my December article on Mike Duncan dealt with Duncan's inability to accept the fact that the GOP needed a fundamental change. When suggested that it needed to disassociate itself from the religious right, Duncan responded with a mere declarative talking point: "we are the party of big tent." When Steele is asked if his positions perhaps needed to be explained, he responds with is another similar declarative statement: "I am being very clear." And by the way, "You are doing a wonderful little dance."

Never mind that the positions Steele takes are blatantly inconsistent. For example, the second principle: "we need to prohibit government from getting between seniors and their doctors." The seniors are already on Medicare, the reviled government-run health care, so it would follow from Steele's position then that the government is already standing between doctors and patients. However, Steele wants to assert at the same time that Medicare is not, but other government-run health care will. Protect Medicare, but other government-run health care is evil.

It seems to me that the GOP has not changed at all. The new Mike Duncan is the old Mike Duncan. The face and the color might have changed, but it is still the same. When pushed to clarify its position, Michael Steele as the face of the GOP answers, "you are doing a wonderful little dance." When asked to clarify the position, Steele gives the simple declarative answer as if it were self-evident, "I am being very clear." Steele may accuse Inskeep of dancing, but it is Steele who is doing the dance.

So is then Michael Steele's position on health care reform "nuanced" or "clear"? It is neither. It is circular. It is vacuous. It is nothing but talking points behind which there is no substance.

The new GOP is the old GOP all over again.

Wendy Block: Fixed?

2009-08-27T17:54:09Z

"Either the public buys the politicians or the special interests will."

-- George Skelton, LA Times

Big Pharma makes sweetheart deals with the White House.

Big Oil sends employees to spoil congressional Town Halls with their assault rifles and their "grassroots" concerns about climate change.

Big Milk seizes the dairy industry (seriously). Last week NPR's John Burnett reported on two huge corporations which, ala Walmart, cow -- pun intended -- small independent farmers into selling their milk so cheaply, many are forced out of business. Bush Administration investigations against the two colossi evaporated.

Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Milk. All special interest patrons of America's Big Money bordello. What are good progressives to do? Either we get lobotomies (not that recession-lashed activists can afford them) or we fix the way the country finances politics.

It was thrilling last month when 65 Congressional Reps refused to crumple on the public health insurance option. But as I wrote in my last post, to salvage representative democracy, voters must reclaim our electoral power.

We deserve a country where politicians value all constituents as highly as their largest donors, where people without fortunes -- or access to them -- get an equal shot at running for office. And there is progress.

Voter Owned Elections and Open and Ethical Elections Codes are two Clean Money/Elections systems succeeding throughout US states and cities. Competitors get enough public - clean -- money to challenge even lavishly-financed opponents, in exchange for strictly limiting the cash they accept from private sources.

No more having to spend 30 percent of their time begging corporations and wealthy donors for contributions and then voting the interests of these backers. Candidates are free to learn what's important to voters, and once elected, to serve everyone they represent.

After years of disgust with electoral politics, I began working in 2000 to bring Clean and Fair Elections (California Clean Money Campaign [CCMC]) here. How else can we end the ubiquity of the political quid pro quo?

The CA legislature stunned supporters last year by passing the California Fair Elections Act (CFEA). It designates one contest -- the campaign for Secretary of State -- as our clean money pilot project.

Why Secretary of State? Partly because this officeholder manages all federal and state elections within California. If any job needs to be free from even the palest trace of manipulation, this is it. Remember George W's victory linchpins, Secretaries of State Kathryn Harris, Florida, 2000, and Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio, 2004?

Also, the Secretary of State regulates the activities of lobbyists. Conflict of interest over-easy, anyone?

While clean elections advocates were celebrating state lawmakers' brilliant Fair Elections vote, we enjoyed a second blissful moment when the governor signed the bill into law. CA voters get the final say in June, when the CFEA appears on our state ballot. Visions of triple ecstasy...

Some argue against using the public's (read: MY!) money for a candidate I oppose. But in California's case, the people will not be required to pay a penny (though donations are always welcome!).

This Act's tab will be picked up by lobbyists, whose state registration fees will rise from $12.50/year to $350/year. This is the fee many states charge.

CFEA is minuscule compared to laws elsewhere that offer full clean financing for campaigns statewide. But if the opposition models its tactics on the ever-mutating healthcare reform melee, Clean Elections supporters won't be surprised if all sorts of ka-razy claims start hitting the fan (omg, a government takeover of elections!!!).

I'm doing everything I can to get this passed, including joining the Clean Election Speakers Bureau, to help reach the widest possible audience. A fellow devotee and I did our first presentation earlier this summer.

It went great; people were interested, skeptical, encouraging and challenging. We all learned something.

