PostSecret

PostSecret is currently the largest advertisement-free blog in the world. Frank Warren is the founder and mastermind behind the website which is updated every Sunday with secrets (submitted via postcard) from around the world. All submitted secrets are completely anonymous and range from comedic to breathtakingly serious.

The site originally started off as an art exhibit in 2004 by founder Frank Warren and in 2007 he decided to experiment with making these secrets even more public. Warren started a blog on the popular site BlogSpot in 2007 and has been an international hit ever since. Warren has countless best-selling books full of these secrets and goes on tours across the world to share the secrets he has collected over the years. The site always displays the visitor count at the bottom of the page and the site has reached over 640 million people. 

Warren has expanded PostSecret to all social media platforms and highly encourages user participation. Occasionally Warren will get a secret that he can not decode or translate and he throws it up on the PostSecret Facebook page and asks for the help of his followers. 

PostSecret has always been one of my favorite blogs because of the raw honesty of the project as well as Warrens commitment to working with The National Suicide Prevention Hotline. So, go on and check out PostSecret every Sunday morning just like I do, send in a secret a two, maybe one day you'll see your very own postcard at the top of the page. 

America Needs a Press Council

In class on Thursday we talked a little bit about how media can manipulate messages. Cutting and editing clips to make a soundbite which properly depicts the message the media is trying to get across has almost become commonplace in news outlets (unfortunately mainstream media are not the only guilty parties).

The big example of the day was a video of  US Dept of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod at a NAACP speaking engagement. A website called biggovernment.com ran a clip from the speech and the lack of context made it out to seem as though Sherrod was a racist and deliberately helped white farmers to a lesser extent. This manipulative video caught on and as other news outlets ran the story Sherrod was eventually fired from her position only to be asked back when all the details were pieced together. Sherrod declined the offer.

Sherrod is not the only victim of this media manipulation. Stories are twisted to fit political agendas all the time which begs the question in my mind: where is the retribution? Even in smaller missteps by media such as misprints or inaccurate numbers there is no official punishment set in place. While some news stations do abide by the ethical principle of retractions just as many news stations do not.

During my time in Australia I took a journalism course called Press and Society. For my final paper I explored the Gillard government's attempt at media reform laws. These laws had a bunch of different proposals but I thought the most logical was the idea of an Australian Press Council that had legitimate power to punish the media for a failure of ethics or accuracy. Like in America, the majority of news outlets are owned by the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, which in turn leaves Australia with many of the same problems as America. Their media is highly concentrated and intensely infiltrated by vested interests.

The Australian Press Council as it functions now (the media reform package was shot down in late march) acts as a more symbolic body. The APC can send out letters of disapproval or suggestions of how to address discrepancies in reporting but in actuality they have no real power to enforce any kind of action. Perhaps even more ironically the Press Council is funded mainly by the papers that it has been created to monitor, putting the APC in a sticky situation. If the APC was to fire out harsh crackdowns (despite the fact that they would not have any real legitimacy) they could risk losing funding and potentially shut down for good. So, the ever-growing conundrum of a media without regulation lives on in Australia.

The same issue rings loud and clear all the way on the other side of the world. While there has been no real solid proposal for media regulation in America to my knowledge I think this is something that needs to be legitimately addressed. A lot of the argument against media regulation in Australia centered around the reluctance of both journalists and citizens to have government oversight into the press. However, the Gillard government repeatedly assured that this new Press Council would be elected democratically and be free of government attachments.

While it is hard to guarantee such strings-attached representatives it is undoubtable in my mind that there needs to be some sort of penalty for missteps by the media. When the mainstream media today is largely functioning as an arm of the government there should be some form of outside ombudsmen to make sure innocent people like Shirley Sherrod are not painted to be something they are not by way of savvy video-editing and sneaky omissions of fact. And that if this kind of unethical behavior flies under the radar that it is addressed quickly in a highly visible retraction/formal apology to the parties affected.

You Could be the Next Fantasy Football

Reading this blog post about entrepreneurial journalism by Jeff Jarvis really got me thinking about the idea of originality today. It's not uncommon to hear the concept that "nothing is original nowadays" but how true does this statement ring? This article was full of new markets that were just waiting to be filled by entrepreneurs such as these young journalism kids.

Professor Mead Loop spoke in my journalism ethics a month ago about the Fantasy Football section of journalism. This is a legitimate (not to mention well-paying) subdivision of sports journalism that did not exist ten years ago. Credible news organizations such as The Washington Post and The New York Times have writers designated to cover this beat of journalism.

