Blogs: A Unique Opportunity for Dissidence

Bryan Koenig
Dissident Media
Comm-275-001
Professor Walker
11-30-07

Blogs: A Unique Opportunity for Dissidence
Blogging is an extremely young concept, going back only as far as the origins of the internet. Dissident Media, the institution with which it is associated however has been around for centuries. The relation between these two is finicky and difficult to pin down. The problem with blogging is that we do not as yet have the luxury of historical perspective. We are looking at blogging in the here and now, and it is possible only to speculate how history will ultimately judge this fledgling media. The present perspective afforded us points to blogging as facilitating dissident press, not however as a dissident media in and of itself.
Blogging as a media of any kind, be it dissident, mainstream or otherwise, is like no form of communication anyone has ever seen. The power of the pen is more available to more people than at any point in history. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide have access to the internet, able to read blogs as well as create their own. Just fifty years ago, no one would have been able to conceive of such communicative abilities even in the wildest of their dreams.
People blog on every conceivable topic, and some that are well outside common conception. Such a huge diversity makes blogging a potential avenue for dissidence, but not by itself a part of the dissident press. The mainstream use dissident press just as much, if not more so than the dissident. Laymen and professionals alike clog the internet with blogs on comic books, movies, whale watching, firefighting, you name it and there is almost certainly a blog for it. Even professional journalists themselves are beginning to post blogs.
Some blogs and bloggers are decidedly dissident. The prime example are the citizen journalists who take the initiative to go out, gather information, conduct research and present detailed facts and persuasive arguments by which they fight for a myriad of causes, and from both sides of the political spectrum.
Whatever blogging is or is not, what can be said of it for certain is that without question, its power is growing rapidly. Faye Anderson’s acceptance into a presidential debate gives strong reason to agree with her postulation that “the debate about whether bloggers are journalists is over.”[1]
The single biggest problem with Anderson’s statement is that she is looking at blogging as a blogger invited to a presidential debate. Aside from being historical, the moment was also statistically insignificant. More blogs than anyone could ever hope to read in a single lifetime dot the internet, but only a sliver of a fraction of a percent were even considered as potential candidates for the debate. They are the citizen journalist bloggers like Anderson who bothered to take their role as far as possible, instead of the scantily researched and largely opinion based articles that constitute the vast majority of blogs.
As Steve Outing puts it, “with blogging, it’s up to the individual blogger. With no institution or organization watching over them and guiding their behavior, we can only hope that most bloggers adhere to a mission of accuracy and accountability.”[2] That is not to say that all journalists are respectable and truly of journalistic quality, only that a far greater percentage of them are considered as such as opposed to the blogging community.
For all its drawbacks, blogging as a dissident media outlet is a dream come true for every concerned citizen with internet access. An almost universal feature of dissident media is that from the labor papers of the 1800s to the feminist papers of the late 1900s, such publications were started by the disenfranchised and poorly funded outcasts of society and produced for little or no financial gain via cheap means of publication and distribution.[3]
In today’s day and age, there is no better example of such a financially lacking voice than that of blogs. Anyone who can afford a computer and internet access can blog. And their words can be distributed far beyond the walls of their home or hometown or even home country. The internet is the ultimate tool of distribution. Concerned, informed, well spoken and hard working people are taking notice and using this revolutionary tool. The internet allows people to undertake what Jay Rosen calls, “the patient sifting of fact, the acknowledgement that assertion is not evidence…the depiction of real life.”[4]
Rosen goes on to describe numerous instances where bloggers contributed immensely to mainstream discussion from their dissident perch. In some instances, it has been bloggers that have shined a light on internationally spanning issues, acting as the ultimate ideal of dissidence. In those cases, ordinary men and women outside of the journalist community became whistle blowers. Their voice was for all to hear as a citizen journalist, creating widespread talk and even change among the mainstream.
Before I started this project, I had little knowledge, understanding, experience or even opinion of blogging. About all I could say is that blogs had never occurred to me to be a powerful tool for influencing the mainstream. They seemed distant, unimportant and irrelevant. My news came from professional journalists at newspapers and TV stations. Now I realize the enormous power and importance of blogs. I admit that my own career plan is one of a mainstream journalist, but I think it’s important to consider all aspects of media, especially one growing as quickly as blogging.
How much if at all I made a difference as a blogger, I really couldn’t say. To my knowledge no one has given serious thought or effort to further exploring or solving any of the problems I’ve highlighted in my blog posts. I can however say with pride that our blog post appears repeatedly under a Google search for dissident media, starting on the second page.[5]
I know outsiders have viewed our blogs, and that alone provides me with a great deal of comfort. If someone read our blogs and gained a new perspective or insight into the political world, I think we’re well on our way to becoming dissident journalists. Instead of getting paid, we pay huge sums of money for this privilege. We do so out of a genuine concern for the state of political debate in the United States using a cheap and easily accessible means of publication and distribution available to us, and we make our arguments using carefully considered discussion and research.
Works Cited
"Dissident Media." Google. 30 Nov. 2007 .
Outing, Steve. "What Bloggers Can Learn From Journalists." Poynter Online. 23 Dec. 2004. 30 Nov. 2007 .
Rosen, Jay. "The Journalism That Bloggers Actually Do." LA Times 22 Aug. 2007. 30 Nov. 2007 .
Streitmatter, Roger. Voices of Revolution. New York: Columbia UP, 2001. 3-256.
Vargas, Jose A. "Storming the News Gatekeepers." Washington Post 27 Nov. 2007. 30 Nov. 2007 .



[1] Vargas
[2] Outing
[3] Streitmatter
[4] Rosen
[5] “Dissident Media”

The Blogosphere: A Modern Source of Dissidence

Christopher Cottrell

November 30, 2007

COMM-275

The Blogosphere: A Modern Source of Dissidence

Dissident news sources have always coexisted with the mainstream media, if not always peacefully. The most significant advancement came recently, with the onset of the Internet. Today, available technology makes advocating social or political dissidence easier than ever. With the emergence of “web logs,” citizens have gained more control than ever over their institutions. Internet blogging provides the means to communicate thoughts and opinions, analyses and reactions, across enormous distances. The thousands of people who are online at any given moment can monitor anything from presidential debates, to the media coverage they receive, and do so instantly. This paper will examine the role bloggers play in affecting news coverage, and will determine to what degree web logs are a form of dissident media. It will also describe one student’s personal experience with sharing his ideas on a worldwide scale.

