Media Re:public

Adding my voice in the gleeful posts celebrating Jonathan Zittrain’s decision to come back to Harvard. Was it all that cajoling at Berkman@10? We may never know. But Jonathan is so smart, funny and NICE on top of that, I don’t care what made it happen. It’s just great.

My fellow fellow and Global Voices co-founder and general genius Ethan Zuckerman has summarized a discussion he and I and several others had recently about business models that might support investigative and/or international journalism. His blog posting with a list of 12 has sparked a dialogue – I urge you to throw your two eurocents in, especially if you’re working on a project that attempts to solve the funding problem. My two faves so far are cross-subsidy (the Economist model) and translation as cross subsidy.

The focus of this discussion is specifically on how to support investigative journalism and/or international coverage, but we’re interested in business models to support all kinds of quality news and  information. For contrast, you might look at Jeff Jarvis’ recent musings on new business models for newspapers, which is interesting even if it violates my “It’s not about saving newspapers” rule.

Image: Money Back Guarantee by Roby72 / © Some rights reserved.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license

I love NPR’s On the Media. Really I do. I never miss a podcast and it’s because of OTM that I still give money to WNYC even though I live in Boston. But I found it jarring when Brooke Gladstone, describing how the Moveable Type sculpture in the New York Times building works GIGGLED as she said the following:

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Mark Hansen has spent long hours in the lobby of The Times, programming natural language processing algorithms, whatever they are, [giggle] to craft the scenes, scenes that will continue to play out long after Hansen and Rubin appear in the obits. I’m sure they won’t mind I said that – it’s quite an honor.

Of course that before I was privileged to enter the geeky kingdom of the Berkman Center last November, I certainly had no idea what natural language processing (NLP to some) was either and I’m sure I would have laughed right along with the idea that it’s kind of cute for us humanities types not to understand “this Internet stuff.” But the fact is, not only do I now have a basic understanding of what NLP is, and I’m embarrassed that I don’t know more, since I’m involved with a project that is using it to help understand how the media cover various topics. Ignorance is not always bliss.

For folks like Brooke and the mere-months-younger me who want to know what NLP is… there’s a serious intro here, but I also like the short explanation from Microsoft’s NLP group:

“The goal of the Natural Language Processing (NLP) group is to design and build software that will analyze, understand, and generate languages that humans use naturally, so that eventually you will be able to address your computer as though you were addressing another person.”This goal is not easy to reach. … As an English speaker you effortlessly understand a sentence like “Flying planes can be dangerous”. Yet this sentence presents difficulties to a software program that lacks both your knowledge of the world and your experience with linguistic structures. Is the more plausible interpretation that the pilot is at risk, or that the danger is to people on the ground? Should “can” be analyzed as a verb or as a noun? Which of the many possible meanings of “plane” is relevant? Depending on context, “plane” could refer to, among other things, an airplane, a geometric object, or a woodworking tool. How much and what sort of context needs to be brought to bear on these questions in order to adequately disambiguate the sentence?”

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The World Bank and the Shorenstein Center have gathered a terrific international group here at the Kennedy School to discuss “The Role of the News Media in the Governance Reform Agenda.” [Warning – semi-live blogging ahead, expect inaccuracy and incompleteness. Details in conference papers here.]

This morning, we discussed a framework put forward by Pippa Norris (McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University) and Sina Odugbemi (Program Head, CommGAP, The World Bank Group). The two most controversial issues were their decision to use a typology that focuses only on three normative roles for a journalist: watch-dog, agenda-setter and gate-keeper and their diagram (at left) mapping the “factors influencing the roles of journalists.”

To grossly simplifiy the ensuing discussion, there was some consensus that even if we limit ourselves to only the desired roles of journalism and only in the context of promoting good (or democratic, depending on which jargon-camp you live in) governance:

— the roles of gatekeeper and agenda-setter are too similar and don’t include the key roles of media as a facilitator of democratic deliberation, a conduit of information and discussion between people and the government, in short a kind of public servant;

Both my role model Ellen Hume (Center for Future Civic Media, MIT) and Marguerite Sullivan (Center from International Media Assistance) jumped up to make the point that the graphic on this page has one thing missing: the public. Hellooo. This brought up the critical need for media/news (yet another jargon war) literacy as part of any plan to improve the impact of media on democracy, which is one of Media Re:public’s conclusions.