Once substantive national health reform passes (it'd better...), CCMC will expand its Speakers Bureau and its audience. Maybe we'll persuade some fence-sitters and even an opponent or two to give this a chance.

Meanwhile in D.C., The Fair Elections Now Act (S. 752 and H.R. 1826) was introduced in both the Senate and the House this past March. Last month, lawmakers urged the House Administration Committee to support the Act.

From GOP California Rep Dan Lungren -- "I'm going to put it on the record, I hate raising money for campaigns," he told the committee. "The only two people I know who enjoyed it, both went to prison."

Act co-sponsor Walter Jones (R-N.C.) testified, "[L]et's return Congress to where they vote based on their conscience, not on the influence or perceived influence of money that buys the conscience."

After November's victorious trifecta, progressive activists worried about getting lulled into fat, cheery complacency. Nine months later, it's clear we didn't even get a glimpse of complacency from our porch.

That we're still in this reform brawl shows we have fortitude. So do our valiant Congressional reps -- and a growing number of heroic senators -- still pushing for the health insurance public option.

Since lobotomies will only grow more prohibitively expensive, activists will either have to fix the nation's political funding structure, or we'll all stay stuck in our current fix.

For more information:

www.caclean.org

www.fairelectionsnow.org

Angela Bonavoglia: Media Blind to GOP Hypocrisy in Health Care Debate

2009-08-27T12:29:53Z

The confrontations between the GOP, the Democrats and their supporters in this health care debate have reached hysterical proportions. But not once in all the media coverage have I heard a conservative Republican pontificating on the sacredness of the doctor-patient relationship asked how one reconciles that position with the governmental restrictions their party has championed on women's health care for the better part of three decades.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is one of the Gang of Six, the three Republican and three Democratic senators charged with hammering out a health reform compromise. Speaking to Iowans recently, he set himself apart from those who think that "when Grandma's lying in a hospital bed with tubes in her," government policy has a place, by declaring: "I am just the opposite." In a recent NPR interview, he singled out, as markers of progress in making health care reform more palatable to Republicans, his caucus's staunch opposition to rationing care and its insistence on "no interference in the doctor-patient relationship."

Carrying the banner for patients' rights on the subject of end-of-life care, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) passionately declared on Meet the Press that "The idea that we ought to talk about our future health and what our family and what we want done is a good idea, it's legitimate. What is not legitimate is having the government even weigh in on it. It is intensely personal, your health care, your plans, your family. There is no role for government in it."

What's stunning is that these are the same people who, with their party, have brought us an avalanche of governmental regulations dictating the availability of women's reproductive health care. It's even more stunning that the media is failing miserably to call them on it.

Indeed, conservative Republicans have spent years limiting the access of American women to birth control, emergency contraception, and pregnancy termination services, while requiring expensive medical tests, irrespective of medical need, and literally putting words into doctor's mouths in order to impede if not prevent women from getting reproductive health care.

Grassley has a 100 percent rating from National Right to Life Committee. Call it by any other name, but he's apparently quite content letting government ration women's reproductive health care, enthusiastically supporting efforts to withhold access to a legal procedure, to family planning services, and to birth control.

Coburn has the dubious distinction at this moment of being from the first state in the Union where Republicans are fighting -- first in the legislature, now in the courts -- to pass a uniquely onerous law. As one of its elements, the law would require that any woman who chooses to end a pregnancy have not just an abdominal ultrasound -- irrespective of medical need--but that she have a transvaginal ultrasound, if that would "display the embryo or fetus more clearly."

It's hard to imagine any test more "intensely personal" than a transvaginal ultrasound. It is an extremely invasive test wherein the woman lies half naked on an examining table while a cold, plastic probe is inserted inside her and painfully maneuvered for image clarity.

According to this legislation, the woman has no right to refuse -- even if her pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Here's her choice: an invasive sodomization with a transducer, upon orders of the State, or carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term.

Nor does her doctor have a right to refuse. If the woman is terrified, does not want a transvaginal ultrasound, or has already suffered forced penetration, her doctor is helpless to protect her. If the doctor does refuse to do the test, he or she can be fined $10,000, have his or her license suspended or revoked, or be sued by the woman, the spouse, parent, sibling, guardian, or "current or former licensed health care provider" -- this from the party that fights so vociferously for tort reform. (The statute generously adds that the woman will not be prevented from "averting her eyes," and that if she does, neither she nor her doctor will be subject to prosecution.)

Beyond the facile dismissal of pregnancy termination as a covered service, thereby restricting access to a safe, legal procedure for hundreds of thousands of women each year, what has happened with women's reproductive health care in this country, despite its pertinence to health care reform, is essentially invisible in this debate. Yet we have to ask: Would people stand for it if the health care reform model being promoted gave the State the power to mandate a non-medically indicated, invasive, costly test as a prerequisite for the open heart surgery Grandma needs to save her life? If it countenanced State mandates forbidding her to refuse to have the test or the doctor to refuse to give it? If it put words into her doctor's mouth?

