Media Rants: 2112 Recalls The Media

Media Rants

By Tony Palmeri

2112 Recalls the Media

From the June 2012 edition of The SCENE

On June 5th Wisconsin voters will make history. Will they recall Scott Walker and restore Wisconsin's lost reputation as a laboratoryfor democracy? Or will the forces of wealth and reactionary politics, dividers and conquerors spending millions propping up their point man Mr. Walker, buy another election? We'll soon see.

What will future historians say about Wisconsin’s corporate media Walker era performance? Transport your mind 100 years from now, to the dystopian world imagined in the rock band Rush’s classic “2112” album. In the epic title track, the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx control all information for a dumbed down populace. The song’s protagonist finds and learns to play an old guitar, but is angrily rejected by the Priests.  “Father Brown” (who I imagine looks a bit like Scott Walker) crushes the instrument.

In my version of 2112, the Priests of the Temple reflect fondly on ancient Wisconsin media of 2012, holding it up as a role model of how to discourage human beings from wondering how or why things happen. “The Media Priests of 2012 in Wisconsin told only enough to keep the rabble in line. They were Masters of Manufacturing Consent,” mused Father Brown.

In 2112 the SCENE exists as an underground communique’ for regime opponents. To avoid Temple Priest persecution, SCENE writers hide their identities by using pseudonyms. The 2112 Media Rants column is authored by “Seldes.” Seldes’ Media Rants column of June 2112 recalls the corporate media coverage of the 2012 Wisconsin recall movement:

By 2012 it had become clear that news media should meet three key responsibilities: establish the CONTEXT for public controversies, CALL OUT undemocratic actions of public officials, and take leadership in building a small-d democratic COMMUNITY. In Wisconsin in 2012 during the reign of Temple Priest hero Scott Walker, the corporate media failed spectacularly at all three.

Governor Scott Walker’s union busting Act 10, passed with limited public testimony, was put forth under the pretext of Wisconsin being “broke.” Instead of treating the core contextual issue of whether Wisconsin was “broke” as a question of fact to be resolved by rigorous journalistic investigation, corporate media treated the question as one that could not be reliably answered. Whether Wisconsin was broke was “in the eye of the beholder.”

The same pattern appeared when it came to calling out the undemocratic actions of public officials. Scott Walker remains the most extreme product of the “pay toplay” politics brought to the Badger State by Republican governor Thompson in the 1990s and then reinforced for many years by Republicans and Democrats alike. While occasionally lamenting the corrupting influence of Wisconsin’s broken campaign finance rules, major media failed to connect the dots and establish as FACT the hijacking of Wisconsin’s government by monied interests. The best reporting came from independent, nonpartisan groups.

Case in point: The Center For Media and Democracy (CMD), building on a foundation laid down earlier by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Common Cause, and others, exposed how the hyper corporate American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) exerted excessive public policy influence; ALEC model bills and budget provisions were at the core of the Walker legislative agenda. From 2008-2012 legislative ALEC members received $276,000 in campaign contributions from ALEC corporations, while Walker received $406,000 in the same time period. Corporate media in 2012 insisted on calling themselves government “watchdogs” at the same time leaving it to public interest groups to do meaningful watchdog investigations.

Most disturbing in 2012 concerned the media’s failure to stand up for democratic community values while simultaneously enabling divisive and antidemocratic politics. Governor Walker and his cohorts learned early that no amount of demonizing opponents, hardball politics, or convoluted spin could prod the corporate media bosses into saying “ENOUGH!” Some noteworthy examples:

*UW Madison history professor William Cronon wrote a New York Times opinion piece, “Wisconsin’s Radical Break,” comparing Walker to communist hunter Joe McCarthy (another Temple Priest favorite) in terms of both forgetting good government lessons of neighborliness, decency and mutual respect. Then in response to a Cronon blog post about ALEC, the Wisconsin Republican Party filed an open records request seeking access to his emails; a clear attempt to silence a critic.

*After Wisconsin citizens collected nearly a million signatures to launch recalls against the Governor and Lt. Governor, efforts were made to degrade signers in a disgusting display of antagonism toward basic citizenship rights. Not even theGannett Corporation, a behemoth self portrayed as a champion of First Amendment freedoms, could bring itself to stand up to the bullies and defend the basic right of their own employees to sign a petition.

*A video surfaced showing Governor Walker advocating a “divide and conquer” strategy to turn Wisconsin into a red state. And when he didn’t like the reports of job losses occurring on his watch, 3 weeks before the recall election he came out with a “more accurate” way of measuring job creation that could not be verified until 3 weeks after the election!

Since the reporting on these atrocities upset partisans on all sides, the corporate press concluded they must be doing something right. With 100 years of perspective, we now know conclusively that they did everything wrong, and paved the way for the stupefying Temple Priest Press we are now subject to in 2112.

Media Rants: A Presidential Debate Alternative

A Presidential Debate Alternative                                             

Media Rants by

Tony Palmeri 

from the May 2012 issue of The SCENE 

As a public speaking teacher, I appreciate televised presidential debates. Showing my students just 30 minutes from any one of the current campaign season’s panoply of Republican primary gabfests is a great lesson for them on what NOT to do: don’t pander to your audience, don’t show up unprepared, don’t respond to every question with tired talking points, don’t exaggerate your accomplishments, don’t pathetically pass off your partisan opinions as facts, don’t cheap shot your opponents, and don’t lie with statistics. Even better, don’t lie at all. 