There is no single way to define a blogger. However, compared to a formal journalist, there are specific characteristics the journalist is expected to fulfill, i.e. attaining credible sources, doing sufficient research, and presenting unbiased facts to the general public. These traits set reporters apart from many online writers. A lack of these characteristics is often one of the main criticisms of bloggers. Without strict regulations, it’s true that anyone can be a blogger. In an article titled Few Turn to Blogs for News, Thomas Hargrove quoted a blogger as saying, “The best part of blogging is that anybody can say anything. The worst part, of course, is that anybody can say anything” (Hargrove). This has proven to be both advantageous and a burden to readers, who can find everything from solid news to meaningless gossip on the Web.

It is the John Does who place every bit of gossip on their Web sites (because they can) that give the blogosphere a bad name. In his article, What Journalists Can Learn from Bloggers, Steve Outing clearly identifies a negative aspect of such freedom, “Some bloggers are too quick to publish anything that falls into their laps—without bothering to vet the material to determine if it's accurate, or to consider the consequences of publishing it” (Outing). In the gossipers’ defense, while inaccuracies in blogs are certainly not ideal, they have created an online atmosphere where critical thinking skills are more important than ever to possess. Citizens are learning that information must be subject to heavy scrutiny before taken as fact.

Scrutiny is the most fundamental component of critical thinking. If it is true that “Ninety percent of news-related blogs [are] crap” (Welch, Jensen and Reeves), then it is essential that readers take all information they encounter with a grain of salt—including material from blogs as well as the mainstream media. Recognizing that the “mass media are obviously central to the smooth functioning of hegemony” (Brookfield), is an important step in a critical approach to news gathering. A reader must remember that all major news outlets are themselves large corporations, subject to the pull of capitalism like any other business. It is the duty of bloggers to keep such hegemony in check. This is not always accomplished, thus readers must also read blogs through a critical lens.

Although bloggers do not always counter the mainstream media, they do enough to label this particular form of communication dissident. Sometimes bloggers are in agreement with the ideals of mainstream society; however, bloggers offer enough of a balance to the hegemonic media system, and clearly do so in a nontraditional way that they have earned themselves this classification.

While most critics do not ignore bloggers like those in our Dissident Media class, who do sufficient research, confirm sources, and offer intelligible yet alternative viewpoints in order to further the topic at hand, they tend to focus on the majority of blogosphere contributors who soil their credibility as writers with careless syntax errors. The people who cover newsworthy events, like our class did with the current political debates are for the most part a well-educated crowd.

We fulfilled our obligations of rejuvenating political debate by analyzing and critiquing its present forms, as well as the media’s coverage thereof. By doing so, we illustrated a key function of web logging: supervision of the mainstream media. In his Los Angeles Times article, Blogs: All the Noise that Fits, Michael Skube stressed the importance of bloggers keeping an eye on major news corporations, and predicted “bloggers becoming the watchdogs that watch the watchdog” (Skube). Finally the big dailies have someone to answer to who isn’t Big Business.

This is exactly why bloggers are not journalists, but merely part of the journalistic process. Blogging is an exercise in free speech, available to anyone with an internet connection—making it the most democratic form of media to date. Being a part of the current “information revolution” was an interesting experience. The task our class completed was targeted at a larger audience than most students are accustomed to, and for this reason alone it was significant. It taught us how to prepare our articles for a mass audience while simultaneously teaching us how interaction on an individual level can improve an argument by providing an opposing viewpoint.

By encouraging involvement, blogging forced us to stay informed and become active participants in the discussion. According to an article in last Tuesday’s Washington Post, “Independent of the candidates, voters…are interacting with the 2008 presidential election at an unprecedented level because of the Internet, YouTubing, Facebooking, Wikipedia-ing, et al” (Vargas). The article, Storming the News Gatekeepers, also went on to explain that the blogging wave has ushered in a new understanding of news; namely, that once something is published it is only the beginning, rather than the end of its media coverage. This allows for more complete and efficient news reporting. “Freedom of the press belongs to nearly 3 million people,” stated Matt Welch, author of Blogworld and its Gravity, reflecting on the ability of anyone with an Internet connection to publish their opinions (Welch, Jensen and Reeves). Blogging represents a whole new scale of communication; whereas print media typically has a limited number of authors, online blogging sites can potentially have thousands of different contributors.

With such a large number of potential contributors, a communication medium will inherently have more informal writers than a formal group of news gatherers, such as journalists. As stated above, the difference in writing styles is accounted for in the expected characteristics of professional reporters. Thus, thousands of online writers can contribute to the journalistic process, but only an elite fraction of them can be true journalists.

However, the flaws and inaccuracies associated with amateur bloggers have taught our society an important lesson. Namely, that all information, whether obtained from a formal news source or an informal blog, should be critically examined. It is the duty of the news media to make sure public institutions remain faithful to their citizens; as it is the duty of bloggers to make sure the news media is doing its job sufficiently. While these missions may seem righteous, the news media and some bloggers may have other agendas. Therefore, it is no one’s responsibility but our own to watch out for rouges in the system.

Participating in a form of dissident media directed at a mass audience was a rewarding experience. Regardless of whether our Talkmonkey project had an effect on the contemporary political debate scheme or not, in this student’s opinion—it was worth the trouble.

Works Cited

Brookfield, Stephen D. The Power of Critical Theory. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005.

Hargrove, Thomas. detnews.com. 1 9 2006. 1 9 2006 .

Outing, Steve. Poynter Online. 20 12 2004. 29 11 2007 .

Skube, Michael. Los Angeles Times Online. 19 8 2007. 23 8 2007 .

Vargas, Jose A. washingtonpost.com. 27 11 2007. 29 11 2007 .

Welch, Matt, Mallory Jensen and Jacqueline Reeves. Blogworld and its Gravity. New York, 9/10 2003.

Blogging

Before this class I had never really thought much about the blog world. Less then a

decade ago there were almost no blogs in existence. It was not until 1999 when a company called

Pyra Labs, later bought out by Google, created a program called Blogger, making blogs simple

and easy to create for the masses.(Welch) I assumed bloggers to be mostly complainers and

people with too much time on their hands. I had never even heard of blogs such as Politico or

Technorati. It has now gotten to the point where I read updates from several different blogs a

day.

With the coalescing of the American media into fewer and fewer hands the ability of anyone to set up a blog has created a modern version of Wayland’s citizen journalists that were the core of The Appeal to Reason. As Prof. Rockwell pointed out the more corporate the media the less it tends to get into any issues that could potentially spark controversy. Thanks to blogs now anyone can share their views without fear of having their advertising pulled for controversial statements.