While many are fretting over the notion of a government takeover of health care in the spirit of Big Brother, for women in America, in the area of reproductive health care, that takeover has already occurred.

It's time this came up in the health care reform conversation.

This piece was written for The Women's Media Center website, a non-profit organization founded by Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, and Robin Morgan, dedicated to making women visible and powerful in the media.

Mike Ragogna: An Interview With Buffy Sainte-Marie, Plus Train and Digital 45 Updates

2009-08-13T00:52:44Z

You most likely know Buffy Sainte-Marie from her many Vanguard folk albums or instantly identifiable hits. She's penned An Officer And A Gentleman's Academy Award-winning theme song "Up Where We Belong" (released by Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes), plus the classics "Piney Wood Hills" (recorded by country legend Bobby Bare), "Cod'ine" (covered by Donovan, The Charlatans, and Quicksilver Messenger Service), and "Until It's Time For You To Go" that was immortalized by Elvis Presley then later, Neil Diamond. But Buffy Sainte-Marie is a part of our culture beyond music, having appeared on Sesame Street semi-regularly between 1976 and 1981, having been married to creative powerhouse Jack Nitzsche, and having promoted and campaigned for environmental and social issues as well as the collective interests of Native Americans and First Nations for at least four decades. To this day, her peace anthem and hit from the sixties, "Universal Soldier"--also covered by the likes of Donovan, Glen Campbell, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, The Highwaymen, and even Chumbawamba--enjoys continued airplay (especially as a bumper) on NPR and Pacifica stations, it originally having been written as a reaction to the Vietnam War. This being Woodstock Week and with topics on Buffy's newly-released album Running For The Drum ranging from activist anthems to mature love songs, it seemed a perfect time to catch-up with the artist, her music having directly or indirectly influencing many of those that appeared at the culture-changing event.

Mike Ragogna: Buffy, you've always been associated with a class of folk artists that includes Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Tom Rush, Eric Andersen, Fred Neil, and many other mid- to late-sixties troubadours. But your influence reaches beyond that genre, to those acoustic artists that later became pop music's "singer-songwriters," many of them moved by the depth and commitment of your material.

Buffy Sainte-Marie: Thank you, I always thought that the art of the three-minute song is almost like journalism. Sometimes you can say something in that amount of time that would take somebody else a four-hundred page book that would just wind up on some shelf. It's so direct and immediate.

MR: That passion they admired is very strong throughout your new album, a perfect example being its socially-charged opening track "No No Keshagesh."

BSM: I'm writing all the time, and as a songwriter, I always think of myself as somebody with a camera taking snapshots of what's going on. The spirit behind "No No Keshagesh" and "Working For The Government" is the same that inspires the songs on my album Coincidence And Likely Stories which are very much along the same lines politically. They're kind of crystal clear photographs with a unique perspective because I'm so fortunate to have airplane tickets in my life, and I get to travel to reservations, to cities, and from one country to another. So the spirit behind some of these songs--you know, there's really not a good name for it, "social consciousness" just sounds so stuffy and "protest" is not quite right. But these songs are always around because things like environmental greed are always bubbling under the surface.

MR: Running For The Drum is pretty clear on its politics, but it also has many different styles with a nice balance of love songs.

BSM: Though I'm writing in that vein, I'm also still writing those love songs, country songs and fun songs--like the one that sounds like an Elvis Presley tune ("Blue Sunday"), and the one I did with Taj Mahal ("I Bet My Heart On You"). It's always a big mix with me but I'm always seeing that socially conscious, environmental protection point of view.

MR: Some complain change is coming too slowly, but do you feel like we're on the verge of some major changes?

BSM: Absolutely! And what's beautiful about it is we're all a part of it. You know, I campaigned for President Obama, so you're preaching to the choir here. [Laughs] What impressed me is not that he was from my home state of Hawaii or that he's half black/half white, but that he's a professor of constitutional law with great experience in communities. To me, that's a very, very significant qualification. I think he's the most highly qualified person to ever be in the White House...I mean, a professor of constitutional law...who'd a-thunk it, you know?

I know about our own impatience and about how slowly it takes to do things right, but I'm as hopeful as I was before the election, in spite of the ups and downs and daily life. I think things are getting better everywhere, even though we had eight years when we didn't hear anybody's really heartfelt, well thought-out viewpoints. Everyone was kind of muffled and quiet and a little sacred. During those campaign days, I met thousands of people who'd been holding their enthusiasm and their positivity in check out of fear. So to have campaigned among people who really had it together and who were just waiting for the right moment said so much to me.

