I started this blog in late December of last year after reading blogs by many others. I thought that perhaps I had something to say in addition to the papers, books and white papers that I had been writing for some almost fifty years. Hopefully a few readers have gained some insight. I modelled this blog after what I thought was the best in blogs I had seen, whether I agreed or disagreed. My rules for a blog entry generally take the following form.
1. Choose a topic of some current interest.
2. Select a basic premise for writing the blog, generally a single idea to be presented.
3. Use facts, primary sourced facts, as often as possible. I use the FEDs data base and other data bases.
4. Provide links to the facts. This is critical. If I use the FED then I provide the link. The NY Times is a typical abuser of this rule, they rarely if ever give a link to the fact set. They protect it as if it were their secret. In the Internet world the use of primary fact sets and the ready access to them is one of the cardinal rules of a good blog. Allow your reader to reproduce what you had done.
5. Analyze the data set and draw a clear conclusion. Typically the Government never provides a conclusion. However one can do so readily in a blog. Two examples come to mind. The first was the availability of HR 3200 the Health Care Bill. This allowed every person to read the words and comment accordingly. This was the fundamental mistake that the Democrats made, they allowed the taxpayers and voters to see ahead of time what they proposed. That is why Baucus and the cabal are hiding the next bill. Perhaps they think it will get a pass, don't count the chickens. A greater percent of people have read HR 3200 than members of Congress. The second one is the debt of the Government under the current administration as a percent of the GDP. We are on our way to 150% or more! That debt will destroy this country as we know it and it needs watching. The current Administration and Congress in general could care less. Our children and grandchildren will be paying and it will truly destroy the US as we know it.
6. Provide access to alternative views. There are differing views, and they should be taken into account. News is rarely even handed, the writer always has a bent. That is fine but from time to time let the reader know what the other side says.
7. Avoid ad hominem attacks. I use my name on everything I write. I stand behind what I say even though it is merely my opinion, albeit based upon verifiable facts. I have seen extreme ad hominem attacks from other bloggers, and they always keep their identity hidden. That I believe lacks in any integrity.
8. Clearly state your conclusion based upon the facts and use as simple a way to do so.
9. Form is as important as content. Number your logical development. Separate it spatially, make clear what you quote, and stay within the four walls of the copyright laws. "Fair Use" allows referenced quoting of a limited amount so as to make a contrasting or compelling point.
Now what does this have to say about the future of journalism. In a recent article in the Nation by Baker, the former head of PBS in New York, he tries to make the case that the Government should increase the support of public television and public news in general. He begins by stating:
"There's no doubt that news in America is in trouble. Of the 60,000 print journalists employed throughout the nation in 2001, at least 10,000 have lost their jobs, and last year alone newspaper circulation dropped by a precipitous 7 percent. Internet, network and cable news employ a dwindling population of reporters, not nearly enough to cover a country of 300 million people, much less keep up with events around the world. It is no longer safe to assume, as the authors of the Constitution did, that free-flowing news and information will always be available to America's voters. "
I argue just the opposite. With blogs and the like, especially if one follows most of the above, the reader can access the news in a much more open and productive manner. Unlike the Times and the Post one can go directly to the primary source, a web site in Beijing, one in Tehran, and the like, see what the words say. One can then reach their own conclusion. A single Times reporter in Moscow may not be as useful as multiple bloggers in all Russia. Blogging opens the world. I read thirty to fifty different newspapers on line in any week, from three dozen or more countries. I can read the FED reports, the Treasury reports, and the like, and go deeper into the data than any reporter. Reporters are trained, if one calls it that, in writing for a newspaper of television. Keep it general and keep it short. The truth is in the details and in the subtleties of what are not covered in the details.
Baker continues:
" Saving journalism might seem like an entirely new problem, but it's really just another version of one that Americans have solved many times before: how do we keep a vital public institution safe from the ups and downs of the economy? Private philanthropy and government support are the two best answers we have to this question. "
Journalism was never a public institution. It has always been an opinionated private endeavor. The time of Hearst and his war mongering were times of alternatives to Hearst as well. There is no alternative to a public newscast. hen I drive about New Hampshire all I can get is NPR. It is clear they have a slant and it is clear that most of the time I would disagree. There is no alternative voice and I still pay for it.
Baker continues:
"Better funding for All Things Considered on NPR or NewsHour on PBS will not turn either program into a propaganda outfit for the government. The BBC is not Pravda, and Japan and most of Europe, which have enjoyed extremely well-funded public media for decades, are not a network of totalitarian states. German public television, for example, is amply funded with revenue collected under the aegis of the central government but administered through a decentralized system designed to preserve regional independence. There are numerous democratic nations with public broadcasting systems that are both well funded by their central government and also well shielded from its political influence. "
The mere fact that he must say this is evidence that people in large numbers not only believe this but they have seen evidence of it. The BBC is British, we are in America, and we typically have been an aggressive supporter of freedom of the press and in today's world that means blogs and the like, whether you like them or not.
Baker then addresses the need in his mind for reporting on international events. He says:
"The Under-Told Stories Project (undertoldstories.org) is devoted to increasing public awareness of underreported international topics. The group is funded partly by sale of its stories, most of which end up on public television and radio, and partly by its institutional partner, Saint John's University ...
1. Choose a topic of some current interest.
2. Select a basic premise for writing the blog, generally a single idea to be presented.
3. Use facts, primary sourced facts, as often as possible. I use the FEDs data base and other data bases.
4. Provide links to the facts. This is critical. If I use the FED then I provide the link. The NY Times is a typical abuser of this rule, they rarely if ever give a link to the fact set. They protect it as if it were their secret. In the Internet world the use of primary fact sets and the ready access to them is one of the cardinal rules of a good blog. Allow your reader to reproduce what you had done.
