A modern day jet cockpit is a sea of dials, switches, and lights...time consuming to interpret individually while a plane is in flight. A good pilot knows how to efficiently scan, panning the scene, looking only for something out of the ordinary--like a flashing red light.
So it should be with Internet comments, in a reverse sort of way. Unfortunately, the routine is for rude, obnoxious, racially insensitive trolls to hide behind anonymity and spew their hatred for whatever joy it seems to bring them.
Like a good pilot scanning their complicated controls, casual readers should simply ignore those comments; the ones that should garner attention are thoughtful, add to the debate or bring up new and valuable information that demonstrates the writer has first hand knowledge about the events in the article. And, yes, those are often very few and very far between.
" The comments sections on many general-interest news sites lack both the carrot and the stick for encouraging responsible behavior. The carrot is the cohesion of a group you don’t want to disappoint, like Yoshimi25’s Front Burner community. The stick is the shame associated with having your real name publicly attached to embarrassing behavior. Without these two levers, the social contract breaks down." ('Inside the mind of the Anon online poster'. Neil Swidey, Boston Globe)
The Internet has revolutionized the dissemination of news and entertainment; now anyone anywhere in the world can instantly upload an observation, photo, video or full fledged novel for all to see.
"In the old days, we really were the gatekeepers, and if we said we aren't going to say the names of rape victims..we could make that come true. Well, newspaper editors can't do that anymore. We have to exist in a broader, more democratized, sort of rougher edged and less neat and controlled world." (Geneva Overholser, AJR 'Going Public')
Sure the Internet is still a tad rough and tumble, but when you attend an R-rated movie you should know what your getting into and not complain later about the site of a naked body or a little blood and gore. And of course, Internet news sites and blogs can be more like an NC-17 rating.
"The right to free speech and the unfettered practice of free speech are not the same. In a way we are all Robert Cohen ("F_ck the Draft") at Sunday dinner, with legal rights that may have to yield to practical, everyday restrictions on the expression." (Woo, Essay #3)
William Woo makes the reasonable point that just because you can wear a jacket in public with a vulgar word under the banner of free speech doesn't mean your grandmother has to put up with it at a family dinner. Fair enough.
But then, is grandma also going to ban all political talk--no matter how civil--at the dinner table? It's a very fine line. I let it all hang out on 'Only in Amherst' (my posts and comments), allowing the readers to decide what to consume and what not to waste time on.
After all, the First Amendment protects free speech of citizens from government suppression. So if grandma wants to institute stern controls at her house on Sunday she can, or if a privately owned newspaper industry wants to ban Anon comments on their news websites, they most certainly can.
"But it’s the wrong move, the proverbial rocket launcher employed against a housefly. The collateral damage it would bring — a contrived quieting and flattening of the debate, and a closing off of the sorts of scoops and expansive discussions enabled by anonymous commenting — wouldn’t be worth it." ('Freedom of Screech', Jesse Singal, Boston Globe)
Catherine Sanderson, an elected Amherst School Committee member with a refreshing attitude about transparency, recently instituted "comment moderation" on her blog. She posts comments as long as they are somewhat civil, on topic and free of personal attacks on private citizens. However, she still allows Anonymous comments as long as they meet those minimum requirements:
"The key thing is that there are people who WANT to share their thoughts, but can't do so if they will be identified. This includes parents who worry their kid will experience a negative outcome if they criticize the schools, and teachers who worry that their comments will create negative consequences for them if they criticize the schools/their colleagues/parents. I believe those voices are really important to have, and thus I've continued to allow anonymous posters."(Catherine Sanderson, 'Only in Amherst' blog Comment)
On my blog I have chosen to grin and bear abusive Anon comments, but never resist the opportunity to point out how cowardly the mechanism is when relied upon simply to heap abuse. I only delete spam, double posted comments (delete one), libel (I know it when I see it) or certain words that I think should be forever banned from the lexicon of human language: C-word, N-word, but since the Supreme Court has said the F-word is okay, I grudgingly accept it.