Up and coming journalists (like us) should be on the look-out for markets like fantasy football. These unfulfilled bubbles in the market are where opportunities lie in the future of journalism. Who knows? Ten years from now we could be covering one of the hottest beats for the NY times, perhaps a beat that we have no idea even exists today.

Comedy and News: The New 'It' Couple.

One of our very own Ithaca College students has hit it big! Huffington-Post blog big that is. This afternoon Ithaca College junior, Cain Azar, was featured on the Huffington Post for one of his vlogging videos regarding safe-sex practices.

This video might take a funny tone about the issue but this is yet another example of vloggers using their following on YouTube as leverage to discuss important issues. This particular video from Cain is very reminiscent of fellow vlogger Philly D. who used his comical tone to discuss the real issue of pepper-spraying during peaceful demonstrations.

Perhaps comedy is the way to catch the attention of people today. I can't even count the number of times that kids in my intro politics classes have said that The Daily Show or The Colbert Report were their main source of news (often followed by a hesitant giggle). And really, what is wrong with that? A lot of the issues being faced today are hard, oftentimes even depressing so why not take these issues, report on them but give them a funny twist so that people are being informed without feeling like they want to jump off a bridge? I say power to satirical news-tellers, they are modernizing the packaging of news one snarky comment at a time.

Brave New Films: A Catalyst for Change

At the screening of two Brave New Film documentaries this Friday I started getting irritated by the amount of empty seats in the auditorium. I kept thinking back to when Dave Franco and Christopher Mintz-Plasse came to campus. It was a madhouse. People lined up for tickets to get into the presentation at 6 am, the auditorium was jam-packed.

I guess it might sound a little bit dramatic but I was getting furious that the auditorium was not filled for these documentaries. Who really deserves to be revered? A couple of guys who star in movies about drinking and smoking or a man who dedicates his life to unearthing the truth about real hard-hitting issues?

My emotions aside, I could not believe how informative and disturbing the drones documentary truly was. I thought I had a somewhat solid grasp on how drones were used by the US air force but I was considerably far off. When the former air-force member mentioned that drone cameras are capable of seeing a soccer ball, I was blown away. I had always thought that the visibility of objects on drone cameras were weak at best. In my head this explained (but did not justify) the high number of casualties.

The fact that we use drones at our own discretion is deplorable. It sounds cliche but one thing is undoubtedly true: violence breeds more violence. We are single-handedly fueling the fire of anti-American sentiment abroad by killing and maiming innocent civilians.

Kids. School teachers. Tribal leaders. All targeted with no legitimate reason. There needs to be an end to this. We are digging ourselves in a hole so deep that finding our way out might just prove impossible.

Brave New Films is such an inspiring Indy Media organization. Their documentaries (from what I've seen) strike a brilliant balance between factual and emotional testimonies to the horrors of largely ignored issues.

This is a personal opinion but I think there is a revolution brewing. Something that is a long-time in the making and I think indy media sites like Brave News Films are beginning to become a catalyst for change. Something needs to change. We are at a boiling point and its only a matter of time before Americans reach their final straw and something tips the pot.

Whistleblowers: The Real American Heroes

For my Politics Seminar this semester I'm doing a research paper on modern activism in America, essentially examining whether or not activism is dead in America. The screening of War on Whistleblowers really brought this paper to the front of my mind.

During the Vietnam era the release of Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers added fuel to the already burning fire of activism and protests against the war. But do whistle-blowers today have the same affect on protests and political mobilization of the masses? Where has the activism gone on college campuses?

Perhaps the framing of whistleblowers as unpatriotic/betrayers of our country has severely affected the mindset of the American people. According to TheEconomicCollapse.com, the average American citizen tends to consume 153 hours of television a month. Most of these average Americans consume and believe what the mainstream media presents to them. Assuming no further investigation is done in relation to the news outside of what the mainstream media is presenting, most Americans would be more concerned with capturing and jailing whistleblowers oppose to listening to what their leaks said and how it affects their every day life.

In simpler terms: the mainstream media squashes the American spirit of rebellion by framing whistleblowers in a negative light. This undoubtedly plays a major role in activism. Whistleblowers should be commended. They should be acknowledged as bold heroes not framed as criminals that need to flee the country. Releasing important information that is directly pertinent to the lives of American citizens is not treason it is patriotic. Perhaps if we flipped this perception of whistleblowers as evil or bad or wrong then the American people would start listening to what these whistleblowers have to say and consequently get upset enough to do something about it.