Whether or not blogging is actually dissident media depends entirely on your point of view. On one side you have bloggers themselves, many of the most important of which see themselves as members of the mainstream. Markos Moulitsas, the head of the popular Daily Kos, was quoted as saying “we are representatives of the mainstream.” (Skube) This is countered by members of the more traditional media sources. The subtitle of the article by Michael Skube “the hard-line opinions on weblogs are no substitute for the patient fact-finding of reporters” sums up much of the opinion of traditional journalists towards bloggers. (Skube) Many of these journalists view bloggers as little more then political hacks ranting about whatever they fancy and with little care for facts or the other side of the argument.

However as blogs get more popular the idea that all of them are simply pointless opinionated rants is becoming increasingly untenable. There are now numerous examples where blogs do indeed go out and do their own investigative reporting. The instances of this occurring are far too numerous to mention, but include bloggers going to Iraq to report on the war effort, as well as attending and reporting on all of the political debates and campaigns.

In most cases bloggers are unable to obtain the necessary financial backing to perform in depth journalism. For many of them there role is largely in keeping politicians and the larger news organizations honest. This has been shown to be true in several high-profile cases during the relatively short period of the blogospheres existence. The Drudge Report was the first to break the infamous Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998. More recently Dan Rather was fired from 60 minutes when bloggers questioned the authenticity of several documents Rather used in one of his reports.

Blogging can be a double edged sword. Some would argue that it is the be all end all of modern media, as corporate owned outlets focus evermore on starlets and their troubles. While not necessarily focusing on the issues as much as they should, most mainstream media outlets portray their news from a relatively middle ground. Blogs on the other hand tend to be very one sided. Politically biased blogs such as the Daily Kos and Red State, which each have received 10’s of thousands of mentions and links from other bloggers, are the most popular. (Vargas) This means that instead of getting both sides of the story blogs help to intensify the polarization that exists between America’s political factions.

The case of whether or not blogging is dissident media completely depends on the individual blog itself. While the idea of the blogosphere itself breaking away from traditional media is in itself dissident, the fact that it is becoming so mainstream means the title of dissident media now varies from blog to blog. Blogs such as Politico and Technorati would be considered relatively mainstream because while they both provide good well researched information, they say little that would upset or go against the ideas of the mainstream. However blogs like the Daily Kos routinely have things posted that create great alarm for television commentators such as Bill O’Reilly. I believe the future of blogging is incredibly bright. Without the need for multi-million dollar studios they are able to bring the news to the people for far cheaper then television or radio. This allows them to be less reliant on massive amounts of add revenue and get back to focusing on important events.

The Good, The Bad, The Blog

Blogging is media that is both enriching and detrimental.  The blogosphere provides a public forum for the discussion and dissemination of ideas and experience across the broad range of human experience.  It is a media that permeates everyday life and a crutch with which we rely on to supplement our increasingly large information appetites.  Michael Skube quotes Christopher Lasch in his article “Blogs: All the noise that fits,” that “ ‘What democracy requires…is vigorous public debate, not information.”[1]  Blogs are able to provide that public forum for debate, and also create the information that Lasch believes is needed.  However, blogs also present a danger: they are unregulated without editors or fact-checkers.  Steve Outing describes this in terms of ethics, “Part of the problem is lack of any community blogging standards that might discourage unseemly behavior.”[2]  This is a sticking point with many blogs; how can we know if they are published in good faith?  We cannot.  This is a huge problem in the nascent blogosphere.   As well, blogs may narrow our focus and allow us to pick and choose blogs that share our point of views.  As blogs become increasingly prominent, they cause a slant in unbiased information, nearly eliminating it from the public domain.  Though blogs allow for the sharing of ideas, they also represent a very real danger of disinformation.

            The blogosphere has several huge advantages, especially concerned with dissident media.  It is unregulated, allowing for the completely free expression of and access to all sorts of different ideas.  Anyone with access to the computer can blog and extensive networks of people from across the globe can coalesce easily around a common cause and blog.  In another Los Angeles Times article, Jay Rosen describes several blogs that do have investigative reporting, travel, and citizen involvement, “2005 to present.  Citizens construct Katrina timeline…. [They] created a detailed timeline…with over 500 evens, fact-checked and sourced.”[3]  Finally, it is incredibly cheap to blog.  The only fee is Internet access, and the potential public is huge without publishing costs.  “All you need to get started is a name, a password, and an email address,” describes Mallory Jensen in The New Age of Alternative Media[4].  This ease of access, and sometimes the anonymity, creates huge draws towards dissident blogs and brining those with opinions and facts that are often overlooked into the public forum. These advantages allow blogs to create a great deal of noise among the greater public, and provide greater access to the disenfranchised.

            However, blogs also pose several problems not often associated with traditional forms of media, mainstream or dissident.  One is the lack of editors and fact checkers.  Without these vital personnel, other media outlets would fall to pieces around sloppy productions.  People do not want to read, or see, productions riddled with mistakes or that are fabrications; editors provide the tools to make sure mistakes are kept to a minimum and that fabrications are rare.  Blogs, unencumbered by editors, are able to publish more controversial items, but are also often mired in the realm of bad grammar, inappropriate words, and blatant propaganda, though this is not always the case, as explained above.  As well, many blogs lack the resources and credibility of traditional media outlets (though this is slowly changing), which does not allow for very many in-depth articles or “serious” investigative journalist.  In the article “Blogs: All the noise that fits” from the Los Angeles Times bloggers themselves reject this authoritative stance, “[They]—are insistent partisans in political debate.  Some reject the label ‘journalist,’ associating it with what they contemptuously call MSM (mainstream media)…”[5] Finally, the ease of access allows anyone to blog, including propagandists, the un-informed, and those who simply do not care about facts.  This leads to a flooding of the blogosphere with useless information, again detracting from credibility.

            Our blog, concerning changing the format of political debate, is a great case study for both the pros and cons of blogs and the blogosphere.  The elements for a successful blog were all present: a current, controversial, and important topic, a clearly stated goal, and a diverse, intelligent, and vocal contributor base.  Yet, the execution of the blog was not exactly spectacular.  It was a slow upstart; often had too many posts that lack any sense of coherence, and did not often present a new take on the subject.  Oftentimes, posts were treated as simple assignments, made to earn a grade, instead of as a post that could affect the greater debate.  This casual treatment of the blog was its biggest downfall.  Blogs that make noise, such as James Kotecki’s video postings, almost always began as low-budget, amateur projects.  However, his blog especially, had an excitement about it, and took its subject matter in stride, and not as a school assignment.  As well, our posts, though centered on a central question, often had a sense of incoherence.  Topics varied greatly: from finance reform to the history of presidential debates to the role of music in campaigns.  Though the topics made for an interesting read week to week, they did not allow for a huge furthering of the political de*-bate discussion.  They presented various points of view and facts concerning the debate, but rarely engaged in any distillation or new ideas about the topic.