What surprised me about the current "No Comment" American Journal Review editorial ( "It's time for news sites to stop allowing anonymous online comments.") is that the stunningly obvious concern over tips from sources who need the protection afforded by a cloak of anonymity was completely ignored.
Recently the Buffalo News (after only allowing comments for just over a year) joined the "G-rated" minority of papers banning all Anon comments from their website. The editor, obviously easily offended, explains:
"Quickly, though, the practice degenerated into something significantly less lofty. Particularly on stories about inner-city crime — but not only on those stories — reader comments can be racist and ugly. In fact, we’ve been shocked at how seemingly routine stories can elicit comments that veer off into offensive territory." (Margaret Sullivan, Buffalo News, 'Seeking a return to civility in online comments'.)
A hyperlocal news site in their readership territory quickly responded:
"While it's disappointing that The News is running away from this issue, it's not at all surprising. The paper has been slow to adapt to the changing media landscape as management continues to hope the world goes back to 1975. They want the internet to go away, but it won't." (Buffalo Rising, 'Buffalo News tells the internet to go away'.)
The real world can be ugly indeed. Journalism is supposed to hold up a mirror to reflect that. And yeah, sometimes the language can be a tad salty.
According to recovered flight data recorders, pilots about to die tend to exclaim the word "shit!" As stunned NY firefighters watched the first plane impale the North Tower on the morning of 9/11, their instant reaction was "Holy shit!"..."Holy shit!"
Holy shit indeed!
Friday, July 2, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Not to mention that other $275,000
So if you watch our illustrious town leaders, otherwise known as the Chair of the Select Board and the Town Manager you would think the only thing given Atkins Country Market (a perennial top-ten employer in town) for a little bit of land required to complete a huge, expensive infrastructure improvement project in their front yard was this modest property tax break: $79,000 over the next ten years.
Of course the Select Board just a few months back approved the last beer-and-wine license in town to Atkins (a somewhat low-cost license to mint money.) And the town is also currently in the process of giving them another $275,000: $258,000 worth of paving to their private parking lot courtesy of the DPW, plus $17,000 in cash.
Umm, must have just slipped their minds.
Taking "news" seriously (Yes folks, this is parody)
So you gotta love the sendoff moments of the sendoff edition of "Student News", not affiliated with the Amherst Regional High School except all the major players involved attend.
Josh does the Walter Cronkite/Edward R. Murrow rolling up of the sleeves, loosening of the tie (although he probably could have gone one step further by repeatedly removing and replacing his glasses or simply fired up a camel cigarette), and then the two co-anchors do the "chicken dance."
Yes indeed, the future of journalism is in such good hands.
Josh does the Walter Cronkite/Edward R. Murrow rolling up of the sleeves, loosening of the tie (although he probably could have gone one step further by repeatedly removing and replacing his glasses or simply fired up a camel cigarette), and then the two co-anchors do the "chicken dance."
Yes indeed, the future of journalism is in such good hands.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Happy Birthday America!
So yes folks, even though you have not read a thing in the local papers about battles with the town over anti-war protesters crashing the party, the July 4th Parade will kick off from Amherst College up the hill to town center starting at 3:00 PM.
And those fabulous F-15 fighter jets from Barnes Air National Guard will swing by low and fast to start things off with a bang.
No, Robert Cohen and his famous "F_ck the draft" jacket will not be appearing, and neither will the KKK. Just good old fashioned firetrucks, police cars, marching bands, clowns and lots of smiling kids.
Moms everywhere will be serving apple pie after the show.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Journalism Ethics #2
Just as truth is the ultimate defense in a libel case its pursuit provides a fantastic fuel that should drive a journalist, a sacred core value immune from external coercion, greed, or delusions of grandeur. But in the rush to be first in this new 24/7 newscycle brought on by the instantaneous Internet the whole truth is often partially obscured, yet the publish button is still clicked.