Ellen of course also pointed out the need to take into account new forms of media, from new authors to new delivery mechanisms. This is a flag we’ll continue to wave for the rest of the conference, as there’s a very serious tendency in this crowd to forget about new media. (truly live – A notable exception to new media blindness: in after-lunch session Susan Moeller (International Center for Media and the Public Agenda, University of Maryland) mentions Summize, an interesting twitter aggregator – search for “china earthquake” or any other news story).
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A cautious hooray! The Russian Constitutional Court has ruled unconstitutional the law under which Russian authorities had been threatening my long-time colleague and dear friend Manana Aslamazyan with jail time. Manana spent 15 years creating and leading a terrific organization originally called Internews Russia and later renamed Educated Media Foundation (EMF), where I was privileged to work for several years. The organization’s mission was to help the non-state media outside Moscow, especially the several hundred private local TV stations that sprang up in the early ’90s, develop and grow.

Year by year, during the Putin administration, everyone supporting independent thinking among journalists came to feel that they were viewed as an enemy of the state. In the xenophobic atmosphere that Putin cultivated, the fact that many of the grants that supported the work of EMF/Internews Russia over the years came from the US Agency for International Development, the Ford Foundation and other suspect groups, multiplied the effect. So when an excuse was found (or manufactured) to bring criminal charges against Manana for accidentally violating a customs regulation (it could and should have been an administrative issue with a small fine at most), Russian authorities launched a massive investigation not only of Manana but of the EMF.

In April of last year, 20 police officers arrived at my old office, and, in a search that was clearly illegal, seized the organization’s every financial and administrative document and all the computer servers. Shortly afterward, journalists in Tomsk launched a campaign to have Russian journalists sign a letter of protest to Putin, and impressively more than 2000 of them did, but the Kremlin didn’t even respond. Last May, as the investigation showed no signs of letting up, Manana left for Paris rather than risk arrest and the board of the Educated Media Foundation voted to close the organization.

Meanwhile, since the ordeal began, Manana’s legal team has been fighting the charges in every way and in court they could, including preparing to submit a case to the European Court of Human Rights. Each time there was another court date set, those of us following the case closely felt there was hope. Friends who sat in the session would report that Manana’s lawyers had been perfect, the investigator’s team disorganized and clearly in the wrong. The judge would promise a decision the next day (always the next day). And each and every time, the judge would use some contorted logic in order to find for the prosecution. Sometimes observers noted that the judges themselves seemed embarrassed.

Despite the ruling, it is clear that the Educated Media Foundation will not be allowed to re-open any time soon, and Russia’s broadcast media will continue to feel all kinds of pressure to demonstrate their “loyalty” and “patriotism.” So today’s decision feels like a victory, but a small one. We can only hope it’s a sign of better things to come.

Just when you thought we were past the “Us vs. Them” paradigm, here comes the Columbia Journalism Review‘s Alissa Quart to divide us once again, with Lost Media, Found Media Snapshots from the future of writing. Rather than “Bloggers vs. Journalists” she’s called the two camps “Lost Media” and “Found Media,” but the stereotypes and handwringing are the same old same old.

I find it ironic that someone not yet 40 (by her own account) incessantly complains that all the “Found Media” types are so unacceptably young. I’m nearly 10 years older than Alissa and best bloggers I know are older than I am. That highlights the more disturbing irony: in an article that claims that “bloggers merely recycle the small scraps of original reporting from Lost Media, creating a landscape of ‘derivative information,'” most of Alyssa’s wrongheaded (in my opinion) conclusions will sound awfully recycled to those of us who’ve moved on to what I’m coming to think of as the post-war (and also anti-war) era of new and old media. At least CJR allows comments, all of which to date have taken issue with many of these same points.

Not to self-promote, but to end on a more positive note: for a less binary, more interesting discussion check out the audio of a terrific panel (Geneva Overholser, Cynthia Gorney, David Talbot, Rose Aguilar – all amazing, no idea why they let me in) I was lucky enough to join at the Innovations in Journalism Expo 2008 organized by the Northern California branch Society for Professional Journalists and many other fine institutions. Thanks to the tireless Bill Densmore for recording and posting the audio.

