The Inevitably Unnecessary Reminder

Exams due tomorrow, posted to your blog between 9:45-10:00 PM only.

Rise of the Machines

NYT meets SkyNet?

Already, complex algorithms — programming often placed under the over-colorful umbrella of "artificial intelligence" — are used to gather content for Web sites like Google News, which serves up a wide selection of journalism online, without much intervention from actual journalists. Hamilton sees a not-too-distant future in which that process would be extended, with algorithms mining information from multiple sources and using it to write parts of articles or even entire personalized news stories.

Hamilton offers a theoretical example, taking off from EveryBlock, the set of Web sites masterminded by Adrian Holovaty, one of the true pioneers of database journalism and a former innovation editor at washingtonpost.com. If you live in one of the 11 American cities EveryBlock covers, you now can enter your address, and the site gives you civic information (think building permits, police reports and so on), news reports, blog items and other Web-based information, such as consumer reviews and photos, all connected to your immediate geographic neighborhood. In the not-too-distant future, Hamilton suggests, an algorithm could take information from EveryBlock and other database inputs and actually write articles personalized to your neighborhood and your interests, giving you, for example, a story about crime in your neighborhood this week and whether it has increased or decreased in relation to a month or a year ago.

Very, Very Snarky

Glenn Greenwald on Politico's Top 10 Political Scoops of 2008.

"I used to think the internet was an old wives' tale!"

This is some of what you have learned this semester. . . . .



h/t Sullivan

Golden Duke Nominees: Ads

Happy Festivus

Commence with the Airing of Grievances in comments. . . .

On Online Commentary and Political Debate

"Could We Uncover Watergate Today?"

From the WaPo:

Reporters working today on a story such as Watergate would be unlikely to be left relatively alone, along with their sources, for as long as Bob and Carl were. Now, from day one, the story would be all over the Internet, and hordes of reporters and bloggers would immediately join the chase. The story would become fodder for around-the-clock argument among the blowhards on cable television and the Internet. Opinion polls would be constantly stirring up and measuring the public's reaction.

So the conspiracy and the cover-up would unravel much more quickly -- and their political impact would probably be felt much sooner. Nixon was re-elected five months after the burglary in 1972, and Watergate was not much of an issue during the campaign. That would not happen today.

In an age when the media have been turned upside-down by the biggest shifts in audiences and economic models since the advent of television, my two biggest questions about whether we could still pursue a story like Watergate center on resources and verification. Many Americans, including opinion leaders in Washington and elsewhere, simply didn't or wouldn't believe The Washington Post's reporting about Watergate during its early months -- not until we were joined by the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS News, Judge John J. Sirica, the Senate Watergate committee and the special Watergate prosecutor.

In today's cacophonous media world, in which news, rumor, opinion and infotainment from every kind of source are jumbled together and often presented indiscriminately, how would such an improbable-sounding story ever get verified?

As newsrooms rapidly shrink, will they still have the resources, steadily amassed by newspapers since Watergate, for investigative reporting that takes months and even years of sustained work.

Thanks for Saying Nothing

Tesasers:

The paradox of this scene was that the Obama campaign’s communications strategy was predicated in part on an aggressive indifference to this insider set. Staff members were encouraged to ignore new Web sites like The Page, written by Time’s Mark Halperin, and Politico, both of which had gained instant cachet among the Washington smarty-pants set. “If Politico and Halperin say we’re winning, we’re losing,” Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, would repeat mantralike around headquarters. He said his least favorite words in the English language were, “I saw someone on cable say this. . . .”

. . . . . There was a sense among Obama’s communications team that not only did they have a gifted candidate to ride but also that they had figured out new ways to maximize their advantages. The campaign highlighted its mastery of new political media that included a vast database of e-mail addresses and an ability to quickly put up Web sites and use blogs, online video and text messaging. They viewed themselves as “game changers” (the 2008 cliché for innovators), avatars of a New Way organization that had more in common with a Silicon Valley start-up — think Google or YouTube — than with any traditional political campaign that came before it.