For me the most important founding principal of the online news association under 'Seek Truth and Report It' was the last (the reverse of a reverse pyramid is a pyramid): "Recognize a special obligation to ensure that the public's business is conducted in the open and that government records are open to inspection."
Because government oftentimes purposely use its considerable power to keep the populace uninformed, it is the job of the journalist to know by heart the Open Meeting Law and Public Documents Law the two best weapons for keeping government honest.
About 15 years ago when I was writing columns for the Amherst Bulletin an anonymous (older) woman caller tipped me that "something was wrong out at the Cherry Hill Golf Course." She said a popular young female summer worker just suddenly disappeared and the other employees refused to talk about it.
I hit the town manager with a public documents request for a list of seasonal employees at the start of the season and a current list (it was mid-summer) and any letters of resignation for the one name that may not show up as currently still employed.
He refused on the grounds of the "privacy exemption" the most frequently invoked (out of a handful of allowed exemptions) by government officials. I appealed and Alan Cote the Secretary of Public Records agreed with me that because the Golf Course is municipally owned and tax supported any documents related to employment are public.
But then they tried to withhold them because they were of a "sensitive nature." Again the State agreed with me and said the documents could be redacted to protect the young woman but they still had to turn them over.
Turns out the Golf Course manager, Dan Engstrom (who was married at the time) engaged in "banter" of a sexual nature with the young woman employee, making crude suggestive remarks about her body and it even escalated to where he physically touched her.
The towns "Human Rights Director" investigated (it was her redacted report they grudgingly turned over) and found him guilty. The woman was paid a full season compensation and then some (just under $10,000) and Mr.Engstrom was giving one month leave with pay.
Of course the reason town officials wanted to keep it secret is because the golf course superintendent would have been hard to replace (especially mid-season) if fired for engaging in the behavior that in a PC town like Amherst would almost guarantee dismissal if word got out to the general public.
About ten years later I requested a season pass customer list with names and addresses to ascertain how many patrons are actually from Amherst which heavily subsidizes the operation of the golf course with town tax money. Town officials refused saying it was a violation of individuals privacy. The state agreed with me and the list demonstrated that over the half the patrons lived outside Amherst.
About five years ago I received a call from Cindy Pepyne, investigator at the District Attorney's office, saying the Springfield Republican wanted from their office a short list of people who had successfully used Public Documents and Open Meeting Law so the paper could request they write a guest column during "Sunshine Week."
The DAs office refused to comply because the names (as whistleblowers) were exempt from public documents. But the DAs office called the people directly and informed them about the idea with contact information for the newspaper editor; and I of course returned the call and wrote a guest column on the matter for the Springfield Republican--and they did note it odd that the DAs office charged with enforcing Sunshine Laws were themselves exempt.
##################################
Minimize harm is kind of like the military attempting to neutralize only combatants while minimizing "collateral damage" to innocent civilians. And that is always a lot harder than just ordering a B52 "carpet bombing" of an entire area and returning it to the stone age.
Just as an uncaring journalist can name innocent civilians related to the target of their investigation and by tying them to a negative story damage their reputations. Sometimes it is unavoidably as when the media exposes a national politician like John Edwards cheating on his cancer suffering wife, and unless you are a columnist you cannot be overly sympathetic but can still skip some of the more lurid details bound to bring pain to the immediate family.
Three months ago Catherine Sanderson and I received an anonymous three-page letter in the mail from a school employee lamenting "the coup" that had just brought down rookie Superintendent Alberto Rodriguez.
The letter was filled with enough seasoned personal observations--many of them about administrators who are public figures--to indicate the writer was indeed an insider but also contained information about some people who would be considered private, one of them a young child.
I redacted the names of almost everybody and published it in its entirety. A few people figured out their own names and were furious, but interestingly most of them were public figures where I probably did not have to redact their names in the first place.
###################################
Under 'Act independently', my pick as number pick is of course: "Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable." I think for me it's a personal thing. I started martial arts training in 1972 the year of the "Olympic massacre" at Munich, where Israeli athletes (in a martial art like sport) were massacred simply because of their nationality and the same year as the Watergate break in where I first learned a President could lie.