As an American citizen, I despise televised presidential debates. Mainstream journalists don’t even pretend anymore that these tightly scripted affairs offer meaningful public policy clashes. Instead, the events provide opportunities for corporate media anointed “frontrunners” and “serious challengers” to lose that status, generally by getting flustered and/or losing the post-debate spin war. When a serious public policy clash does emerge, the result can be frightening.  Last September’s CNN/Tea Party Republican party debate featured audience members actually cheering the suggestion that an uninsured 30 year old accident victim should just be left to die. Not only was that excruciating to listen to, but it may have been the lowest point ever reached in the history of cable television. 

How to account for the decline of debate? The late media critic Marshall McLuhan famously argued that platform style political debating doesn’t work in the “cool” television medium. Others posit that major political party control of the debates restricts the participation of lesser known candidates who might challenge the stale arguments of the Democrats and Republicans. Add to that the fact that establishment candidates come ready to do nothing but spew poll driven blather and the result is a bizarre state of affairs in which we seem to know less about candidates after the debate. The debates provide few clues as to how a candidate might govern if elected. 

Even if modern debates were more substantive (like Lincoln v. Douglas), the candidate skills showcased really have little to do with the leadership qualities necessary for the 21^st century presidency. Debating is rooted in the idea of the president as a policy leader; an eloquent and wise advocate who artfully sways the Congress to support legislation that might benefit the people.  


The 21^st century president can and should be a policy leader, but that responsibility is dwarfed by the day to day demands of running a massive federal bureaucracy and managing daily crises. A video of George W. Bush being briefed by federal disaster officials shortly before the arrival of Hurricane Katrina revealed how utterly unprepared the president was to manage the crisis. His questions were minimal, and he seemed to think the officials were fishing for a pep talk instead of help in solving the problem of how to coordinate the local, state, and national disaster response teams. 

TV debates give us a slight sense of how a candidate might handle Katrina. But we could construct a televised small group leadership exercise  that would be much more instructive. Here’s my proposal: 


First, the candidate would be placed on a stage with trained actors role playing various cabinet officers. 

Second, the candidate would be presented with a hypothetical scenario. For example: “Tea Party and Occupy Wall St. factions are planning October 3^rd ‘Unite To Take Our Country Back’ rallies in hundreds of US cities. The FBI and Homeland Security have evidence the rallies might lead to mass violence between the factions and against local law enforcement. The FBI and Homeland Security want to formulate strategy with the White House, including the development of clear instructions for law enforcement at the local and state levels.” 

Third, the candidate would run a 60 minute meeting with the cabinet officers he or she thinks most crucial to dealing with such situations. The candidate could raise questions, ask for information, give direction, or anything else he or she might conceivably do if this were a real event. By the end of 60 minutes, the audience should have a good idea of the management style the candidate might bring to the White House. So as to minimize one upmanship, each meeting should be taped outside the presence of other candidates and broadcast at a later date. 

I can imagine many objections to my proposal, including how to ensure candor and whether it’s appropriate to simulate in public what would be private meetings if the candidate were elected president. Those objections are outweighed by the 21^st century requirement of knowing more about potential presidents than their exaggerated resumes and ability to mouth platitudes. 

Herman Cain’s interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board, in which he reveals a total inability to hold a coherent conversation about Libya, I think is a good example of what the debate alternative is aiming for. I’d simply replace the journalists with actors. If you consider the “journalists” that typically host the debates, having them replaced by actors really isn’t that much of a leap. 

Televised presidential debates have degenerated to the point where they should be called “Dancing with the Demagogues.” My alternative is not perfect, but at least it tries to develop a way of determining if a candidate can be trusted to manage the massive power of the modern presidency. 

Media Rants: The Other Media

The Other Media

Media Rants by Tony Palmeri 

from the April 2012 edition of THE SCENE 

In just its fifth year of existence the Fox Cities Book Festival is already arguably Wisconsin’s premier gathering of writers and readers. This year’s April 11-18 event gives us not just great authors, but also an April 13 fundraiser featuring the music of Cory Chisel along with Wisconsin’s first Poet Laureate Ellen Kort and Obvious Dog. See the website for details (www.foxcitiesbookfestival.org).

2012 happens to be the 50^th anniversary of some of the most influential nonfiction books in American history. The year 1962 saw the publication of landmark works in feminism (Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl), philosophy (Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), history (Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns ofAugust), economics (Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom), Americana (John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley: In Search of America), the environment (Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring) and social justice (Michael Harrington’s The Other America: Poverty in the United States).  Each work in its time inspired passionate discussion; most are still cited in contemporary academic and popular literature.