MR: And with the exception of folks like Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, and some talk show hosts on Air America, the media mostly let those guys do what they wanted without challenging them.

BSM: Yes, yes, yes! Isn't that something? If you're lucky enough to be going back and forth between Indian reservations and the city, and if you travel to Europe, you can see the discrepancy between the American press during conservative administrations and the rest of the world's take on us. It kind of stretches your mind. But to see the window shades open and the sun coming in...people who had once been huddling in the dark in fear in America are now vital and positive, willing and able to express the hopes and dreams of what came out of that election.

MR: In the past, you've received grants to educate the public on Native American issues, you've instituted various successful social programs, and served as a positive role model while appearing on Sesame Street. What are you up to these days and have the issues for Native Americans changed between then and now?

BSM: Actually, they're the same. Regarding environmental and Native American issues, it used to be, like fifteen years ago, that you'd see Native American people standing on the side of the road with signs that said "Protect Mother Earth" and people would drive by and smirk. On Coincidence And Likely Stories, there are songs called "Disinformation" and "The Priests of The Golden Bull." They point out things like how uranium waste is dumped onto Indian reservations, and the rest of the population doesn't see it happen. But when you go to your kitchen and turn on your water tap, quickly you realize that we all belong to that same river. So very often, Indian reservations are the front line of things that will impact the general population later, whether it's race issues, neglect, cheating, thievery done by people in office and, of course, environmental issues.

You know, when I first started out in the sixties, I was a young singer with too much money. I had all these airplane tickets connecting me with the great stages of the Americas, Asia and Europe. After I got done with a concert, I would fly up to the Arctic, to Scandinavia, and spend time with the Sami people there, or if I had a concert in New York, I'd be up at a Mohawk reservation. Same thing in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. So for a long time, I've used my concert career to connect me with indigenous people...just for the fun of it! I started an organization in the sixties called the Nihewan Foundation, and over the years, I developed it into something called The Cradleboard Teaching Project. We write core curriculum in science, geography, social studies, etc. from a North American Indian perspective. We offer it free online to educate everybody about us, mostly because it presents the Native American identity directly to students and teachers. And we were taking kids on the internet--before anyone knew the word "internet"--in the eighties. We connected a school in Hawaii with a school my cousin was running in Saskatchewan. We were setting up study partnerships between classes even then.

MR: So in addition to music, you spend an enormous amount of time on the project.

BSM: That's my other job! I enjoy writing curriculum as much as writing songs only it's multi-media. It's all interactive multi-media curricula about Native American perspectives. They're real school subjects, so they match national content standards. It's not one of these deals where you study about how these Indians lived here and those Indians lived there, and it's all beads and feathers and shallow, and not about anybody. This is about real subjects through Native American eyes. We've had tremendous support from the Kellogg Foundation, the Ford Foundation and others over a ten-year period. Two years ago, our dream came true and we got to put it online free.

MR: Getting back to the album, so many records these days are made from a "one sound" generic approach, but on Running For The Drum, you use many different styles.

BSM: All of my albums have been real diverse, from my very first album all the way through since they're made up of all the songs in my head when I'm putting it together. I think that came up in the sixties before everything got "genrefied," you know, when record companies had to know which bin to put it in.

MR: The song "Little Wheel Spin And Spin" is a great example of our interconnectedness you spoke of earlier.

BSM: Right, and we're all a part of it (the wheel). If we're going to petty thieve the Five & Tens, at the same time, shouldn't we be looking at politicians and corporate thieves? I mean, isn't it all the same thing and shouldn't we all be keeping an eye on that too? It's all about individual responsibility, but so was "Universal Soldier."

MR: "Universal Soldier" is considered one of the great "protest" songs. You really dig in when you write this kind of material.

BSM: When it comes to writing a song like that as opposed to "Up Where We Belong" or "Until It's Time For You To Go," it's like writing a thesis for a professor, and I really want to get an "A" and she doesn't like me very much. [Laughs] So I really try to make them thoughtful.

MR: What's the story behind your rework of "America The Beautiful" and your singing it to Nasa's Commander John Herrington?

BSM: That was fun! Nasa flew a lot of people from his tribe and me in for his ride. He's a friend of mine and I'm very proud of him. Now, if you look that song up online, you'll see that many people have written different verses, so I wrote my own and added that additional introduction and middle section. Our country is more than just nation states, it really is our country.

MR: In your notes for "Still This Love Goes On," you say how you remind yourself of nature whenever you're in a situation that removes you from it.