Like your first kiss, a media junkie will always remember their first 'Letter To The Editor'. Mine was to the Daily Hampshire Gazette in 1982 lamenting the Munich Massacre on the 10th anniversary (even in my early stages I knew the media loved anniversaries) and warning about the tremendous abuse of power exhibited by those zealots known as "terrorists," out for self styled glory and massive media attention, with the conscious of a great white shark.
###########################################
Under "Be Accountable"--like most bloggers who take their art seriously--I consider it job #1 for a journalist (and bloggers who take their art seriously are journalists!) to "expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media."
The profession should be able to police itself. Half of all doctors, lawyers or hairstylists graduated at the bottom half of their class. It's up to those who take their profession seriously (possibly those in the upper-half graduation levels) to police their own.
And the ubiquitous Internet is the perfect platform for that.
For me the most important founding principal of the online news association under 'Seek Truth and Report It' was the last (the reverse of a reverse pyramid is a pyramid): "Recognize a special obligation to ensure that the public's business is conducted in the open and that government records are open to inspection."
Because government oftentimes purposely use its considerable power to keep the populace uninformed, it is the job of the journalist to know by heart the Open Meeting Law and Public Documents Law the two best weapons for keeping government honest.
About 15 years ago when I was writing columns for the Amherst Bulletin an anonymous (older) woman caller tipped me that "something was wrong out at the Cherry Hill Golf Course." She said a popular young female summer worker just suddenly disappeared and the other employees refused to talk about it.
I hit the town manager with a public documents request for a list of seasonal employees at the start of the season and a current list (it was mid-summer) and any letters of resignation for the one name that may not show up as currently still employed.
He refused on the grounds of the "privacy exemption" the most frequently invoked (out of a handful of allowed exemptions) by government officials. I appealed and Alan Cote the Secretary of Public Records agreed with me that because the Golf Course is municipally owned and tax supported any documents related to employment are public.
But then they tried to withhold them because they were of a "sensitive nature." Again the State agreed with me and said the documents could be redacted to protect the young woman but they still had to turn them over.
Turns out the Golf Course manager, Dan Engstrom (who was married at the time) engaged in "banter" of a sexual nature with the young woman employee, making crude suggestive remarks about her body and it even escalated to where he physically touched her.
The towns "Human Rights Director" investigated (it was her redacted report they grudgingly turned over) and found him guilty. The woman was paid a full season compensation and then some (just under $10,000) and Mr.Engstrom was giving one month leave with pay.
Of course the reason town officials wanted to keep it secret is because the golf course superintendent would have been hard to replace (especially mid-season) if fired for engaging in the behavior that in a PC town like Amherst would almost guarantee dismissal if word got out to the general public.
About ten years later I requested a season pass customer list with names and addresses to ascertain how many patrons are actually from Amherst which heavily subsidizes the operation of the golf course with town tax money. Town officials refused saying it was a violation of individuals privacy. The state agreed with me and the list demonstrated that over the half the patrons lived outside Amherst.
About five years ago I received a call from Cindy Pepyne, investigator at the District Attorney's office, saying the Springfield Republican wanted from their office a short list of people who had successfully used Public Documents and Open Meeting Law so the paper could request they write a guest column during "Sunshine Week."
The DAs office refused to comply because the names (as whistleblowers) were exempt from public documents. But the DAs office called the people directly and informed them about the idea with contact information for the newspaper editor; and I of course returned the call and wrote a guest column on the matter for the Springfield Republican--and they did note it odd that the DAs office charged with enforcing Sunshine Laws were themselves exempt.
##################################
Minimize harm is kind of like the military attempting to neutralize only combatants while minimizing "collateral damage" to innocent civilians. And that is always a lot harder than just ordering a B52 "carpet bombing" of an entire area and returning it to the stone age.