For political progressives, Silent Spring and The Other America are of special note because each had direct influence on public policy regarding environmental protection and poverty. Rachel Carson’s plea for restraint in chemical treatment of natural resources received a barrage of criticism from apologists for industrial pollution, yet the Kennedy Administration’s Science Advisory Committee assigned Carson and her book high marks. Though efforts to malign and misrepresent Carson never ceased and continue, virtually every positive step to protect the environment over the last 50 years can be linked to Silent Spring. The book literally started the environmental movement.

Harrington’s The Other America represents a rare example since World War II of a left leaning intellectual influencing White House public policy. John F. Kennedy was made aware of Harrington’s work through Dwight Macdonald’s extensive review in The New Yorker (Macdonald later wrote that “Between us, Mike Harrington and I made a difference”), while Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” has roots in The Other America. Johnson’s “Great Society” successes like Medicare, Medicaid, and Head Start would probably not have been passed absent critical public support mobilized in part by exposure to Harrington’s book and press coverage of it. While Harrington advocated substantial government intervention to ameliorate poverty, his major impact was simply to bring attention to the issue.

Poverty in America in 2012 is in some ways worse than 1962, especially in terms of the willingness of our so-called leaders to ignore it. According to the Census Bureau’s new “Supplemental Poverty Measure,” 100 million Americans (1 in 3) are poor or “near poor.” Despite the shocking numbers, neither of the two major political parties has on the table any serious anti-poverty measures; the issue will get scant attention even in this presidential election year. 

How to account for the lack of attention to poverty in America, especially to the idea that government might actually be able to help? Journalist BarbaraEhrenreich argues that the political right and many mainstream Democrats coopted and reframed Harrington’s “culture of poverty” thesis to justify the dismantling of programs designed to help the poor. Harrington biographer Maurice Isserman agrees and notes that during the last two decades of harsh attacks on the poor we’ve had “no Michael Harrington to answer the challenge.”

Douglass MacKinnon, who served as press secretary to former Republican Senator Bob Dole, recently released a memoir about his life growing up in abject poverty. He believes poverty’s not an issue because politicians just don’t care. In a New York Times op-ed he expresses anger at official Washington: “Not one elected official has gotten in touch with me to ask if I might want to discuss poverty, my experience and possible solutions.”

If MacKinnon’s right, leader apathy about poverty is a sad commentary in a country where elected officials pledge to “promote the general Welfare.” But I think there’s more to it than that. When Michael Harrington published his work in 1962, the fact that he had Socialist political leanings was almost irrelevant. Major media of the time opened up space for a serious discussion of poverty, and even conservatives like William F. Buckley gave Harrington’s book a hearing.

But today we rely on The Other Media for news and information. If LBJ and Harrington were around now, the story would be not that the President had read an important book and developed an anti-poverty program centered on it. Rather, the story would be Republicans alleging that the President’s poverty program was influenced by a radical Socialist intent on turning the United States into Europe.

Think I’m exaggerating? Consider 2009 when President Obama appointed Van Jones as Special Advisor for “Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation” at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Jones’ bestselling The Green Collar Economy is as close to a Harrington style social welfare manifesto that a modern president is likely to read. Yet due to The Other Media’s enabling of Obama critics, resulting in a fixation on Jones’ prior political affiliations and statements, the “green economy” ended up receiving little meaningful coverage and no visible public mandate.

Today’s problem is not a shortage of great books or ideas. The problem is a shortage of great media willing to open up space for reasoned discussion of ideas that challenge the status quo.

Tony Palmeri (tony@tonypalmeri.com) is a professor of Communication Studies at UW Oshkosh

Media on Soldier Responsibility: DON"T THINK

Note: This piece was submitted to the SCENE several days before chaos broke out in Afghanistan over the burning of the Koran. Glenn Greenwald provides the appropriate historical context for that chaos. Current events in Afghanistan are tragic, yet completely predictable given not only the history described by Greenwald, but also the courageous report written by Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis (and mostly minimized or censored by American corporate media). That report is discussed in the essay below. -TP

Media on Soldier Responsibility: DON’T THINK

Media Rants

By Tony Palmeri

from the March 2012 edition of The SCENE

Virtually all mainstream media news producers say they subscribe to a free marketplace of ideas model of free speech. The model says that on controversial issues, the public is best served by being presented with the widest possible range of reporting and commentary. From the clash of diverse views emerges a well-informed citizenry and better public policy.

What news producers say they subscribe to and what actually happens are two radically different things. For most issues the “free marketplace” of ideas features narrow presentations of establishment talking points, with the mainstream media often looking like a Chamber of Commerce newsletter. Engaged citizens find themselves forced to search elsewhere for wider discussions.

Given that the United States has been fighting two wars continuously since 2001, with horrific consequences for thousands of volunteer troops, millions of civilians abroad, and military families at home, you’d think the issue of soldier responsibility might be worth talking about. Yet on that issue the mainstream media rigidly reject the marketplace of ideas model and in the process end up sending the message most destructive to democracy: DON’T THINK.