BSM: That's my medicine. On Hawaii, we have this local navy base, and I have security clearance to go and use their telescopes. I'm an amateur astronomer, and when you look at the stars...or even when you spend time with your kitty cat in your lap...to me, it's the most beautiful, natural phenomenon...the earth. It's what connects us all together with everything and each other. Wherever you are in the world, nature is always there, even if it's hidden for the moment. It's a part of us and never goes away. To me, it relates person to person and people to people...we really have a lot in common.

For More Information on The Cradleboard Teaching Project: www.cradleboard.org

Tracks:
1. No No Keshagesh
2. Cho Cho Fire
3. Working For The Government
4. Little Wheel Spin And Spin
5. Too Much Is Never Enough
6. To The Ends Of The World
7. When I Had You
8. I Bet My Heart On You
9. Blue Sunday
10. Easy Like The Snow Falls Down
11. America The Beautiful
12. Still This Love Goes On

This is a video of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "No No Keshagesh":

...and here are a couple of this week's press releases:

TRAIN TO RELEASE NEW STUDIO ALBUM,
SAVE ME, SAN FRANCISCO, ON OCTOBER 27

First single, "Hey, Soul Sister" Currently Available on iTunes

Columbia Records proudly announces the return of Grammy Award-winning band Train, with the release of their new album, Save Me, San Francisco on October 27, 2009. The album contains the new summer anthem, "Hey, Soul Sister," now available for purchase on iTunes. Save Me, San Francisco is the multi-platinum-selling band's fifth studio album.

Save Me, San Francisco hearkens back to the band's early days in the mid-'90s, when they first formed in the city by the bay. This album marks the restoration of Train's original line-up, including vocalist Pat Monahan, guitarist Jimmy Stafford and drummer Scott Underwood, since 2003's platinum offering, My Private Nation.

"I think taking time away from each other really made the heart grow fonder," frontman Pat Monahan says of the break. "We realized how important we were to one another and taking a few years off helped us all really look at ourselves and what we could contribute to this band."

Train recorded Save Me, San Francisco in London's Kensaltown Studios, with producer Martin Terefe (Jason Mraz, KT Tunstall, James Morrison) at the helm, helping the band tap into their organic, distinguished sound. The album's lead track, "Hey, Soul Sister," is charismatic, fresh, and laden with hooks that stick in your head all day, perfect to celebrate the dog days of the summer season. The song marks a new direction from Train's classic style found in prior hits such as "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)," "Calling All Angels" and "Meet Virginia," and is sure to appease Train fans and all music aficionados alike.

Additionally, the band is in the midst of planning a headlining fall tour to support the album. Train's current concert schedule can be found below, with more dates to be added shortly.

Upcoming tour dates include:

8/08/09 - Arlington, WA, Festival Of The Rivers
9/06/09 - Naperville, IL, Naperville Last Fling
9/18/09 - Temecula, CA, Pechanga Resort & Casino
9/19/09 - Newport Beach, CA, Taste Of Newport
9/26/09 - Sacramento, CA, Discovery Park
9/27/09 - San Francisco, CA, Golden Gate Park
10/03/09 - Mobile, AL, Bayfest
10/17/09 - Las Vegas, NV, Bite Of Las Vegas

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the single -- and to bring that trusty format into the Internet Age -- Rhino has introduced a line of digital 45s. Due 8/18, the latest batch includes 25 classic tracks, each coupled with its original B-side (and at iTunes, picture sleeve/label artwork as well).

Here's a list of digital-only releases due in August from Rhino Entertainment:

Anita Baker -- "Sweet Love"/"Watch Your Step"
Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force -- "Planet Rock"***/"Planet Rock (Instrumental)"***
Harry Chapin -- "Cat's In The Cradle"/"Vacancy"
Marc Cohn -- "Walking In Memphis"/"Dig Down Deep"
Doobie Brothers -- "Black Water"/"Song To See You Through"
Foghat -- "Slow Ride"/"Save Your Loving (For Me)"
Genesis -- "Invisible Touch"/"The Last Domino"***
Georgia Satellites -- "Keep Your Hands To Yourself"/"Can't Stand The Pain"***
Grateful Dead -- "Uncle John's Band"/"New Speedway Boogie"
Tommy James And The Shondells -- "Crystal Blue Persuasion"/"I'm Alive"***
Rickie Lee Jones -- "Chuck E's In Love"/"On Saturday Afternoons In 1963"
Chaka Khan -- "I Feel For You"/"Chinatown"
Gordon Lightfoot -- "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald"/"The House You Live In"
The Marcels -- "Blue Moon"/"Goodbye To Love"***
Van Morrison -- "Moondance"/"Cold Wind In August"***
Morrissey -- "Everyday Is Like Sunday"/"Disappointed"
Mr. Big -- "To Be With You"/"Green-Tinted Sixties Mind"
Alannah Myles -- "Black Velvet"/"If You Want To"
David Lee Roth -- "Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody"/"Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody (Remix)"***
Seals & Crofts -- "Summer Breeze"/"East Of Ginger Trees"
Third Eye Blind -- "Jumper (Radio Edit)"***/"Graduate (Remix)"
Randy Travis -- "Deeper Than The Holler"/"It's Out Of My Hands"
Randy Travis -- "Forever And Ever Amen"/"Promises"
Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons -- "December, 1963"/"Slip Away"
Warren Zevon -- "Werewolves Of London"/"Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner"