Note on the graphic: I saw someone yesterday on the Red Line (for non-Bostonians, that’s the subway that goes to both MIT and Harvard) wearing this T-shirt. You can order your own from ThinkGeek.

If you don’t haz broadband you don’t haz convergence, duz u? Thanks to the still-young site Ground Report, I came across the Communication Workers of America Speed Test. Try it out, it’s a great way to drive home what my fellow fellow David Weinberger pointed out earlier this week: the US is in 15th place (out of 30 developed countries) in broadband penetration and far from the top in any number of other measures.

The US? In 15th place in something as important to our economy as broadband? Naturally the mainstream media everywhere are abuzz with this story, demanding answers from our elected officials, etc. Um, NOT. Searches on Yahoo and Google News turned up exactly TWO articles on the sites of general interest publications (not counting BusinessWeek and several computer/tech publications): The San Francisco Chronicle covered it on its Tech Chronicles blog, and the Capital Times, in Madison, WI ran an article, with an actual byline. Bravo, Capital Times! Both quoted the media reform folks at Free Press.

So will participatory media pick up the slack? So far, doesn’t look like it. (I would love to be proven wrong) Isn’t this a perfect issue (geeky and political and yet ultimately affecting Joe Couch Potato too) that “the” blogosphere (or rather, a couple of the multitude of blogospheres) should be up in arms about, forcing traditional media and ultimately politicians to pay attention? Where is a celebrity blogger when we need one? (If you are one, the OECD data is here; interesting resources also at the Information Technology & Information Foundation.)

I shall be supporting the Communications Workers Speed Matters campaign while waiting for the public outcry to start.

Photo: Darren Hester for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-NonCommercial

tags: OECD, broadband, Free Press, Communications Workers of America

Does this graphic make you giggle?

Thanks to PRX‘s excellent BallotVox project, which is identifying some really interesting election coverage from unusual sources, for highlighting a disturbing video about sexism in the campaign.

(As an Obama supporter) I don’t think that blaming Obama is really the point. It’s more revealing to me how easily it is for all of us to let things slide. Try mentally replacing every sexist insult in the anti-clinton visuals with an equivalent racial slur and imagine your reactions.

Or imagine reading this sentence in the NY Times: “A majority of those polled — both whites and blacks — said they thought Mr. Obama would be an effective diplomat, suggesting he has made headway in diminishing concerns that his race would impede him from dealing with with white world leaders.”

Impossible, right? Try this one:

“A majority of those polled — both women and men — said they thought Mrs. Clinton would be an effective commander in chief, suggesting she has made headway in diminishing concerns that her sex would impede her from leading the nation in wartime.” Women Supportive but Skeptical of Clinton, Poll Says

If media only reflect the society they serve, maybe it’s time for all of us, men and women, black and white, to look in the mirror?

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The Knight Foundation has announced the winners of the 2008 Knight News Challenge for “innovative ideas using digital experiments to transform community news.” The list of 16 winning projects includes Media Re:public Forum attendees David Cohn (go Dave!), whose spot.us project will help crowdfund quality reporting and Martin Moore, whose Media Standards Trust is partnering with Tim Berners-Lee to identify quality news.

Lots of other interesting looking projects – Drupal for radio, Sochi residents commenting on the approach of the Olympics, one video and one radio project in India, news via telephone. As we had heard previously, lots of international winners. Wish I were in Vegas to toast them all, looking forward to following their progress.

May 15th is Blog for Palestine Day. 20,000 protesters in Nazareth were met with tear gas a couple days ago. If you missed these stories, or if you’d just like to broaden your perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is a good time to check out a partnership highlighting Middle East news between three terrific non-profits: Global Voices, LinkTV, and NewsTrust.net. (Full disclosure, I have friends in all three organizations.) The first two focus on highlighting new sources of news of the world, NewsTrust helps discover high-quality journalism on all topics. If you have only four and a half minutes to spare, start with Jamal Dajani’s Mosiac Intelligencer Report: Your Independence is our Nakba. But it’s worth diving in to the materials on all three sites, and encouraging any journalists you know covering the story to do the same.

Tags: Palestine, Israel, Middle East, Global Voices, LinkTV, NewsTrust.net, nonprofit journalism