I have in mind two messages not allowed into the marketplace: Ian Murphy’s “Fuck the Troops” blog post from 2008 and Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis’ recent “Truth, Lies, and Afghanistan” in the Armed Forces Journal. Murphy’s piece, perhaps easy to dismiss because of its George Carlinesque lite cursing and satire, argues that we shouldn’t blindly treat as heroes those who make the choice to fight unheroic wars. Murphy you may recall was the individual who impersonated billionaire Republican king maker David Koch and in that role recorded a conversation with Scott Walker confirming our worst fears about the guv’s contempt for political opponents. The GOP pounced on Murphy’s 2008 blog post in an attempt to deflate the phone recording’s impact and put on the defensive any Democrat caught cavorting with him.

Davis, an Army whistleblower putting his career at risk by speaking out, argues that pretty much everything we’re hearing from the generals about our “successes” in Afghanistan is a lie. For his efforts he could face an investigation by the Pentagon for possible “security violations” along with what looks like a smear campaign possibly coordinated with elements of the mainstream media.

In dramatically different ways Murphy and Davis remind us of the moral obligations of military personnel. Superior officers are obligated to tell the truth and direct subordinates to act lawfully. Subordinates are obligated to disobey unlawful orders. Civilian and uniformed military leaders would prefer we not introduce critical public discussions of the morality of our war engagements, a preference enabled by the corporate media establishment since the end of the Vietnam War.

What should a responsible corporate media do when confronted with controversial war commentary? Unless their goal is to be the capitalist equivalent of Pravda and Xinhua News Agency (official organs of the former Soviet and current Chinese ruling classes) they should at the very least urge citizens to READ and THINK ABOUT the issues raised by Murphy and Davis.

From what I had read and heard about Murphy’s blog post, I thought he was doing nothing more than cheering on the death of American soldiers; one person told me that Murphy “clearly sympathizes with anti-American terrorists.”  Then I actually read the entire piece, and I found this in it:

“As a society, we need to discard our blind deference to military service. There’s nothing admirable about volunteering to murder people. There’s nothing admirable about being rooked by obvious propaganda. There’s nothing admirable about doing what you’re told if what you’re told to do is terrible.”  In my experience, the people who most support statements like that are veterans who understand and appreciate the “new normal” that should have governed the military protocol of all nations after the post-World War II Nuremberg trials. What Murphy seems not to appreciate is the fact that the most principled, patriotic dissent against the Iraq War actually comes from soldiers, a fact that hardly reinforces his picture of “rubes” that “got what they asked for.”

Colonel Davis, who says he will get “nuked” for telling the truth about Afghanistan, seems determined to start a conversation about the war. The mainstream press doggedly refuses to facilitate that conversation. Writes Davis:

“When it comes to deciding what matters are worth plunging our nation into war and which are not, our senior leaders owe it to the nation and to the uniformed members to be candid,  graphically, if necessary, in telling them what’s at stake and how expensive potential success is likely to be. U.S. citizens and their elected representatives can decide if the risk to blood and treasure is worth it . . . our senior leaders have an obligation to tell Congress and American people the unvarnished truth and let the people decide what course of action to choose. That is the very essence of civilian control of the military. The American people deserve better than what they’ve gotten from their senior uniformed leaders over the last number of years. Simply telling the truth would be a good start.”

Rolling Stone published Davis’ entire report online. So at least one publication supports a marketplace of ideas not just in words, but in deeds.

Media Rants: Censored in 2011, Part 2

Censored in 2011, Part 2
Media Rants
By
Tony Palmeri
Last month I identified half of the top ten censored stories of 2010. They were: (10) Has Bradley Manning been tortured? (9) The “Invented” Peoples’ Nonviolent Political Prisoner, (8) Execution By Secret White House Committee, (7) Delaying Climate Action At Durban, (6) ALEC Exposed? Each story was underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored by corporate media in 2010.

And now the top 5.

No. 5: The Presidential Election Campaign. In December of last year Gallup released some fascinating poll results showing that 70% of Americans can’t wait for the presidential election campaign to be over. Many months before the Republicans will even choose a nominee to challenge Barack Obama, only 26% of Americans said they “can’t wait” for the presidential campaigns to begin.
Gallup attributes the lack of enthusiasm toward selecting the leader of the free world to several factors including the length of the campaigns, lack of trust in politicians, and dislike of negative ads. More significant, in my view, is the fact that mainstream media coverage of the presidential campaign features predominantly “horse race” journalism (?) concerned primarily with who’s up, who’s down, and “insider baseball” political strategy. Meaningful, substantive coverage of issues that matter to peoples’ lives and detailed analyses of candidates’ positions on them is marginalized or outright censored in most major media. Under such conditions of journalistic negligence, of course we can’t wait for the campaign to be over.

No. 4: The Death of PolitiFact. The late, great journalistic gadfly I.F. Stone said that "If you want to know about governments, all you have to know is two words, 'governments lie.'" Heirs of Stone were thus thrilled when the fact checking website PolitiFact a few years ago pledged to help citizens sort out truth and lies in public discourse. For obvious reasons, establishment politicians and pundits hated PolitiFact from the day it was launched. Sadly, in 2011 PolitiFact became part of the establishment and lost all credibility.