Tracks marked *** are new to digital

Derek Beres: Global Beat Fusion: Carmen Rizzo Tackles Tuvan Throat Singing

2009-08-12T15:03:22Z

"It's such a hard sell," Carmen Rizzo tells me from his Los Angeles studio. "There are so many artists who are from other countries who want to do American Idol bullshit, or be the eastern Coldplay. I say: Why?"

The topic of discussion is Inbar Bakal, an Israeli/Iraqi/Yemenite singer who re-rooted herself in the City of Angels to forge her way into a dance-pop career. Then she met Rizzo, whose credits include work with Paul Okenfold, Seal, Jem, and many other well-known acts. He persuaded her to make a U-turn -- her heritage, he said, would be so much more interesting. Rizzo himself had been tinkering with some incredible global music projects, including the Persian-electronica trio Niyaz, and another trio featuring a singer once going by the name of Rosey, Lal Meri. His instincts proved correct.

Bakal, as Rizzo says, called his bluff, and asked him to record a track together. They did; it turned into six, which formed the basis of her excellent self-titled debut on Rizzo's own Electrofone Records, a boutique label which at the moment features only three acts. "It's important that labels have identity," he says, "which is often missing. If you think of Six Degrees or Ninja Tune, they have such strong identities that you just buy it because you know it's going to be good. That's something I'm trying to form."

The third act -- outside of Bakal and Rizzo himself -- was the topic of discussion: a Tuvan group of musicians known as Huun Huur Tu. The band formed in 1992 and is pretty well known in the world music circuit; they have a strong following, being known as a breakthrough throat singing project. Outside of Yat-kha, which features a former member and co-founder of Huun Huur Tu, Albert Kuvezin, and Sainkho Namtchylak, not much is heard from the polyphonic sprees of Siberia.

These musicians try to be heard, however. Namtchylak has performed with numerous orchestras and recorded with Armenian duduk player Djivan Gasparyan. Even more outlandishly, Kuvezin and Yat-kha released Re-covers in 2006, which featured throat sung versions of "When the Levee Breaks," "In a Gadda Da Vida," and "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Novelty, yes, but the album is damn good on its own merits. Then you have Huun Huur Tu, which has released twelve albums, plus two with Bulgarian Voices, leading to their current release with Rizzo, Eternal.

It is a phenomenal album, something I've personally been waiting for since I first heard this band nearly ten years ago: throat singing tempered by electronica. Don't think four-on-the-floor dance cuts; instead, envision powerful and tasteful low-end, percussively intelligent, moving and sweeping in the landscape while strings and voices grace the surface. There is something inspired in their vocals; with traditional instrumentation, it is an extremely powerful live experience. I've just never heard anything that captures the style so well on record. You're not going to hear throat singing turning on whatever radio stations still exist, which is part of the reason Rizzo launched the album from his own label.

After being asked to mix the album by producers Vladimir Oboronko and Mark Governor, Rizzo took the bold step of stating "in my opinion it needed a lot more than mixing." He wasn't being facetious -- he knew the band had the world music crowd locked down. He wanted to "attract the yoga crowd, the Whole Foods crowd, the KCRW and NPR crowds. I wasn't convinced that that audience was ready to hear a pure throat singing record. Hopefully they're going to find a new audience with this album."

There is a strong possibility of that, from my perspective. I've been spinning tracks from Eternal in my yoga classes over the past few weeks, and a number of people have approached me after class singling out their tracks. As it is, I don't believe in such a thing as "yoga music"; it's more about finding and sequencing music that fits the mood, and Rizzo nailed it for the structure of a class. Yet there is so much more to these eight songs than scoring a movement class, albeit meditative as some of the songs are. The album is dynamic and graceful in a way that Tuvan music has yet to be presented.

"I kept telling them: having nothing to do with me, you need to make a different record," he says. "I know you've worked with Ry Cooder, the Kronos Quartet, even Frank Zappa, but there has not been a Huun Huur Tu record showing Western sensibilities. What I did not want to do was a remix record. It would have been too easy to pick apart what they did and make some sort of coffee table remix album. That would have been disrespectful. I really wanted it to become collaborative. It naturally evolved to that."