Just as an uncaring journalist can name innocent civilians related to the target of their investigation and by tying them to a negative story damage their reputations. Sometimes it is unavoidably as when the media exposes a national politician like John Edwards cheating on his cancer suffering wife, and unless you are a columnist you cannot be overly sympathetic but can still skip some of the more lurid details bound to bring pain to the immediate family.
Three months ago Catherine Sanderson and I received an anonymous three-page letter in the mail from a school employee lamenting "the coup" that had just brought down rookie Superintendent Alberto Rodriguez.
The letter was filled with enough seasoned personal observations--many of them about administrators who are public figures--to indicate the writer was indeed an insider but also contained information about some people who would be considered private, one of them a young child.
I redacted the names of almost everybody and published it in its entirety. A few people figured out their own names and were furious, but interestingly most of them were public figures where I probably did not have to redact their names in the first place.
###################################
Under 'Act independently', my pick as number pick is of course: "Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable." I think for me it's a personal thing. I started martial arts training in 1972 the year of the "Olympic massacre" at Munich, where Israeli athletes (in a martial art like sport) were massacred simply because of their nationality and the same year as the Watergate break in where I first learned a President could lie.
Like your first kiss, a media junkie will always remember their first 'Letter To The Editor'. Mine was to the Daily Hampshire Gazette in 1982 lamenting the Munich Massacre on the 10th anniversary (even in my early stages I knew the media loved anniversaries) and warning about the tremendous abuse of power exhibited by those zealots known as "terrorists," out for self styled glory and massive media attention, with the conscious of a great white shark.
###########################################
Under "Be Accountable"--like most bloggers who take their art seriously--I consider it job #1 for a journalist (and bloggers who take their art seriously are journalists!) to "expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media."
The profession should be able to police itself. Half of all doctors, lawyers or hairstylists graduated at the bottom half of their class. It's up to those who take their profession seriously (possibly those in the upper-half graduation levels) to police their own.
And the ubiquitous Internet is the perfect platform for that.
Monday, June 28, 2010
And the children shall lead...
So Amherst Regional High School 'Student News' sendoff off edition (the youngsters get the summer off) was unintentionally hilarious--as the cub reporters and "executive editors" once again ended up in hot water for publishing a less than ethical episode.
After getting pounded in the blogosphere for their rude, childish portrayal of School Committee member Catherine Sanderson--a stand up publicly elected town official who happens to run a very popular blog with ratings far greater than theirs--for a piece where they repeatedly spliced together Sanderson at a School Committee meeting subtly bobbing her head to music (superimposing a spotlight so you could not miss it) with an overdub of their musical choosing.
Hey, at least she was not falling asleep!
After the fallout (in journalism that kind of video is considered doctored deliberate distortion) you would think they learned their lesson. Not in Amherst, where obviously some grown up Wizards like to manipulate marionettes from behind the curtain; so the kids decided to take another shot.
This time they generously allowed Sanderson 40 minutes of unedited airtime, which she managed to fill without having to consult cue cards (unlike their "reporter"). Considering Student News is normally a half-hour show, pretty sweet. But then later, back at the Amherst taxpayer subsidized ACTV studio, the "Executive Producers" could not resist adding another 20 minutes of editorial follow up. An ambush where the prey was not even physically present to rebut.
Obviously at their tender age they have no firsthand experience with how committees and sub committees work. A sub committee is less than a quorum of the main committee and they can meet separately and talk as long as they want pretty much about anything they want providing, the meeting is open to the public and posted 48 hours in advance.
When Catherine explained that the Union 26 issue had been discussed in subcommittee extensively but only for 10 minutes or so total by the entire School Committee who voted unanimously to consult an attorney--that is certainly no "contradiction" (wherein they suggested she lied with the introductory comment, "even if Ms Sanderson misspoke").
That's why you have subcommittees! So they can hash out details and take up far less time of the full committee.
And as this clip shows Mr. Wolfsun--and, apparently, a committee of his teen aged peers--the venerable "High School Student Advisory Committee"--took tremendous offense at an offhand comment made by a paid education consultant regarding the wisdom of letting children evaluate their teachers, prompting laughter from the audience, mostly comprised of concerned parents of Middle School kids I would imagine.