In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel runs a PolitiFact column. In a bizarre entry, MJS PolitiFact labeled as “false” Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Executive Director Mike McCabe’s claim made at Fighting BobFest that the state’s 2011- 2013 budget includes a "15 percent increase for road construction and yet we’ve got local towns tearing up pavement and putting down gravel because the money is steered to private contractors instead, not to the local road crews that work for the townships and for the county." McCabe’s response (not printed by MJS even though they did run Senator Ron Johnson’s objections to a PoltiFact column about him) adroitly exposed the hack work that went into the MJS column.

Worse, at the national level PolitiFact designated Democrats’ claim that the Republicans voted to end Medicare as the “lie of the year.” Caving in to pressure from the Republican establishment, PolitiFact accepted as true the absurd posturing of politicians like Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan that a vote to privatize Medicare somehow is not a vote to end it.

No. 3: Corporate Taxes and Lobbying. Reporting on the Occupy Wall Street movement usually frames occupiers’ claims regarding corporate privilege and greed as something debatable. We should not be surprised that corporate media have the backs of other corporations, but still it’s shocking how difficult it is for the major media to state the basic facts of our economy. Let’s give the International Business Times some credit for at least summarizing the results of a study by the nonpartisan Public Campaign: “By employing a plethora of tax-dodging techniques, 30 multi-million dollar American corporations expended more money lobbying Congress than they paid in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010, ultimately spending approximately $400,000 every day, including weekends, during that three-year period to lobby lawmakers and influence political elections.”

No. 2: Mining For Influence. In December Wisconsin’s Assembly Republicans introduced a sweeping bill to streamline mining regulations in the state. Virtually NONE of the mainstream reporting mentioned the special interest dollars flowing to key politicians (including Scott Walker) supporting the bill. As usual, it was left to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign to reveal the influence of out of state mining interests.

No. 1: Was Krugman Right About 9/11? Last year was the 10th anniversary of the horrible 9/11 attacks. In a blog post that led to former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld canceling his New York Times subscription, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman said in part: “What happened after 9/11, and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not, was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.”

Krugman’s post was met with the usual bluster from the Right, and even some on the Left thought Krugman’s timing was bad. But missing in almost all mainstream coverage was an attempt to answer a simple question: was/is Krugman right? Have the last ten really been “years of shame” for our country? To sweep that question under the rug is to allow shameful acts in the name of 9/11 to continue.

Media Rants: Censored in 2011, Part 1

Censored in 2011, Part 1
Media Rants

By Tony Palmeri

From the January 2012 edition of The SCENE 

In 2010 suicide ended the lives of 468 American soldiers, more than the 462 killed in combat. Project Censored’s Censored 2012 (Seven Stories Press) identifies the soldier suicide epidemic as the top censored story of 2011.

Since 1976 Project Censored has shed light on news stories "underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored in the United States.” The late Walter Cronkite once said that “Project Censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcasting outlets are practicing thorough and ethical journalism.”

Inspired by the Project, every year I dedicate two columns to what I see as the ten stories most censored. My focus is mostly on national and state issues. For readers wishing to keep track of stories marginalized and/or mangled by the mainstream media, I recommend: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (www.publicintegrity.org), Wisconsin Center For Investigative Journalism (www.wisconsinwatch.org), ProPublica (www.propublica.org), and World Public Opinion (www.worldpublicopinion.org).

And now the censored stories:

#10: Has Bradley Manning Been Tortured? Army soldier Bradley Manning was arrested in May of 2010 on suspicion of having leaked classified material to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. From July of 2010 until April of 2011, Manning was held in solitary confinement at the Marine Corp Brig in Quantico, VA. The US State Department regularly condemns human rights abuses in other lands, yet would not allow Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, to meet privately with Manning.

Manning’s treatment compelled classic rocker Graham Nash to record “Almost Gone (The Ballad of Bradley Manning).” He sings, “What I did was show some truth to the working man. What I did was blow the whistle and the games began . . . “

#9: The “Invented” Peoples’ Nonviolent Political Prisoner. Pandering and demagoguing on the campaign trail, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich recently claimed the Palestinians were an “invented” people. Anyone tempted to take the Newter seriously should become familiar with the case of Palestinian activist Abdallah Abu Rahmah. Amnesty International called him a “prisoner of conscience in jail solely for speaking out,” while the European Union said he’s a “human rights defender committed to nonviolent protest against the route of the Israeli separation barrier . . . The EU considers the route of the barrier where it is built on Palestinian land to be illegal.”

Rahmah, whose activities have been endorsed by South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, is very much like a Palestinian Martin Luther King. Only some pointed and principled questioning of American State Department bureaucrats by Associated Press reporter Matt Lee keeps Rahmah’s case from total censorship in the US.

#8: Execution by Secret White House Committee. Since 9/11/01 mainstream press coverage of [and editorializing about] the conduct of the war on terror has generally hovered between lame and lap doggish. Even when the facts of government excesses are reported, media fail to summon up the moxie necessary to provoke public outrage. Writing about the White House’s belief that it can place citizens on a “kill list,” Salon’s Glenn Greenwald communicates in a tone missing from the press most consumed by the masses:

“So a panel operating out of the White House, that meets in total secrecy, with no known law or rules governing what it can do or how it operates, is empowered to place American citizens on a list to be killed by the CIA, which (by some process nobody knows) eventually makes its way to the President, who is the final Decider.  It is difficult to describe the level of warped authoritarianism necessary to cause someone to lend their support to a twisted Star Chamber like that . . .”