The challenge was one that defied time, literally: the Tuvans did not use a click track, so their sense of time and tone proved extremely different to a Western ear. (This is partly why this form of music challenges the American listener, much like Gamelan drumming and Chinese opera.) Performing "surgery" on a number of tracks, Dr. Rizzo retuned and retimed to his heart's content. While this might be a generic statement, it is nowhere near false to say this is unlike anything you've ever heard. The parts are all recognizable, and you instantly feel a sympathetic connection to the creation, which adds to its beauty.

The future of Yemenite wedding music and shamanic throat tunes lies in the realm of independent releases. Then again, it always did. Rizzo has used his successes in mainstream music to fund and fuel his love for the music of the world. Electrofone might be a boutique, but its goods are worthy of broad attention. With the care and detail he's placing in each of the acts he's helping launch -- such a basic and yet lost instinct: to help artists establish actual careers in music rather than churning out sonic rhetoric -- he is helping redefine what it means to be an independent musician, and only further proving that quality has nothing to do with quantity.

Clarence Haynes: The Sexy Androgyny of Prince and Purple Rain

2009-08-11T12:36:24Z

A few days ago, Celebrate Brooklyn!, the series of concerts and events held in the Prospect Park Bandshell, held a Purple Rain sing-a-long in celebration of the film's 25th anniversary. The 2,000 seats and additional lawn space were full, with many fans clad in purple regalia, paying tribute to the man and his movie. The park joined media entities like SPIN Magazine and NPR's New York station, WNYC, which have hosted their own Rain discussions and commemorations. (SPIN has even produced a tribute album by a variety of artists, including a remake of "When Doves Cry" by The Twilight Singers, featuring Apollonia, one of the film's stars.)

The plot: Prince, starring as The Kid, is the head of a Minneapolis-based band whose sound falls outside of popular sensibilities. The group is barely hanging on to its headlining role at a popular venue. Enter gorgeous Apollonia, arriving with hopes of becoming a star while being romantically pursued by both The Kid and his archenemy, Morris Day, aka Purple Rain's main comic foil and scene stealer.

A mass of moviegoers singing and hooping and hollering to Purple Rain is perfect, for the plot is driven by the still-innovative music (I'm particularly fond of "Take Me With U"'s easygoing effervescence and whimsy), the concert antics, the comedy, and the sex. And what erotic treats there are: Apollonia's toplessness, and her lingerie and leather, and her love scene with Prince. And Prince's toplessness, and his blouses and leather, and his grinding and sweat, and almost perpetual aura of androgyny.

SPIN's Prince Cover, July 2009

It was the androgyny in particular that incited some of the women in the audience. High-pitched screams were elicited at key scenes -- the demure way the Kid tells Apollonia "stop" as they begin to groove at his place, the way he swivels his svelte hips and backside in his home, the way he parts his lips as he lay on stage, swathed in pink light at the end of his performance of "The Beautiful Ones."

It's an interesting lesson from a mid-80's film, that a man who exults in the feminine in his gestures and style -- lace, eye liner, curls, lashes, finger waves, head scarves, midriff tops, boots -- turns on legions and legions of women. And mind you, he's soaring with aspects of this style in a film set in a working class 'hood.

I spoke to some female Prince fans about their adoration of the man: two commented on their love of his uniqueness and willingness to do his own thing, with one woman exclaiming, "It's the heels!"

My suspicion: many women are thrilled by Prince because they readily see themselves in him, and vice versa, and the mutual love is visceral and real. And perhaps this lesson is lost on our current crop of soulful male performing artists who cling to a more rigid mode of masculinity. Andre 3000 and Maxwell come to mind as two artists with a huge female fan base who embrace "softness" in their creative instincts, yet note how anomalous they are in the current musical landscape.

(Special Note: Another shining star of brown androgynous manhood in film can be found in Chris Tucker's comedic character Ruby Rhod, a muscled, lipstick-wearing, squeaky-voiced radio personality who loves to pleasure women in the futuristic sci-fi flick The Fifth Element.)

The Kid is by no means a paragon of feminine virtue; he physically abuses and manipulates Apollonia, and is sometimes harsh and domineering with his bandmates, particularly Wendy and Lisa. Nonetheless, his fluidity onscreen is captivating, and makes me wonder how Purple Rain Prince would make out in these times of hardcore swaggering and conformity, where brothers take to the streets with an urban uniform and The Jungle Stroll -- shoulders hunched forward, fists clenched, arms swinging side to side.

Prince took his androgyny to the stratospheres of success, and we clapped, and continue to applaud. Yet in a cultural landscape where brown men who want to be seen as manly qualify acts of softness with the disclaimer "no homo," where r&b statesman Ne-Yo feels the need to issue a website statement defending his masculinity after crying onstage, how would new-to-the-scene petite royalty in golden gilded wraps and purple ruffled ascots fare?