            Despite these shortcomings, the class blog did have many positive aspects.  The sheer amount of information gathered there allows readers to become informed about the various issues regarding the upcoming elections and the broken debate system.  Additionally, the blog has the air and feel of student activism, always preferable in fermenting change than mainstream media.  This falls in line with Matt Welch’s thinking about alternative press, “The papers once embraced amateur writers; now they are firmly establish in the journalist pecking order…[blogs] represent a crucial alternative to monolithic journalism establishment….”[6] We acted as new, amateur, young journalists, pulling facts together and posting our own ideas, creating excitement that was the hallmark of papers in the 1960s and 1970s (one only need read All The President’s Men).  As well, as our tracking showed, we had an audience that did not consist entirely of class members.  Though perhaps not as large as we would like, the impact our blog had on those readers cannot be underestimated.  Like other dissident media, if it inspires just one other person to actively seek change, a snowball can occur and change can happen.

            Blogging, though a new technology with many downsides, is the format of choice for new dissident media.  It allows easy, widespread publication, the possibility of huge networks, and a lack of oversight that appeals to the marginalized and disenfranchised.  Though it lacks some of the resources of earlier forms of media, professional editors and such, blogging offers a great deal of advantage for getting messages out, as Welch points out that bloggers have contributed, “Four things: personality, eyewitness testimony, editorial filtering, and uncounted gigabytes of new knowledge,” to journalism[7].

All sources are in-class, handouts provided by Professor Dana Walker.

 [1] Paragraph 8, “Blogs: All the noise that fits,” by Michael Skube

[2] Paragraph 20, “What Bloggers Can Learn From Journalists,” by Steve Outing

[3] Paragraph 22, “The journalism that bloggers actually do,” by Jay Rosen

[4] Page 22, The New Age of Alternative Media, “A Brief History of Weblogs,” by Mallory Jensen

[5] Paragraph 3, “Blogs: All the noise that fits,” by Michael Skube

[6] Page 21, The New Age of Alternative Media, “Blogworld and its Gravity: The New Amateur Journalist Weigh In,” by Matt Welch.

[7] Page 24 The New Age of Alternative Media, “Blogworld and its Gravity: The New Amateur Journalist Weigh In,” by Matt Welch.

Blogging Is Dissident

Jack Weingart
Dissident Media
Professor Walker
30 November 2007

Blogging is Dissident

Blogging has been around since the early days of the Internet, but during the new millennium it has become quite the phenomenon and has gained tremendous power and influence. Today, there are upwards of 27 million blogs in the world (Luman). This is a vast increase from the mere dozens that existed less than 10 years ago. (Welch 22). There are few reasons as to why this phenomenon has become so popular. Mainstream media is no longer delivering quality news. Mainstream journalists are not doing the investigative reporting that is necessary, and people are unsatisfied with what they are reading and hearing. Many feel as though they are not getting all the facts. This is especially true after September 11 (Welch 24). A Pew Research center poll showed that more than half of Americans say U.S. news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don’t care about the people they report on (“Poll:”). True dissident blogging came about as this disapproval and distrust with mainstream media peaked after 9/11. Blogs are dissident when they offer views that are different from those found in mainstream media. According to Rodger Streitmatter, author of Voices of Revolution-The Dissident Press in America, for something to be dissident it also needs to “seek to change society in some discernible way” (xi). It can be argued that many blogs are in fact dissident because they promote social change and advocate a certain cause. Many bloggers are new-age activists, and blogging is a great example of modern day dissident media.

Many people believe that blogging is not a form of journalism or dissident media. I boldly disagree. Of course not all blogs are accurate, but this also applies to mainstream media sources. Henry R. Luce defined journalism as the “art of collecting varying kinds of information (commonly called ‘news’), which a few people possess, and of transmitting it to a much larger number of people who are supposed to desire to share it” (Walker). This definition defies the claim that blogging is not journalism. Daily, even hourly, bloggers are collecting accurate information and posting it on their blogs for millions of people to read. Many bloggers refuse to be labeled a journalist, however, for the reason that it relates too closely to mainstream media. Many prefer the term citizen journalist because it reflects their standing in society and also their purpose. As Jose Antonio Vargas explains, “Citizen journalism is bringing folks, young and old, into the public square, giving voice to those who, in the pre-Internet era, may have felt voiceless” (Vargas). Blogging has provided an outlet, a voice and a tool to connect and inform people across the world with accurate information. This characteristic makes blogging both a form of journalism and dissident media.

Blogging came about not only as trust in mainstream media decreased, but while a hunger for connection and community increased. Like many other things, the blogosphere was forever changed on September 11, 2001. In that weary time, many people wanted to share their personal stories. This country was divided, and blogging allowed people to share intelligent discourse and to connect. Furthermore, people were not satisfied with what mainstream media was reporting. People wanted context, personable and accurate news. Blogs are an alternative source and have contributed personality, eyewitness testimony, editorial filtering and uncounted gigabytes of new knowledge to journalism (Welch 24).

It can be argued that some blogs are inaccurate or too opinionated, but just like with anything that you read, you must look at the sources and decipher fact from opinion. Michael Skube, a journalism professor at Elon University, believes a blogger’s sole interest is in expressing an opinion quickly and pungently (Skube). Skube claims that blogs don’t do: “the patient sifting of fact, the acknowledgement that assertion is not evidence… the depiction of real life” (Rosen). This is an ignorant statement. NYU professor Jay Rosen provides evidence of numerous dissident blogs that have tediously reported on critical issues. Several examples include the national network of sites for pet owners who were frustrated with the limitations of the news media, and wanted to share news about tainted foods during the pet-food scandal of June 2007; former Green Beret and independent journalist Michael Yon’s blog report from Iraq; and the gourmet food blog, DallasFood.org, which provided the only in-depth investigation into Noka Chocolate’s deceptive marketing practices (Rosen). Our class blog is another perfect example where bloggers did original reporting and posted accurate information. Bloggers do not necessarily care what you call them, but as Rosen says, “They do care if their story stands up” (“Journalism”). This is a true characteristic of dissident media; to represent a lone voice and to seek change.

There are numerous other examples and reasons why blogging is a form of dissident media. Political blogs, for instance, have tremendous power when it comes to the upcoming presidential election. Blogging is an expression of dissident action. Intelligent political discourse on blogs is opening up the floor to debate and getting the attention from candidates and mainstream media. For example, take alternative political video blogger James Kotecki. He began video blogging on Youtube in late 2007 about the Democratic and Republican forerunners in the race for the White House. Through video blogging, Kotecki was hoping to establish a “two-way” conversation between voters and candidates. To date, Dennis Kucinich, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, John Edwards and John McCain have responded online to Kotecki’s blog. Mainstream news outlets like CNN and Fox News have picked up on his success (“James Kotecki”). Voters are interacting with candidates at an unprecedented level due to the Internet. There are blogs that support candidates, and there are blogs that oppose candidates. There are also blogs that report on and advocate for certain issues; the Iraq war, illegal immigration, etc.