#7: Delaying Climate Action At Durban. For a brief time in the late 90s and early 2000s, it looked like world leaders were ready to take global warming seriously. Though the United States and other major polluters failed to sign on to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, scientific consensus about the problem and global activism sparked hope that something might be done. Yet in Durban, South Africa last month, world leaders agreed to do next to nothing for the next 10 years. Kassie Siegel of the Climate Law Institute says “It's like planning to buy a fire truck in a few years while your house, and all of your neighbors' houses, are burning down.”

Global warming denial rhetoric has accomplished its major goal: delaying decisive action in the interest of corporate polluters (many of whom fund climate denial “experts.”).  Corporate media’s failure to frame this issue as one of literal planetary survival makes it that much more difficult for sensible policies to prevail.

#6: ALEC Exposed?: In 2011 the Center For Media and Democracy did yeoman’s work in revealing the sheer extent to which the corporate shills at the American Legislative Exchange Council have successfully hijacked representative government. The question is, why isn’t the mainstream media doing this work? Why aren’t there daily headlines, TV and radio packages, or online special reports alerting us to the many ways in which elected officials sacrifice our sovereignty to appease their corporate masters? The travesty of ALEC influence will never truly be exposed until mainstream press make them a name as common as Sheen or Kardashian.

Next month: The top 5 censored stories of 2011.

Media Rants: The 2011 TONY Awards

The 2011 TONY Awards 

Media Rants  

By

Tony Palmeri

from the December 2011 edition of THE SCENE

Every year Media Rants presents TONY Awards for outstanding communication in the public interest. In 2011 Wisconsinites made history, taking direct action to hold public officials accountable in ways not seen since the Vietnam War era. The Occupy Wall St. movement (now spread out nationally), along with Ohio voters’ resolute rejection of Republican Governor John Kasich’s union busting measures, followed the lead set by Badger State activism aimed at reining in Scott Walker. Citizen action was THE STORY of the year.

With few exceptions Wisconsin’s corporate media in its coverage of and editorializing about THE STORY failed to operate in the public interest. Big media’s addiction to what New York University’s Jay Rosen calls “the view from nowhere” and “he said, she said” journalism resulted in pathetic attempts to draw moral equivalencies between the protesters and the governor. The good news is that we’ve not been bamboozled: even after being fed generous portions of corporate media enabling of Mr. Walker, a November poll showed that 58% support his recall, including 24% of Republicans.

TONY Award recipients for 2011 all made meaningful contributions to THE STORY. When democracy and decency are eventually restored in Wisconsin, it will be because of the collective efforts of people of integrity determined to halt the backward slide of a state whose motto is “Forward.” That kind of determination can be found in this year’s TONY Award recipients. Drum roll please:

*Best Mainstream Report: Ben Jones’ “Under the Dome in the Wisconsin Capitol, Protesters Build A Community.” Mr. Jones’ piece appeared in the February 24, 2011 AppletonPost-Crescent. Instead of speculating about the protest motives or filling his story with irrelevant attacks from opponents in the name of “balance,” Jones simply told the truth about what he witnessed in the Capitol. Anyone wanting to know “what democracy looks like” should read this piece.

*Best Framing of THE STORY: Bill Lueders’ “Walker’s War.” Mr. Lueders’ piece appeared in the February 24, 2011 Madison Isthmus. In one of the most passionate pieces of writing I’ve ever read, Lueders more than any other pundit captured the real travesty of Mr. Walker’s policies: pitting of family members against each other: “What has been fomented in Wisconsin is a rupture among ourselves, one that will ensure acrimony and contention for many years, perhaps decades. The dispute will be not just between Walker and his tens of thousands of newly impassioned enemies, but between the state's citizens; worker against worker, neighbor against neighbor, family member against family member.” Lueders concludes correctly that “None of this was necessary, none of it is justified, and none of it can ever be forgiven or forgotten.”

*Best Investigative Report: The Center For Media And Democracy’s ALEC Exposed. In this thorough and disturbing report (go to alecexposed.org) CMD posits that “Through the corporate funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so called ‘model bills’ reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. Through ALEC, corporations have ‘a VOICE and a VOTE’ on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state.” Virtually every piece of major legislation emanating from the Walker Administration and GOP legislative majority has ALEC origins.

*Best Game Changer: Ian Murphy. An independent writer for the Buffalo Beast (buffalobeast.com), Mr. Murphy took on the persona of right wing billionaire David Koch and managed to get connection via phone to Scott Walker. Walker’s conversation with the person he thought was Koch represented a game changing moment in Wisconsin politics. When the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank listened to the call he heard in Walker an ‘unprincipled rigidity’ that sees politics as tribal blood sport featuring a ‘never-ending cycle of revenge killings.’” I’m generally not a fan of “gotcha!” politics, but Walker’s musings on the tape are so horrifyingly Nixonian that it’s difficult to get mad at the exposure method. Don’t be surprised if excerpts from the call figure prominently in recall election ads early next year.