Prince's compilation album cover showcases his signature styles

Giles Slade: Kindle Controversy: eBooks in Transition

2009-07-30T14:13:39Z

Last week, in a New Yorker piece called "A New Page," print conservationist Nicholas Baker's objected strenuously and eloquently to the Kindle eReader. In the main, he doesn't disagree that the era of the eBook is coming, and even confesses to having read an eBook or two. He simply doesn't like Kindles. Since I'm not a shareholder, I don't find this especially offensive. Baker's objections can be accessed here.

For convenience' sake, they can be summed up in a few bullets:

The Kindle is ugly; (Kindle 2 is better but still ugly; and Kindle DX is gross).

It's cumbersome both in size and operation

It's screen is not as good as an LCD

There are other, better options especially the iPhone as a device and Stanza as an eReading application

Much like a single, disposable paperback, Kindle eBook files cannot be shared. Book and device are welded together.

Nonetheless, Kindles are still selling like hotcakes. There's a good reason for this as British photographer Mark Power told Mr. Baker in a live chat on the website of the New Yorker magazine (which is archived here).

Mark Power: In general I agree with his [Baker's] observations about the Kindle, which I have owned for about a year. The one aspect I think Baker overlooks in his assessment was the pioneer spirit which keeps some Kindle owners like me going despite its obvious limitations. My grandfather once told me about the perils of owning an automobile in its earliest days. Unpaved roads were rife with potholes, cars required hand cranking to start, you could expect a flat every five miles or so, and the machines were quite dangerous as they could be coaxed into going over 30 miles an hour.

But, said Grandfather, we put up with it because we could see the car was the future. One day the roads would be smooth as silk and the manufacturers would gladly guarantee a car to be repair-free for 100,000 miles. He neglected to add that the car would also choke the life out of our cities, but even grandfathers can't be expected to know everything. So it's sense of the future that allows us to tolerate the Kindle's limitations. That same spirit kept early computer users going despite the tiny screen, green letters and MS-Dos -- we could sense Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were beavering away in some dark garage and things would soon be better.

Or perhaps much, much worse but as we found out with the car there's no turning back.

After this piece and its chat appeared on the New Yorker site, Mr. Baker and his opinions about the Kindle were featured on the Brian Lehrer show. You can find and listen to that interview and the phoned in comments (mainly by Kindle owners) here.

I'm putting all this stuff up, so that people can access it easily. I think this controversy about the most popular eReader will clarify the issues surrounding the digital transition that's happening to old print technology. According to the publishing industry, 50% of all books in the world will be sold in eFormat by 2013. This fall, 60% of all American freshman college texts are available in Kindle format. Many people want to know more about the changes that are taking place, but don't know where to begin.

Begin here.

Even though I don't agree with what he says, I enjoyed Mr. Baker's take on the new medium. I found Double Fold, his 2001 book about the need to preserve physical copies of old newspapers really provocative. Baker thinks and writes well, and it was an inspired choice by the New Yorker to ask Mr. Baker to write about Kindles.

It's an especially good idea to test the depth of the Kindle's popularity this week, following Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' apology for deleting George Orwell's books Animal Farm and 1984 from Kindles that had previously downloaded free, but pirated editions of these books from Amazon. The New Yorker seems to be asking if the high-handed arbitrariness of withdrawing these copies from circulation without notifying their owners impacted the popularity of Kindle sales?

Well, apparently not. Highly literate people still champion this reader even though they appear well aware of its limitations. There don't seem to be any dissenting voices except Mr. Bakers, and his brand of dissent is highly informative.

Personally, I wish the New Yorker had asked Baker to write about eBooks in general since it is a very large and complicated field about which (I'm sure) he has many interesting things to say...

I'm going to hope that that will be a later chapter in a future work.

Andy Plesser: Video: NPR Revamps Web Site, Expands Smart Phone Offerings

2009-07-27T10:30:41Z

NPR has revised its Web site, according to a story by Elizabeth Jensen in today's New York Times.
Earlier this year, we spoke with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller about the opportunities for NPR on the Web.
We have republished it today.

Below is video tour of the redesign by Scott Simon:

Andy Plesser, Managing Editor

This video was originally published on Beet.TV

NPR Overhauling Website In "Digital Expansion"

2009-07-27T08:38:49Z

NPR, the public radio network, is introducing a revamped NPR.org this week, giving users what its executives say is an easier-to-navigate Web site that emphasizes written reporting over audio reports.

It is part of a digital expansion, branded with the new tagline "Always On," that will include several mobile applications to be available late this summer.

Read more: NPR.Org, Npr, NPR Always On, NPR Website, Media News