5. Analyze the data set and draw a clear conclusion. Typically the Government never provides a conclusion. However one can do so readily in a blog. Two examples come to mind. The first was the availability of HR 3200 the Health Care Bill. This allowed every person to read the words and comment accordingly. This was the fundamental mistake that the Democrats made, they allowed the taxpayers and voters to see ahead of time what they proposed. That is why Baucus and the cabal are hiding the next bill. Perhaps they think it will get a pass, don't count the chickens. A greater percent of people have read HR 3200 than members of Congress. The second one is the debt of the Government under the current administration as a percent of the GDP. We are on our way to 150% or more! That debt will destroy this country as we know it and it needs watching. The current Administration and Congress in general could care less. Our children and grandchildren will be paying and it will truly destroy the US as we know it.
6. Provide access to alternative views. There are differing views, and they should be taken into account. News is rarely even handed, the writer always has a bent. That is fine but from time to time let the reader know what the other side says.
7. Avoid ad hominem attacks. I use my name on everything I write. I stand behind what I say even though it is merely my opinion, albeit based upon verifiable facts. I have seen extreme ad hominem attacks from other bloggers, and they always keep their identity hidden. That I believe lacks in any integrity.
8. Clearly state your conclusion based upon the facts and use as simple a way to do so.
9. Form is as important as content. Number your logical development. Separate it spatially, make clear what you quote, and stay within the four walls of the copyright laws. "Fair Use" allows referenced quoting of a limited amount so as to make a contrasting or compelling point.
Now what does this have to say about the future of journalism. In a recent article in the Nation by Baker, the former head of PBS in New York, he tries to make the case that the Government should increase the support of public television and public news in general. He begins by stating:
"There's no doubt that news in America is in trouble. Of the 60,000 print journalists employed throughout the nation in 2001, at least 10,000 have lost their jobs, and last year alone newspaper circulation dropped by a precipitous 7 percent. Internet, network and cable news employ a dwindling population of reporters, not nearly enough to cover a country of 300 million people, much less keep up with events around the world. It is no longer safe to assume, as the authors of the Constitution did, that free-flowing news and information will always be available to America's voters. "
I argue just the opposite. With blogs and the like, especially if one follows most of the above, the reader can access the news in a much more open and productive manner. Unlike the Times and the Post one can go directly to the primary source, a web site in Beijing, one in Tehran, and the like, see what the words say. One can then reach their own conclusion. A single Times reporter in Moscow may not be as useful as multiple bloggers in all Russia. Blogging opens the world. I read thirty to fifty different newspapers on line in any week, from three dozen or more countries. I can read the FED reports, the Treasury reports, and the like, and go deeper into the data than any reporter. Reporters are trained, if one calls it that, in writing for a newspaper of television. Keep it general and keep it short. The truth is in the details and in the subtleties of what are not covered in the details.
Baker continues:
" Saving journalism might seem like an entirely new problem, but it's really just another version of one that Americans have solved many times before: how do we keep a vital public institution safe from the ups and downs of the economy? Private philanthropy and government support are the two best answers we have to this question. "
Journalism was never a public institution. It has always been an opinionated private endeavor. The time of Hearst and his war mongering were times of alternatives to Hearst as well. There is no alternative to a public newscast. hen I drive about New Hampshire all I can get is NPR. It is clear they have a slant and it is clear that most of the time I would disagree. There is no alternative voice and I still pay for it.
Baker continues:
"Better funding for All Things Considered on NPR or NewsHour on PBS will not turn either program into a propaganda outfit for the government. The BBC is not Pravda, and Japan and most of Europe, which have enjoyed extremely well-funded public media for decades, are not a network of totalitarian states. German public television, for example, is amply funded with revenue collected under the aegis of the central government but administered through a decentralized system designed to preserve regional independence. There are numerous democratic nations with public broadcasting systems that are both well funded by their central government and also well shielded from its political influence. "
The mere fact that he must say this is evidence that people in large numbers not only believe this but they have seen evidence of it. The BBC is British, we are in America, and we typically have been an aggressive supporter of freedom of the press and in today's world that means blogs and the like, whether you like them or not.
Baker then addresses the need in his mind for reporting on international events. He says:
"The Under-Told Stories Project (undertoldstories.org) is devoted to increasing public awareness of underreported international topics. The group is funded partly by sale of its stories, most of which end up on public television and radio, and partly by its institutional partner, Saint John's University ...
... in an environment of diminishing opportunities for young journalists, the Under-Told Stories Project arranges internships. Ensuring that good reporting will be around in the long term is just as important as preserving what we have now, and the private, nonprofit media sector would do well to pursue it more vigorously....
Because such fledgling enterprises are potentially so valuable to the health of our media, they should be loudly and publicly encouraged at this stage, even though there will never be enough of them to solve the news crisis on their own. At Harvard's Hauser Center, I've launched a database of nonprofit news efforts (hausercenter.harvard.edu/medialist ). Many of the listed organizations are in the early stages of development, and now is the time when publicity and donations can make a decisive difference. I... But for a nation in the midst of a crippling news crisis, my list is still alarmingly short, and, as a potential replacement for our commercial media, it can never really be long enough."
Baker seems to believe that the classic journalist is the only solution and that the dying breed needs public support. Things change, the Internet has made a tremendous shift in reporting facts, not just the news. The news is digested facts with a fence keeping the reader away form the sources. The Internet eliminates that fence and opens the facts up to individual scrutiny. Again back to HR 3200, a unique example of millions of people reading a bill for themselves! The facts ultimately will rule, not the opinion of some journalist with an attitude.
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