*Best Independent Video: Sam Mayfield. In June Ms. Mayfield and her colleague Alex Noguera Garces were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for filming protests in the Capitol building. Ms. Mayfield deserves a wider audience not just because of the arrest event, but because she’s made some outstanding videos that give voice to all sides of THE STORY. Check them out at her “Sam Land” blog (http://samville.blogspot.com/).

*Best Speech: Michael Moore’s “America’s Not Broke.” On March 5^th, 2011 documentary film maker Michael Moore delivered a rousing speech in Madison. Understanding the meaning of THE STORY, Moore praised the citizen activists for arousing “a sleeping giant known as the working people of the United States of America.” He passionately pointed out that what’s broke is not America or Wisconsin, but “the moral compass of the rulers.” And he prodded the mainstream press to publicize one simple fact: “Just 400 Americans, 400, have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.”

In 2012 THE STORY will be the recall of Governor Scott Walker. We know that the mainstream media will not likely tell it in the public interest. Therefore we will continue to need TONY Award types to keep telling it like it is.
Previous TONY Award recipients can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Tony Palmeri (tony@tonypalmeri.com) is a Professor of Communication at UW Oshkosh

Media Rants: An Interview With Jay Heck

On Monday November 7^th from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at UW Oshkosh Reeve Union Ballroom 227C Common Cause in Wisconsin will sponsor a FREE public forum on “Whatever Happened to Good Government in Wisconsin?” I’ll be participating along with newly elected Democratic Senator Jessica King, Republican Representative Richard Spanbauer, WOSH News Director Jonathan Krause, UW Oshkosh Political Science Professor Jim Simmons, and Common Cause Executive Director Jay Heck.Oshkosh Northwestern Managing Editor Jim Fitzhenry will serve as moderator.

My November Media Rants column for The SCENE features an interview with Jay Heck. Here it is:

Jay Heck has served as Executive Director of CC/WI since 1995. He’s an outspoken advocate for “small d” democratic reforms that will empower citizens and make elected leaders accountable to the public interest. Always available to the media, Jay graciously answered a few questions for this column. Want to hear more from Jay? Come to the forum on November 7^th!

Media Rants: Has the US Supreme Court's Citizens United decision already had an impact on Wisconsin politics?

Jay Heck: The Supreme Court, in January of 2010, narrowly voted 5 to 4 to reverse over 100 years of precedent and settled law in order to open the flood gates and allow unlimited corporate, union and wealthy individual money to be utilized by outside, “independent” groups and organizations to influence elections at the federal and state level. Previously, there had been some restraints on this money. No longer. In Wisconsin it has meant an explosion in outside spending in our elections. This unlimited and largely undisclosed money overwhelmingly dominated the Wisconsin Supreme Court election earlier this year as well as the State Senate recall elections. Outside special interest group campaign spending was 4 or 5 times more than was spent by the candidates themselves.

Media Rants: What do you expect to see happen to Wisconsin elections as a result of the new Voter ID law?

Jay Heck: Wisconsin was once one of the easiest states in the nation in which to cast a ballot and was typically second only to Minnesota in voter turnout. We are now saddled with the most restrictive voter ID law in thenation. It will be easier to vote in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia than it will be in Wisconsin. The elderly, racial minorities, citizen with special needs and college students are the groups most severely affected by this new law because they are the groups least likely to possess the very narrow range of the forms of ID permitted. Voter turnout will most certainly fall across the state.

Media Rants: Our state Supreme Court has become a national joke, with justices involved literally in physical altercations with each other. Currently SC judges are elected for 10 year terms. Is it time to think about appointing them?

Jay Heck: Walker and the Republican majority in the Legislature repealed the “Impartial Justice” Law that was enacted into law less than two years ago. It provided full public financing to state Supreme Court candidates who agreed to abide by spending limits of $400,000 for their campaigns. Now, special interest campaign contributions will flow into the campaign coffers of court candidates and outside spending will blanket the airwaves with negative attack ads in even greater amounts than the $6 million that was spent in 2007, 2008 and 2011. We need to at least explore the possibility of whether or not a different system is better. It may be that merit selection of Supreme Court justices is not the way to go. But the current system in the aftermath of the repeal of the Impartial Justice law is clearly headed toward disaster. One thing is certain: the status quo cannot stand.

Media Rants: What's wrong with the way we redistrict legislative seats in Wisconsin? What would be a better way?

Jay Heck: Wisconsin’s current redistricting process is one of the most partisan and secretive in the nation. New congressional and legislative districts were drawn this year behind closed doors, with virtually no public input or inspection, and paid for with hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds to create new congressional districts less competitive and more partisan than ever before. Instead of allowing politicians to pick their voters we ought to do what Iowa does.  There, a nonpartisan state entity draws the new district boundaries every ten years (after the Census). The result is that there are many more competitive elections at the legislative and congressional level in Iowa than here and it costs taxpayers a fraction of what is spent in Wisconsin to make elections as noncompetitive and inconsequential as possible. 

Media Rants: Lots of citizens no longer recognize our state; they feel our politics are broken almost beyond repair. What advice to you have for them?