It is true that many political blogs are mostly rants and opinions. But like some of the dissident blogs already mentioned, there are a fair share of political bloggers that do their own original investigating and report accurate news. Citizen journalist Faye Anderson says that blogging is “her entry into the political process, a way for ‘an outsider like me to play some sort of role’” (Vargas). Anderson blogs about illegal immigration, and more recently about the Jena Six case. She began blogging about the racial conflict surrounding the small Louisiana town long before mainstream media picked up the story. She praises black bloggers and black radio for closely following the case (Vargas). Without black bloggers and black radio following it, who knows if that story would have ever made its way to mainstream media? Her dissident blog is a modern day version of Robert S. Abbot’s Chicago Defender. Both revealed uncompromising documentation of acts of racial persecution in the South.

Blogging has really just begun to take hold, and only time will tell how successful it will be. It is without a doubt, however, a modern day dissident media source. It provides a platform for alternative ideas, and many people use blogging to try and change society in a discernible way. I began this course weary about blogging. I had no idea what it was, or its vast influence. After spending a semester blogging and reading other blogs, I now see why they are influential and can be considered dissident. I think it is ignorant to believe all blogs are not accurate because every blog, like all mainstream media sources, varies in accuracy. “They are diaries and soapboxes, where people can post everything from daily minutiae to manifestoes to sophisticated political and cultural commentary and reporting” (Welch 22). Blogs are dissident when they offer views different from those of the conventional press and when they seek to change society. Many blogs out there have a purpose. Take our class blog, for instance, which is seeking to renew political debate and change politics as we know it. Faye Anderson’s blog, Anderson at Large, also has a purpose. She blogs about important issues such as illegal immigration and the Jena Six case. These blogs are revealing, candid and seek to change society by presenting facts and offering proposals to improve conditions.

The loss of variation and corporate bias surrounding mainstream media today has driven many people to the blogosphere to find their news. A journalist is one who brings news to the public, and that is exactly what bloggers are doing. They have become the new watchdogs of democracy as they act as defenders and a voice for the common man. Bloggers label themselves as citizen journalists. It is not just by coincidence that citizen journalism can be linked back to the antiwar, counterculture dissident presses that flourished in the 1960s (Vargas). Blogging is dissident media’s shape and form in the 21^st century. The good thing is that it looks like it is here to stay. Publishing dissident presses in the past has proven to be both difficult to produce and distribute due to expenses. There are limitless boundaries on the Internet. Blogs are affordable, easily accessible and simple to create.

*I tried to post the works cited, but every time it wouldn't let me publish the post due to an error.

Blogging and its Contributions to Media

Blogging permeates daily life for people throughout the world. For me the in-class experience was my first confrontation with blogging. Blogging is a new and different form of media, in sharp contrast to more established elements of media such as investigative journalism, or broadcast journalism. Working for CNN or the New York Times requires different tools and skills than blogging. Blogging may at first appear to be less of an art form and more of a forum for ridiculous emotion and absurd revenge as described by Michael Skube in Blogs: All the Noise That Fits, “The blogosphere is the loudest corner of the Internet, noisy with disruption, manifesto-like postings and an unbecoming hatred of enemies real and imagined.” (Skube, 1) However, upon closer inspection blogging proves itself to be a useful form of journalistic endeavor.

Placing one’s thoughts onto the internet is a scary process. Thousands of random people now have access to one’s personal opinions and inner musings. When James Kotecki spoke to our Dissident Media class in September, he mentioned one of the difficulties of blogging was adjusting to some individual’s angry and often cruel comments. Our blog was largely limited to other student’s comments, thus mean and hurtful comments were rare or nonexistent. Despite this, it was still difficult putting our opinions out in the open, where, at least in theory, anyone can read our thoughts.

Though it was difficult to place our personal thoughts on the internet, it was a great learning experience, especially in journalistic terms. The live blog provided an introduction into real reporting. The majority of our blogs were based off reflections on others’ reportings, findings, or stories but the live blog allowed us to write our own article.

Though I enjoyed the blogging experience there are some disadvantages to blogging. In an article entitled What Bloggers Can Learn from Journalists, Steve Outing discusses some of the assets journalists have that bloggers could learn. For example, an editor is a key link in the journalistic process. The majority of blogs available on the internet lack the editorial polish. “The principal difference between traditional journalists and the vast majority of bloggers is: an editor. The lack of one is one of the charms of blogging of course… its fast; its creative; its different from mainstream journalism. But having an editor involved… is a brilliant idea, even for solo bloggers.” (Outing, 1) In our class, there was no editor. The lack of editorial help created an interesting paradox; while our thoughts and opinions were laid bare on the internet without gloss, there were often simple grammatical and spelling errors. Though grammatical and spelling errors are not the central point of a blog, without their presence a blog appears considerably more professional. As Outing states, “An extra pair of eyes can certainly help catch spelling, grammar, and factual errors…” (Outing, 1) If ours and other blogs learn to utilize editors, if only to add that editorial polish, the blog could appear significantly more professional.

Another disadvantage to blogging is the lack of professional in many blogs. While some blogs such as Wonkette appear very professional, many amateur blogs are written by individuals who simply want to make some noise no matter whether their writing is true, untrue, moral, or immoral. Often one has to dig through substantial amounts of garbage in order find some gold where blogs are concerned. This weakness however may just be a result of the internet’s pervasiveness.

Though blogs often lack a sense of professionalism, there are many advantages to blogs. In Outing’s article What Journalists Can Learn from Bloggers he quotes the author of Wonkette, “It’s impossible to maintain privileged information in an environment where anyone can instantly publish leaked information to a potential worldwide audience on the Web.” (Outing, 2) This quote demonstrates the impossibility of hiding information in today’s information-loaded world. In Jay Rosen’s article in the L.A Times, The Journalism That Bloggers Actually Do, he notes several cases where journalists have either broken or continued to follow a story till the end. An excellent example given is Firedoglake in March 2007 covering the Scooter Libby scandal, “Popular lefty political blog provides the only blow-by-blow coverage of the trial by splitting the work among six contributors who bring big knowledge to bear for a committed-to-the-case readership. Reporters come to rely on the blog for its updates and its accuracy in live-blogging and analysis.” (Rosen, 1) Again, this quote demonstrates not only the impossibility of hiding information in today’s world; it also demonstrates the role bloggers are playing in pushing news to the fore-front.