Does Objectivity Affect Substance?

We talked a little bit about the political spectrum and where journalists should or shouldn't fall on this scale. The whole concept of centralism really struck me as interesting: the idea that objectivity is not obtainable no matter where you identify yourself. If you are a journalist that claims to report right down the middle with no biased-lean to either side then you are inevitably making yourself centrally-biased.

As our professor Jeff Cohen said: "That's not political journalism that is merely more stenography for those in power."

So, how do you stay objective in journalism? David Carr in his article about objectivity in journalism in the NY Times pointed out that sometimes a balancing act in articles can read as if you are dancing around the issue and not making any real headway.

This makes for wish-washy articles with no substance. So, how do you stay relatively neutral on subjects while providing legitimate analysis for your readers?

Maybe you don't. Neutrality is good in hard news stories, sensationalism is obviously problematic but with political journalism a stance sometimes need to be taken. Standing in the middle of the political spectrum gets you no-where. As I've mentioned before maybe a disclaimer could help remedy this problem or perhaps it will merely discredit journalistic work. Regardless I think all news needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Read up on the journalists you get your news from. Try and discover their stance and then take their reporting for what it is.

In my opinion objectivity is never truly possible but there are ways to report without becoming an PR writer for your political ideology.

Activism in Journalists: Can they Co-exist?

An article in the NY times by David Carr called the age-old debate of objectivity in journalism into question. The question this particular article brought up to me was: Does an activist fundamentally make a good journalist?

I think yes. I feel like my intense interest in political issues/social rights movements is what led me to ultimately study journalism in the first place. Doesn't that kind of drive and passion make up the best reporting?

There is obviously a line to be drawn and precautions to be taken. A warning of biases perhaps? But as Glenn Greenwald points out: 

“It is a matter of being honest or dishonest. All activists are not journalists, but all real journalists are activists. Journalism has a value, a purpose — to serve as a check on power.”

Bill Jacobson of Legal Insurrection

In class on Tuesday we got the chance to talk to the founder of conservative independent blog Legal Insurrection, Bill Jacobson. In our discussion we got to hear about numerous insights to the pros and cons of starting your own blog as well as the hardships that being an independent blog-owner can present. Bill, being a professor at Cornell, really emphasized the backlash he faced professionally. As most colleges are, Cornell tends to be a predominantly liberal campus and upon reading his conservative views on Legal Insurrection many parents and students wrote (sometimes harsh) letters condemning his view points.

Bill also was careful to point out that blogs (that are looking to become high-traffic sites) need to be posting at least 3-4 times a day. "People are looking for fresh content" said Bill, "if there isn't any they won't come back to your site." 

Other than the insider insight on how to create a successful blog I found a few points particularly interesting throughout our open-talk. One being the problem with the google algorithm. When scrolling through the Legal Insurrection blog we found two ads for Hillary Clinton's campaign, asking for support and donations. Being a specifically conservative/right-wing site this was very strange. Bill pointed out that this happens a lot. Google's algorithm factors in how much certain names or phrases are mentioned to produce ads for your site. So, despite the fact that when Bill writes about Hilary or other left-wing political players of the sort it tends to be negative, Google takes this as a sign to advertise left-wing ads on his site. 

Perhaps the most important take-away I got from this talk was that marking politically-driven, truth-telling journalists as "extremists"is not a strictly left-wing problem. An earlier post on my blog talked about how many critics of Izzy Stone and or subjects of his investigative journalism (which actually tended to be one in the same) wrote him off as an "extremist" or a "crazy left-wing liberal." Bill discussed how Legal Insurrection was at the forefront of coverage on the Elizabeth Warren v Scott Brown campaign in Massachusetts. Bill was consistent in calling out Elizabeth Warren on her bluffs and painting a factual picture of her relation to the Native American community. The Warren campaign was quick to label Bill as a "far-right extremist" and write off his reporting as an extension of those beliefs. This re-affirms that regardless of the political side the ugly truth being exposed by journalists is never welcomed and is usually written off by throwing out labels like "extremist" in an attempt to discredit their reporting.

Lastly, I just want to mention my favorite quote from the discussion. Bill spent quite a bit of time discussing how he deals with inappropriate comments as well as the bad-intentioned users who produce them. At one point Bill talked about emails he had received from angry users who had been blocked from commenting on the site due to inappropriate comments. A lot of the users accused Bill of silencing their freedom of speech to which Bill replied "I'm not silencing your speech, you just can't come into my house and say it."