Elections Blog

Soft Writing and Hard Times at the LA Times

By Catherine Seipp

I’ve been struck by the odd notion - reportedly run up the flagpole by David Geffen, a possible Los Angeles Times buyer - that the way to improve my favorite paper is to lure Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich and Alex Witchel from the New York Times out to Spring Street. Now that’s just crazy, because why should they go, when everything about them is so essentially New York?

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“Because the Internet is entirely made of private property, things like the First and Fourth Amendments do not necessarily apply.” Internet pioneer and current Chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Brad Templeton discusses how the Net does not give you the protections you might think you have, and the intricacies of copy-right control in the digital age.

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At the offices of the Washington Post, Roger L. Simon interviews Post columnist and White House gadfly Dana Milbank.

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In the latest installment of Pajamas Media Interviews Mainstream Media, Roger L. Simon talks with Chuck Todd, editor-in-chief of The Hotline, the Variety of politics.

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Onetime child actor but current Washington Times Editorial Page Editor Tony Blankley talks with onetime screenwriter but current Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon.

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In the first of a series - PAJAMAS MEDIA INTERVIEWS MAINSTREAM MEDIA - Michael Barone speaks with Roger L. Simon on the election, blogging and where the media is heading.

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And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it’s now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn’t make it any less dangerous.” from Jaron Lanier’s Digital Maoism.

Andrew Keen has lunch with Jaron Lanier, Web Visionary, to discuss the unfortunate effect of online mobs, the luminous life and tragic death of Alan Turing, the future of artificial intelligence and the dubious sexuality of Second Life avatars.

Play or download Jaron Lanier, Visionary. Interviewed by Andrew Keen.

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“The verdict in the case of France 2 versus Philippe Karsenty was announced just seconds after the session was convened. We—those of us who stood with the defendant–hardly knew what hit us. The words were so alien, after what we had thought was a highly civilized search for the truth, a fair trial.”

Nidra Poller on the disappointing conclusion to the French state media’s prosecution of a man accused of “insulting” the press by suggesting that they report the truth.

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By Catherine Seipp, Special Correspondent to PJM, Media

I have no idea whether the Los Angeles Times should cut even more staff positions or not. On the one hand is the odd notion that a 20% profit margin is somehow not enough. On the other hand is Times features columnist Al Martinez’s tirade the other week when he discovered blogs… and his remaining readers discovered that Martinez himself is still mysteriously occupying one of those coveted staff positions.

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When PJM learned last week that certain web sites were being blocked at the US Department of the Interior, we asked Baron Bodissey to take an up-close and personal look at what was going on. What he found does not increase trust in the transparency of big government —

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“The status system works on the theory that the more you’ve suffered, the more you’ve experienced, the more authentic you are.”– Po Bronson.

In this exclusive podcast with Pajamas media and culture correspondent Andrew Keen, Bronson talks about creativity, writing and how to make life tell you stories others can’t wait to read.

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Catherine Seipp looks back on the first 10 years of FOX, years that reshaped the cable news business: “I remember once I was at a media party here in L.A., and some guy from the lefty KPFK radio station, overhearing me mention the words “Fox News” in conversation with someone else, remarked: ‘I like you already!’ Why? ‘Because it’s great to hear someone slam Fox News.’”

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Google is more than the story of some misty, happy start-up. As long as mankind exists, we will now have a digital artifact of what we’ve looked for, and what we’ve found, and what we’ve interacted with. As the Internet swallows all other forms of communication, and all that becomes indexed and tracked, everything we do with it will become knowable, not known but knowable. That is a pretty profound shift in our culture. One that gets to the edge of science fiction. — John Battelle.

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“He’s really one wild, wacky paranoid guy. He makes Nixon look confident.”

If you don’t know quite what to make of Bill Clinton’s interview with Chris Wallace on Fox, Pamela of Atlas Shrugs will take you though it step by strange step.