Another advantage to blogging is its ability to create a new ‘marketplace of ideas.’ Blogging provides an opportunity for many underprivileged people to express their ideas to the world. Like town halls in previous times, the internet is now a place for millions of people to share their thoughts and ideas, for debates to take place.

Blogs also have a connection to Stephen D. Brookfield’s article The Power of Critical Theory. Many bloggers goals involve challenging idealogy, contesting hegemony and unmasking power. (Brookfield, 40) By breaking stories which may otherwise have remained hidden bloggers incorporate all of these tasks. They unmask the power of those attempting to hide the story by breaking it. Many challenge ideology by presenting dissenting views, and many contest hegemony bys simply putting their opinions out in the public forum.

Though blogging has several serious disadvantages, blogging is still a crucial form of media. It has allowed millions of people to communicate with one another all across the globe. The blogosphere has created a modern-day ‘marketplace of ideas.’ Blogging has allowed countless amateur journalists to grow and break important stories that may otherwise have not been told. It may sometimes take some searching, but the good blogs that can be uncovered are certainly worth the search.

Blogging for Dissident Media:

Before taking Dissident Media, I had no interest in blogging. The only blogs I looked at were things my friends posted on facebook or myspace, and I rarely glanced at those. I was turned off to blogging more and more of my friends started to post diary entries on the web—I really did not care what they had for breakfast, how much they hated their parents, or what CD they just bought.
After having blogged for a while, I gained more respect for bloggers, and I realized that blogs can be more that rants and diary entries. Putting out opinions when they are contrary to the accepted beliefs is hard. Remembering to post regularly and trying to stay interesting is tricky as well. When writing blogs for class, I often found it hard to not say the same thing every blog. I wanted to try to say what I thought while staying on topic, without ranting about everything I believed for pages.
As a class, our goal was to change the structure of presidential elections so that debates would focus on the issues instead of which candidate can create the best sound byte for the evening news. While we have not seen any changes in the system directly linked to our blog, I bet we all developed a much deeper understanding the issue. We also learned how to blog and how bloggers influence the political arena. As we were studying dissident media, it was interesting that we were trying to participate in dissidence ourselves. Did we succeed and become part of dissident journalism in our blogging to promote political debate?
The topic of our blog, promoting political debate, in it of itself was not dissident. Most people would say that discussing issues before an election is beneficial. Free speech and open debate are part of America’s charm. The idea that a candidate can be elected based upon their ideas instead of their fame is quixotic, but still part of the ideal American dream. From Lincoln gaining status because of his debates with Douglas to Kennedy charming America with the first televised debate, we like that candidates can try to earn votes with good ideas. Therefore, trying to promote debate is not dissident because it is part of a widely accepted ideology.
What makes a publication dissident when the topic is not inherently dissident? Were we dissident by using a different form of communications than mainstream media? It could be that we were dissident simply by blogging—“the medium the message,” as Marshall McLuhan said (qtd. in Walker). If that is the case, even mainstream media is dissident because every news website from the New York Times to CBS has a blog to call their own.
The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies defined alternative a specific brand of liberal which included being “anti-church,” as Matt Welch examined in his article “Blogworld and its Gravity” (21). It could be that dissidence comes from supporting specific ideologies. I do not think that this applies to us because even though we were a fairly typical college class, we had enough variance in opinions that we would not fall under that definition of dissident. Also, this is an unsatisfactory definition of dissidence because among the dissident presses we studied, many of them disagreed on everything with each other.
In Streitmatter’s Voices of Revolution, the only common cause or uniting belief connecting dissident publications was that something was wrong with our world. All were trying to promote social change, in whatever way they thought was best. From the suffrage movement to gay rights and from forming unions to empowering blacks, the dissident journalists we looked at “labored on the social frontier, clearing new ground and sowing new ideas… to bring about the social change that drove their very being” (xiii).
If by our blogging, we were simply trying to promote political debate, we were not dissident. However, we were advocating changing the whole debate structure—we were trying to change the system. We were trying to find ways to change the debate system so that politicians would need to debate to be a viable candidate and that voters would want to watch the debates to make informed decisions for elections, thus making our nation a better place. Because we were trying to reform society, we were dissident.
We as a class were dissident, but that does not mean we were journalists. One of the main issues with blogs in today’s society is whether bloggers should be considered journalists. There is a tension between journalism and blogging. At times, the mainstream media tries to say that bloggers are not journalists. For example, Michael Skube’s described the blogosphere as “the loudest corner of the Internet, noisy with disputation, manifesto-like posting and an unbecoming hatred of enemies real and imagined,” and implies that bloggers are incapable of reporting (Skube).
Skube does not offer the only viewpoint concerning bloggers. Bloggers have contributed “personality, eyewitness testimony, editorial filtering, and uncounted gigabytes of new knowledge” to journalism, according to Welsh (24).
As a class, I would say that we were not journalists regarding our blog. Most of our posts were either musings about our own ideas or commentary on news from the mainstream media. While our opinions were valid and our ideas worthwhile, we did not do our own investigations, with the exception of the long blog post. We added personality and editorial filtering, but very little eyewitness testimony or new knowledge. We were part of dissident media, but not journalists.
However, I think that us offering our dissident opinions fits very well into the world of blogging. We live in a postmodern world where the opinions of the average citizen is worth just as much as the opinion of an expert and Youtube and Wikipedia hold much more sway that a lot of other resources to the average citizen. For the purpose of our blog, discussing our experiences and current events was enough.