. . . . . In one semifamous vignette, Bush’s communications team was holding a quiet celebration in the Roosevelt Room a few days after his re-election in 2004. The president stopped by to thank everyone for their efforts and then singled out McClellan, his robotically on-message front man. “I want to especially thank Scotty,” the president said. “I want to thank Scotty for saying” — and he paused — “nothing.”

. . . . . .

In the course of the campaign, the Obama team showcased a number of new-media applications designed to project a sense of open-book communications to the public. They promoted the fact that the campaign made major announcements — like Obama’s selection of Biden — by communicating “directly” with voters who provided their e-mail and text addresses.

If Obama was attacked by a rival, the campaign would not just push back by traditional means (arguing their case with reporters) but also by putting up their own Web sites like fightthesmears.com. This allowed the campaign not only to defend itself but also to draw more coverage to how innovative and responsive it was. “You would get a press hit each time you’d roll out a Web site, which in itself became a narrative,” Sevugan said.

In recent weeks, the incoming president has begun delivering a weekly video address online — the Obama version of the traditional weekly radio address. Plouffe has initiated a kind of online suggestion box, where voters are invited to write in and discuss the issues they are most concerned about.

There has been much speculation about how the new administration might deploy the Obama campaign’s massive voter database. People have theorized that it could be a way for the White House to skirt the traditional media “filter,” just as Ronald Reagan — and in a different way, George W. Bush — would “go over the heads” of the Washington elite and speak directly to the people through televised news conferences or outlets like conservative talk radio. “The massive list of energized activists is the biggest stick Obama will carry in Washington,” the liberal blogger Ari Melber wrote on The Nation’s Web site. “It enables direct communication at a remarkable scale. . . . To put it another way, the list dwarfs the audience of all the nightly cable-news shows combined.”

Plouffe said the list could be used to invite grass-roots participation in government or to build support for the administration’s policies. “We’ll see whether it works or not,” he said. “It’s never been tried before.”

. . . .The idea that Obama has benefited from an extended journalistic valentine breeds great impatience from his advisers. They argue that good press follows naturally onto winning campaigns — and that the efforts of Clinton and McCain yielded deservedly bad press. “Part of our coverage ended up being better in both instances; we ended up running better campaigns,” Gibbs said. “We had a narrative that was probably better.”

Read the, as they say, whole thing.

Democracy & Inequality

The APSA Report I mentioned. Worth a read.

Question of the Day

Courtesy of the Washington Monthly:

If six media figures joining Democratic campaigns is proof that reporters are liberal, are seven loyal Bushies joining news outlets proof that major media outlets are conservative?

Timely as Tonight's Discussion

Yglesias on the paper paper.

UPDATE: From the New Yorker article Yglesias references:

Even now, papers often display a “not invented here” mentality, treating their sites as walled gardens, devoid of links to other news outlets. From a print perspective, that’s understandable: why would you advertise good work that’s being done elsewhere? But it’s an approach that makes no sense on the Web.

These mistakes have been undeniably costly, but they’re not the whole story. The peculiar fact about the current crisis is that even as big papers have become less profitable they’ve arguably become more popular. The blogosphere, much of which piggybacks on traditional journalism’s content, has magnified the reach of newspapers, and although papers now face far more scrutiny, this is a kind of backhanded compliment to their continued relevance. Usually, when an industry runs into the kind of trouble that Levitt was talking about, it’s because people are abandoning its products. But people don’t use the Times less than they did a decade ago. They use it more. The difference is that today they don’t have to pay for it. The real problem for newspapers, in other words, isn’t the Internet; it’s us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That’s a consumer’s dream, but eventually it’s going to collide with reality: if newspapers’ profits vanish, so will their product.