Jay Heck: The worst thing that any citizen can do is to disengage, throw up their hands and say it’s all hopeless. That is precisely what many special interest groups and politicians hope and work to make happen. That way they, and not the people, control the government. The better course of action is to get mad and get even! Engage, get involved, challenge those in power, create a fuss, make others uncomfortable, raise hell and make your voices heard. Loudly.  Citizens greatly underestimate their power. You have it. Use it. And you can start by attending the forum at UW-Oshkosh on November 7^th.  See you there!

Media Rants: Social Media Masks

This Media Rant went to press before the outbreak of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. That movement appears to be making great use of social media in the civic manner outlined in the Rant. It remains to be seen if OWS can or will result in an Egyptian style uprising right here in the USA. -TP

Social Media Masks

Media Rants

By Tony Palmeri  

from the October 2011 edition of the Fox Valley SCENE

New York University Professor of New Media ClayShirky argues that humans spend a trillion hours per year engaged in digital media creation and participation. That participation can be what Shirky calls “communal” (e.g. placing humorous photos on Twitter or Facebook largely for the benefit of online friends or followers) or “civic” (e.g. using digital media to coordinate political actions that benefit society at large.).

The ongoing revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa feature remarkable displays of civic digital media participation. Twitter, Facebook, texting, and other digital dynamics did not cause the toppling of corrupt, tyrannical governments in Tunisia and Egypt, but as noted by Internet pundit Stephen Balkam: “it is undeniable that the use of the web to organize and sustain many of the protests has been critical.”

In the United States, the disappearance of civic culture is well documented, depressing, and dangerous. Not surprisingly, Americans spend much time using social media for communal participation. As a moderately active Facebook and Twitter participant for more than a year, I’ve noticed that individual users create “personas” for their “friends” (Facebook) or “followers” (Twitter).  I’ll call these personas “Social Media Masks.” Here are the masks I’ve observed:

*The Self Promoter: Online or off, we’re all self promoters to some extent. There’s nothing inherently wrong with drawing attention to our professional and other accomplishments. In business and in the nonprofit world, survival often requires effective self promotion. On Twitter and Facebook, the most pathetic self promotion tends to come from politicians.  I read a tweet from a congressional candidate urging me to go to her website “to sign up or contribute and help send a bold, energetic leader to Congress!” Thank goodness politicians promote themselves that way; otherwise we might think they are “cowardly, lethargic followers.”

*The Mom and Dadzilla: The American family may be dysfunctional and in disarray, but you’d never know that if your only knowledge came from parental Facebook posts. In this my 50^th year of existence, thanks to FB I’ve seen more photos of happy children, more photos of happy children embraced by happy parents, and more photos of happy extended family gatherings than I had seen in my prior 49 years combined.

*The Town Crier: Unlike pure self promoters, town criers will announce events that may have nothing to do with them personally. In addition to promoting events, town criers are very good at forwarding useful  information to their friends and followers about everything from how to find out where to vote to who’s running the best happy hour special.

*The Court Jester: The court jesters think the world would be a better place if we would all just lighten up a little. If there’s an over the top “lolcat” (a photograph of a cat with a humorous text) somewhere on the web, the court jesters will pass it on. Some court jesters have a preference for vulgar comedic material, which often puts them at odds with the mom and dadzillas.

*The Hyperpartisan: Democratic and Republican Party zealots are obnoxious offline, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they’d be that way on the net too. The hyperpartisan will forward link after link of punditry, reporting, studies, and literally anything else that shows their side is right and the other wrong (although the hyperpartisan’s tone usually implies the other side is not just wrong but also evil and corrupt.). The problem with hyperpartisans of any stripe, online or offline, is that they are too predictable. They’re usually bereft of original thoughts and so it’s easy to dismiss them as nothing more than hacks. You watch: if and when America does experience an Egyptian style rebellion, the hyperpartisan hacks will be the first ones to defend the status quo against the citizen “mobs.”

*The Pedantic: Often wallowing in obscurity, pedantics seek to enlighten friends and followers with bits of insight and information not typically available in the mainstream media. On Twitter, which allows only 140 characters per post, the pedantic sometimes communicates in proverbs. African-American scholar/activist Cornel West’s twitter feed has elements of a modern Sermon on the Mount. On September 7^th he tweeted, “interrogate your hidden assumptions.” A few days later he opined, “If you’ve got your heart in your slingshot, you can bring down giants.” Hmmm.

*The Bob Grahamer: In 2003 then Florida Democratic Senator Bob Graham announced he would seek his party’s nomination for the presidency. The press revealed Graham’s obsessive journaling habits: “He has kept a running account of his every waking moment for the past 23 years; 14 in the Senate, eight in the Governor's mansion, even his days in the state legislature. Graham writes down every meal, every meeting, every person he meets.”  In the online world, a Bob Grahamer is someone who matches the former senator’s level of minutiae documentation but insists on posting it for all to see. You all know the type.

All of the social media masks described above represent media users in creative action. Professor Shirky says “the stupidest possible creative act is still a creative act.”  Using media to create is much better than the consumer, couch potato model of media use of the latter 20^th century. The 21^st century challenge is to turn the creative, purely communal social media masks into creative civic masks.