Blogging as a form of dissident media*

Tony Romm

November 27, 2007

COMM-275 Dissident Media

Blogging and Dissident Media

Introduction
Accurately proclaimed as the most egalitarian media to date, the internet has certainly changed the way consumers interact with their news. But according to Rodger Streitmatter, author of Voices of Revolution, “Several of the Internet’s traits have particularly stunning implications for the dissident press” (281).
Indeed, the ubiquity of the World Wide Web has allowed progressive thinkers to communicate their views with an international audience, a luxury that dissident journalists of decades past clearly lacked. But to what extent is the blog, arguably the most decentralized and least structured of the news types, a form of dissident media? Throughout the semester, our class has maintained a blog that analyzes the insufficiency of present political discourse; yet, can we accurately label our efforts dissident? This paper analyzes the practice of blogging as a form of dissident media, with an emphasis on our own efforts. It first presents a definition of dissident media, and then analyzes the viability of blogging as a form of dissident media. Finally, it offers a reflection of our Talk Monkey blog and the ways that future writers could improve it.
Blogging as a form of dissident media
“Dissident media” is certainly a difficult phrase to define. But Streitmatter makes, perhaps, the most comprehensive pass at it: “Indeed, in order for a publication to merit the mantle of “dissident”… it not only [has] to offer a differing view of society but also [has] to seek to change society in some discernible way (x-xi).
Concerning Streitmatter’s first condition, bloggers are inherent critics of journalism. In the tradition of critical theory, they effectively deconstruct traditional journalism by questioning its ideology, unmasking its power and challenging its hegemony (Broofield 39).
For example, blogs often avoid the inverted-pyramid, recognizing how mechanized reporting – arguably, the ideology of the journalism machine -- bores and fails to engage readers. Bloggers are also quick to assert their decentralization; unlike some mainstream media, blogs are citizen-owned Web sites, not corporate-driven conglomerates, and power is in the hands of the readers. And bloggers aren’t necessarily degree-holding journalism graduate students. True, some of the best bloggers are academics and professionals, but blogging is a democratic process, not a privilege reserved for the most educated.
That a considerable number of blogs embrace these alternate approaches to news out of laziness is to be expected. In his scathing August 2007 column, Los Angeles Times writer Michael Skube rebukes the bloggers’ “euphemistic” attempts to criticize and reinvigorate the national conversation, writing, “One gets the uneasy sense that the blogosphere is a potpourri of opinion and little more… Skepticism, restraint, a willingness to suspect judgment and to put oneself in the background -- these would not seem to be a blogger's trademarks” (Skube, “Blogs: All the noise that fits”).
To a degree, Skube is correct; unbridled, warrantless “armchair opinion” contributes nothing to the national dialog and undermines the blog’s power as a form of dissidence. Yet, one of bloggers’ main criticisms of more structured journalism is that there is little to no emotion in what is written or broadcast. As a result, critics argue, fewer Americans willingly consume news. A “loosening of the grip on editorial employees' personal lives [is] a way to better connect journalist and reader,” thus posits Steve Outing of the Poynter Institute, as a way “to forge a stronger relationship between them and… readers” (“What journalists can learn from bloggers”).
Furthermore, not every blog is dissident, and for Skube to treat all blogs as such oversimplifies the medium. Indeed, remember the second condition in Streitmatter’s aforementioned definition: Blogs are effective forms of dissident media only if they seek to change society in some discernible way. Not every blog fulfills that role.
A perfect example is the American media’s coverage of September 11, 2001. Like many of the nation’s esteemed newspapers and networks that scrambled to make palpable the tragedy 9/11, The Boston Globe opened its article, “Noon Attack on America,” with a parallel: “The twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed this morning after two airplanes crashed into them, in what President Bush described as a terrorist attack. The raid, followed by attacks in Washington, far overshadowed the Oklahoma City bombings, and prompted comparisons to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” (Barnard and Kowalczyk A1)
Of course, the underlying assumption behind the Globe’s lead was that the terrorist attacks were wholly unexpected. But as Washington Post writer R. Jeffery Smith reported nearly two years after the World Trade Center collapsed, “Analysts warned of potential attacks by unspecified terrorists in New York and California, and by operatives of Osama bin Laden somewhere in the United States.” (A14) His seminal article then detailed the various reports counterterrorism agencies submitted to Washington politicians and bureaucrats months prior to the attacks.
Certainly, the federal government erred Americans in the weeks leading up to 9/11, but had the American media committed an equally inexcusable failure? According to Matt Welch’s “Blog World and its Gravity,” “The destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon created a huge appetite on the part of the public to be part of ‘The Conversation’… Many, too, were unsatisfied with what they read and saw in the mainstream media.” (24). To an extent, Welch later argues, Americans soon embraced the blog as both an outlet for news production and consumption, picking up mainstream media’s slack.
It would thus seem that bloggers, in a way not unlike the dissident journalists of decades past, filled a void created by traditional journalism’s failures. Running counter to mainstream media forces and broadcasting a message that sought to alter the way “MSM’s” covered daily life, some of these blogs formed a dissident ‘fifth estate’ that seemed determined to check the once unquestionable authority of big name newspapers and networks.
Indeed, Skube argues that bloggers’ investigative abilities pale in comparison to what traditional media can do. Again, he is correct; blogs often lack the financial capacity and manpower to produce content comparable in its depth to mainstream counterpart. But as Jay Rosen writes in his equally scathing L.A. Times response column, bloggers have debuted a number of stories mainstream media has missed. In fact, Rosen includes 14 instances of “Blog sites doing exactly what [Skube] says blog sites don't do: ‘the patient sifting of fact, the acknowledgment that assertion is not evidence ... the depiction of real life’” (“Blowback”).
To that extent are blogs adequate forms of dissident media. Offering an alternative view of society and seeking to ferment a discernible change within it, blogs are merely a more technological version of its printed, dissident predecessors.

Conclusions: Our Talk Monkey blog
But with a better understanding of blogging as a form of dissidence, we can certainly analyze our own efforts. From the start, the class was somewhat conscious of its goals in relation to Streitmatter’s definition of dissident media; our frustration with the presidential debate system’s inadequacies motivated our desires for change, and we believed we could best affect that change using the written word.

For the most part, our content effectively embodied that aim, and the diversity in our viewpoints further emphasized the blog’s underlying message. Aspirations aside, we occasionally legitimized Skube’s nasty criticisms. Some students’ posts were little more than “armchair” editorials that insufficiently rebuked a point already developed by mainstream media. Other times, our relative inexperience with blogging relegated us to rehashing what another blog or media source said. Original content was equally scarce; covering news is still uncharted territory for bloggers, and most of our work embodied those subconscious uncertainties and fears.
But a few shortcomings do not resign our blog to failure. Dissident publications are the hardest to manage and maintain; all of the alternative newspapers in Streitmatter’s text, for example, faced a seemingly insurmountable uphill battle, a fight for a devoted readers and advertisers that few publications won. Even successful and widely circulated dissident media had little to brag about upon conception, as it often took years for publications to secure name recognition and arguably longer to affect a “discernible change” in society.
Our blog faced similar obstacles. Although Streitmatter correctly posits that the internet allows for unparalleled user interconnectivity, cheaper publishing and faster news production (281), our blog was merely one Web site floating in an infinitely deep sea of information. We produced content for about two months – a relatively short time – and while we did manage to pique the interest of informed readers as far away as India, our blog’s relative infancy was indeed preclusive. In some sense, the internet initially worked against us.
Still, the vastness of the internet, the technological marketplace of ideas, gives dissident publications like our own some hope. And if the Web is as truly egalitarian as academics like Strietmatter assert, we need not worry about the future of the national conversation.

Works Cited

Anne Barnard, Liz Kowalczyk. "Noon Attack on America." Boston Globe 11 September 2001:

A1.