Does that mean newspapers are doomed? Not necessarily. There are many possible futures one can imagine for them, from becoming foundation-run nonprofits to relying on reader donations to that old standby the deep-pocketed patron. It’s even possible that a few papers will be able to earn enough money online to make the traditional ad-supported strategy work. But it would not be shocking if, sometime soon, there were big American cities that had no local newspaper; more important, we’re almost sure to see a sharp decline in the volume and variety of content that newspapers collectively produce. For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime—intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on—and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can’t last. Soon enough, we’re going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.

Yawning and Fuming

Sullivan and Greenwald gang up on The Media.

A Shout Out

to Right from the Left Coast. Read this before class tonight.

On Net Neutrality

Ruh-ro:

The celebrated openness of the Internet -- network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic -- is quietly losing powerful defenders.

Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.

At risk is a principle known as network neutrality: Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic the same -- nobody is supposed to jump the line.

Read the rest.

Online-Offline Communications

Good fodder for tomorrow's discussion, here.

Nominations are Open

for TPM's Golden Dukes Awards.  Perhaps some of you might want to offer nominations for Sleaziest Campaign Ad or Best Election Season Fib?

Post Mortem

from Nate.

UPDATE:  A very different kind of post mortem, on Obama's rhetoric and classical rhetorical tropes.

How Would We Know?

This is a very good question indeed, and worth our attention, perhaps both online and in class. As Steven writes, "does a front runner receive additional positive media coverage because of his front-runner status and how does this [a]ffect election coverage?" We might productively think of this as an effort to trace feedback effects. How would we go about it?

Gillmor Discussion Fodder

"Sometimes, the change is enough to make your head spin. This is one of those moments."

$750 Million

From the AP via TPM:

Barack Obama's presidential campaign raised $104 million in the weeks around Election Day, a grand finale to a successful bid that shattered fundraising records.

Overall, Obama raised nearly $750 million during his odyssey to the presidency, according to reports being filed with the Federal Election Commission. The reporting period covered Oct. 15 to Nov. 24.

The campaign said more than 1 million contributors donated during the period, with more than half donating for the first time. Throughout the campaign, more than 3.95 million contributors gave to the eventual president-elect, his campaign said.

The Democrat's fundraising and his spending eclipsed that of his Republican rival, John McCain. Obama was the first presidential candidate since the campaign finance reforms of the 1970s to raise private donations during the general election. McCain opted to accept public financing. That limited him to $84 million to spend from the beginning of September.

By comparison, Obama spent $315 million since Sept. 1, a huge disparity that McCain tried to narrow by relying on millions of dollars worth of help from the Republican National Committee.

. . . .

Overall, the institute found that Obama collected about 26 percent of his total haul from people who gave less than $200 — about the same as President George W. Bush did in his 2004 campaign, but less than Democrat Howard Dean's small-donor take of 38 percent in his unsuccessful primary bid that year.

And like other campaigns, Obama's relied for nearly half of its fundraising on big donors, those who gave $1,000 or more, a finding that "should make one think twice before describing small donors as the financial engine of the Obama campaign," the institute reported.

For Discussion Tonight

Jon Stewart Answers the Question

Will he be able to mock a Democratic administration and its press coverage?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

MSNBC Replaces Fox News

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Equal Opportunity Stupidity

The White House Press Corps: New administration, same pathology?

UPDATE: More here, confirming much of what we've been discussing about character-driven narratives in lieu of substantive analysis.

Final Exam -Draft Q

"Without examining the media, we cannot comprehend American politics."

Respond to this claim with particular (though not exclusive) attention to the 2008 election. Include an evaluation of how that actual performance comports with your normative vision of the role of media in a democratic polity, and suggest how we might bridge whatever gaps you identify between the ideal and the real.

Present your argument and analysis with links to sources, embedded images, and video; and support your claims by reference to materials we have read (including those that I have posted to this blog), viewed, and discussed over the course of the semester.

That is, make an argument and defend it.

Post your approximately 3,500-word response on your blog only between 9:45-10:00 PM on December 31.

POST comments in, er, Comments.

Final Exam

If you haven't already, go to The Lion's Den and weigh in on the final exam question. We'll discuss it a bit tonight, and try to finalize by Wednesday.