Maybe Wolfsun should have just held his breath until he turned blue.
But somehow that supposed disrespect (and I agree with the professional consultant) gets blamed on Catherine Sanderson, who I assume was in the room at the time, yet Wolfsun offers no evidence whatsoever--like a video spliced to repeatedly replay the scene--that she joined in the "laughter". The old guilt by association, paint with a broad brush routine.
And in the interest of "full disclosure" Mr. Wolfsun should have mentioned that both he and "Associate Producer" Graham Churchill (son of now somewhat discredited former School Committee Chair Andy Churchill) both graduated from their local neighborhood Marks Meadow Elementary School, the smallest of four in Amherst now closed, mainly because of Catherine Sanderson's blog. A taxpayer savings of $850,000 annually, but met with bitter resistance by those with a vested interest.
Comment to Student News: If you are going to masquerade as journalists, may I recommend "Online Journalism Ethics: Traditions and Transitions" by Cecilia Friend and Jane Singer.
After getting pounded in the blogosphere for their rude, childish portrayal of School Committee member Catherine Sanderson--a stand up publicly elected town official who happens to run a very popular blog with ratings far greater than theirs--for a piece where they repeatedly spliced together Sanderson at a School Committee meeting subtly bobbing her head to music (superimposing a spotlight so you could not miss it) with an overdub of their musical choosing.
Hey, at least she was not falling asleep!
After the fallout (in journalism that kind of video is considered doctored deliberate distortion) you would think they learned their lesson. Not in Amherst, where obviously some grown up Wizards like to manipulate marionettes from behind the curtain; so the kids decided to take another shot.
This time they generously allowed Sanderson 40 minutes of unedited airtime, which she managed to fill without having to consult cue cards (unlike their "reporter"). Considering Student News is normally a half-hour show, pretty sweet. But then later, back at the Amherst taxpayer subsidized ACTV studio, the "Executive Producers" could not resist adding another 20 minutes of editorial follow up. An ambush where the prey was not even physically present to rebut.
Obviously at their tender age they have no firsthand experience with how committees and sub committees work. A sub committee is less than a quorum of the main committee and they can meet separately and talk as long as they want pretty much about anything they want providing, the meeting is open to the public and posted 48 hours in advance.
When Catherine explained that the Union 26 issue had been discussed in subcommittee extensively but only for 10 minutes or so total by the entire School Committee who voted unanimously to consult an attorney--that is certainly no "contradiction" (wherein they suggested she lied with the introductory comment, "even if Ms Sanderson misspoke").
That's why you have subcommittees! So they can hash out details and take up far less time of the full committee.
And as this clip shows Mr. Wolfsun--and, apparently, a committee of his teen aged peers--the venerable "High School Student Advisory Committee"--took tremendous offense at an offhand comment made by a paid education consultant regarding the wisdom of letting children evaluate their teachers, prompting laughter from the audience, mostly comprised of concerned parents of Middle School kids I would imagine.
Maybe Wolfsun should have just held his breath until he turned blue.
But somehow that supposed disrespect (and I agree with the professional consultant) gets blamed on Catherine Sanderson, who I assume was in the room at the time, yet Wolfsun offers no evidence whatsoever--like a video spliced to repeatedly replay the scene--that she joined in the "laughter". The old guilt by association, paint with a broad brush routine.
And in the interest of "full disclosure" Mr. Wolfsun should have mentioned that both he and "Associate Producer" Graham Churchill (son of now somewhat discredited former School Committee Chair Andy Churchill) both graduated from their local neighborhood Marks Meadow Elementary School, the smallest of four in Amherst now closed, mainly because of Catherine Sanderson's blog. A taxpayer savings of $850,000 annually, but met with bitter resistance by those with a vested interest.
Comment to Student News: If you are going to masquerade as journalists, may I recommend "Online Journalism Ethics: Traditions and Transitions" by Cecilia Friend and Jane Singer.
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