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[In an essay exclusive to PJM NELSON ASCHER looks at the strange symbiotic relationship between the Mainstream Media and Non-Governmental Organziations and what it means to our lives.-ed.]

By NELSON ASCHER

Nobody trusts the government. The politicians are corrupt. The government is always lying to the people. It works against the people’s true interests and only promotes the selfish interests of its own members and their friends. Those in power invent scary threats to distract the public’s attention from their own wrongdoings.

No, I’m not talking about the US. Well, not exclusively at least. Everything I’ve just said has been repeated day in day out, for years and decades, by the papers and the electronic media wherever there’s anything resembling a free press. That’s the MSM’s real message in all democratic nations. Whatever else they talk about is secondary.

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Nidra Poller concludes her coverage … for now … of the Al-Dura Trial in Paris with a blow-by-blow account of the trial with analysis of the proceedings.
Paris 18 September 2006

Disclosure: I make no pretense to objectivity in my reports on this trial. Philippe Karsenty is a friend and colleague; we have often discussed this case that was brought against him but aimed at all of us who share a commitment to destroying the al-Dura blood libel.

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Catherine Seipp finds that NBC’s Sorkinesque “Studio 60″ is a drama about about a comedy about “Characters of proper liberal moral clarity making rousing speeches to each other while the swelling soundtrack tells viewers what to feel.” No laughtrack.

Conventional wisdom has it that Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” was a liberal fantasy about what the White House might have been with Martin Sheen’s fictional president in charge rather than Bill Clinton. But after watching “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” Sorkin’s new NBC drama about a “Saturday Night Live”-like comedy series, I suspect “The West Wing” was actually an Aaron Sorkin fantasy about the White House with Sorkin in charge rather than of Bill Clinton.

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Nidra Poller with a breaking report from the Al-Dura Trial
Paris 13 September 2006

Flash:
Here are my first impressions of the trial. A proper account will follow tomorrow.
The trial was beautiful, the Palais de Justice is beautiful with its aspiring architecture and gilded gates, it was a beautiful late summer evening in mid-September as we walked out of the Courthouse at 8:30 PM, exhausted and relieved. Richard Landes and I danced out of there singing Vive la France.

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Starting September 14, three Frenchmen go on trial in Paris for questioning the veracity of the 2000 videotape of the putative murder of Palestinian child Mohammed Al-Dura by Israeli soldiers. This tape - promulgated by the French state-run channel France 2 - is often credited with helping instigate the so-called “Al-Aqsa Intifada”. Now, six years later, in the shadow of revelations about media manipulation and “fauxtography” by Reuters and others, these trials take on extraordinary unexpected resonance. Not since the days of Alfred Dreyfus and Emile Zola has the French legal system been put to such a test on basic issues of racism and freedom of expression.

While the mainstream media largely ingnores this event, Pajamas Media is proud to present extensive coverage. We begin here with a stage-setting report from our Paris Editor Nidra Poller who will be attending the trials on our behalf.-ed.

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“In the United States today, five companies control the majority of all media revenue: Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Time-Warner, News Corporation…. From the standpoint of revenues, the Internet is the most consolidated media ever in the United States…. When you look at the revenue flow from the Internet it is all going into the pockets of Yahoo, Google, Reuters and the AP…. In the Blogosphere… we’ve got millions of blogs, but only a handful that are generating enough money to sustain the operations of those people that are producing them. And that revenue is ia direct function of their ability to actually crack through the Blogosphere and gain some visibility.” — Richard Landry

Just how do all the small circulation news and opinion magazines get on (some) news stands around the country? Richard Landry and the Independant Press Association have a lot to do with it.

Richard Landry is executive director of the Independent Press Association, a non-profit organization whose mission is to amplify the power of independent media so as to foster a more just, open, and democratic society. The IPA supports the growth and development of over 525 independent magazines, newspapers, and web sites throughout North America.

Play or download Richard Landry talks with Andrew Keen.

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