Brookfield, Stephen D. The Power of Critical Theory. Jossey-Bass, 2004.

Rosen, Jay. "Blowback: The journalism that bloggers actually do." Los Angeles Times 22

August 2007.

Skube, Michael. "Blogs: All the noise that fits." Los Angeles Times 19 August 2007.

Smith, R. Jeffrey. "A History of Missed Connections." Washington Post 25 July 2005: A14.

Streitmatter, Rodger. Voices of Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

Welch, Matt. ""Blogworld and its Gravity"." Colombia Journalism Review (2003): 24.

*A special thanks to Chris for catching my heinous spelling error*

Blog Paper

Anna Eisenberg

Professor Walker

Dissident Media

November 30^th, 2007

The Rising Importance of Blogging

In the modern world of two thousand and seven, everyone is in the know. People who can barely afford a meal every day have televisions, cell phones, even computers. With new inventions like the iPhone, people can listen to music, talk on the phone and check their email all with the same device. This new age of technology, which allows even the most average of Joe’s to have access to information, is greatly affecting the news media. Because the Internet is so widely accessible, people can learn about the news any time of day. Now that blogs exist, anyone can become a journalist and publish what they believe is newsworthy. Blogging is becoming increasingly important, and is something that should be further examined and analyzed.

The first order of business is to define a blog. What is a blog? A blog “is usually defined as a Web site where information is updated frequently and presented in reverse chronological order (newest stuff on top).” (The New Age of Alternative Media) Another aspect of blogging that must be defined is the blogworld or blogosphere, where all blogs exist. Though the blogosphere is “too large and too varied to be defined as a single thing,” it can be considered to be the entire network of blogs and blogposts.

In the recent past, newspapers were the typical bearers of the goings-on of the world. In this modern world, newspapers have become a thing of the past and given rise to the Internet – the fastest way to get news. The Internet of course leads to blogging. Blogging is certainly having an impact on the world of news, as famous and highly read newspapers like The Washington Post are making new arrangements to welcome this new type of communication. Many companies are “implementing a plan that calls for a merge [of newspaper and online operations] into single unites – no side-by-side operations anymore.” (PublicEye) Blogging is clearly becoming a significant factor in news.

The concept of blogging is becoming a hotly debated topic because many people juxtapose it with typical journalism. Blogging can be considered a type of journalism, though it certainly does not follow the same rules. In fact, when writing a blog one must “get rid of the idea that [one] must have everything nailed down, organized, and edited before [publishing].” (Poynteronline) This is exactly what journalists must do before they publish an article. News articles are carefully planned and edited before going out to the public.

Blogging, or more specifically live-blogging, completely ignores these standard rules. Live-bloggers are doing exactly what their name suggests – writing a blog in real time so that their readers can view the post immediately. This completely bypasses the entire planning and editing phases and is more raw and undisciplined.

This new and creative form of journalism has been both lauded and criticized. Many people consider blogs to be diary entries that are open to the public. Others consider it to be what journalism has evolved into. One of the criticisms of blogging has been that “bloggers have all the liberties of a traditional journalist but few of the obligations.” (Blogs: All the noise that fits) This refers to the fact that bloggers are able to publish whatever they so wish without having to worry about what all journalists are careful to avoid: libel. Many people feel that this new type of journalism is not broadening the “national conversation.” (Blogs: All the noise that fits) In other words, blogging is simply more noise that the public must wade through in order to get to the real news.

Some people hate blogging, others welcome it with open arms. No matter the person’s feelings toward this new trend, the fact remains that blogging is here to stay and is working as a highly influential force in the world of news media. Blog aficionados have said, “In a media world that’s otherwise leached of opinions and life, there’s so much life in them.” (The New Age of Alternative Media) Another important part of blogs is that “they are speaking truth to power.” (PublicEye) In other words, blogs are part of what define dissident media and are a rising force in the world of news media.

Works Cited

Blogs: All the noise that fits. Los Angeles Times, 19 August 2007

Poynteronline. 5 September 2007.

PublicEye. 5 January 2007.

The New Age of Alternative Media. “Blogworld and its gravity.”

Debates Losing Focus of Meaning

With officially less than a year until the Presidential elections, things are starting to get serious. That is of course everything but the political debates. Last Tuesday the Democrats held another political debate in Philadelphia, the birthplace of democracy. There have already been a handful of debates, but this was by far the most annoying.

Although, Edwards and Obama started targeting Clinton, and there was serious talk about Iraq and Iran, I cannot help but feel frustrated by the last 30 minutes of the debate. Tim Russert, from Meet the Press, and Brian Williams, host of the Nightly News on NBC, held what they called, a “Lighting Round.” Perhaps, you are not familiar with this, but it is when the candidates are giving thirty seconds to answer a question. Besides the fact that they never stay in within the time limit, this is not an adequate amount time to answer a question. Another problem that I have with the “Lighting Round” is that the questions given during this time are always the same. There is always and environmental or social security issue addressed during this time. Both which are very important to many voters. I do not understand why they cannot mix up which topics receive the main focus in each debate. Devoting only 30 seconds to the environment does not allow the voter to make an informed decision, let alone solve the problem of global warming.

One other thing that truly bothers me is the attempt in the closing minutes to lighten up the mood. While I do not think that is a bad thing the questions and comments made here are inappropriate. On Tuesday, Dennis Kucinich was asked if he really saw an UFO, after it being reported in a book that he did. Then Obama was asked what he was going to on Halloween. While, these questions are fun and entertaining they belong on Oprah and Larry King.

Trick or Treat comes early for DC Votes

On a clear, windy morning in downtown Washington DC, the members of DC Votes changed into their halloween costumes a few hours earlier than most trick or treaters in the city. Near the corner of G St. and 41st, just a few blocks away from the White House, the DC Votes crew set up shop in front of Sen. John McCain's office building and put on hippo costumes. No, no, you read that right, hippos. They were there protesting John McCain's filibuster of legislation S. 1257, which would, if passed through the Senate, provide the District with a voting member in the House of Representatives for the first time, well, ever.
"Stop the hippo-crisy!" their signs read, as they paced outside of McCain's office building, turning heads on G St. as they chanted "hippos follow hypocrites!" and "we want democracy, not hypocrisy!" The DC Votes workers' basis for calling McCain a hypocrite seems fairly legitimate. He has supported continuously to send troops to Iraq to spread democracy in a foreign country, while he denies the most basic aspect of democracy, the right to vote, for DC residents. "He voted against even talking about DC voting rights in the Senate," said Kevin Kiger, a DC Votes worker and a District resident.
According to the DC Votes workers this is the first of many protest to come where, hippo costumes or not, other senators will be called out for their stance against DC's right to vote.