INDY

Cady Lang. Student at Ithaca College. I'm blogging for Jeff Cohen's Fall 2012 Special Topics Independent Media class.

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A preview of my potential independent media outlet, "The Catwalk to Campus"

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Hypothetical Investing!

The investments presented in class when we weren't discussing hedge funds or our yachts since we are obviously wealthy backers  made it difficult to pick one to invest in. However, I chose to invest in Matinee Munchies, as I feel that it will be very successful for a niche market - a market that will be very large, nonetheless. I think its premise was brilliant - how many people, NYC natives and tourists alike flock to Times Square to attempt to find a show that they can see either on or off-Broadway, only to be overwhelmed by the prices and the crowds? Matinee Munchies would provide them with not only the best deals and prices for tickets as well as information about the show and industry itself, but also with other related diversions, such as restaurants nearby. I also admired their plan to have reader submissions - this will create a dialogue and thus also drive up readership and provide real-life, real time credibility to the website (with appropriate moderation, of course.) I also think that it would be a lucrative investment due to its four-tiered revenue approach of advertising, subscriptions, a "tip jar" and an Amazon or personal store. I would definitely invest in Matinee Munchies, as I feel that it is both a relevant and lucrative  potential independent media outlet.

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Examining Public Broadcasting

A dangerous assumption to make about independent media is that because it operates independently of a corporation or the mainstream outlets, it will be reporting correctly. I know that I don't always turn my critical focus on the independent outlets that I read or view like I do for major networks or media producers; sometimes the reputation/legacy of independent outlets is enough to lull viewership into complacency. However, it is just as important to use discernment when engaging with independent media. Case in point: FAIR's 2006 report on PBS that showed the lack of diversity, balance and public on PBS' Newshour; the report showed that the programming was less diverse than ABC's Nightline, failing to provide "a true public-minded alternative to its corporate competition."

However, public broadcasting can be one of the strongest and most widely available forms of indy media; the key is improving the media and producing balanced, quality programming.

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Crusading for Jesus, Net Neutrality and Free Speech on the Internet

The Christian Coalition of America isn't what usually comes to mind when one thinks of net neutrality and free speech on the internet. However, this organization testified before a House committee on the importance of keeping free speech on the internet and the dangers of censorship. Citing examples such as Verizon blocking the text messages of pro-choice group, NARAL, the CCA voiced their support of the group's free speech rights, despite their differing views on the topic since censorship of any opinion could just as easily be applied to the differing view. 

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Cybersleaze: When Sensationalism Trumps Accuracy in the Media

One of the criticisms that blogging has received is its lack of gate keeping, which of course calls into question its credibility and accuracy. For independent conservative outlets, The Drudge Report and Breitbart.com, their lack of accuracy but influence in the world of media proved dangerous and even detrimental to their subjects. 

The Drudge Report, run by Matt Drudge, is notorious for breaking the Lewinsky/Clinton story. The report's accuracy was questioned due to The Drudge Report's sensationalistic tone and its independent status. However, in later years, the mainstream media capitalized on this sensationalism when Drudge also ran a story about the video of an Arkansas woman who claimed that Bill Clinton was the father of her son, but failed to address the truth about her claims, instead, focusing on the emotion of the woman and labeling the story as "developing." 

Breitbart, on the other hand, was responsible for taking down non-profit community organizing group acorn ACORN, when he posted heavily edited and misleading videos of conservative activists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles who entered Acorn offices portraying themselves as a concerned boyfriend and a prostitute trying to escape an abusive pimp. However, after editing, Giles and O'Keefe implicated that ACORN was giving advice to a prostitute and her pimp, changing the context completely. Through Breitbart, the video was vetted out to many mainstream media outlets, providing a field day for outlets like Fox. 

Although ACORN was later cleared and the truth revealed about the videos, the damage remained. Later, when Breitbart posted another heavily edited video about Shirley Sherrod of the USDA, appearing to be speaking on her own "reverse" racism, mainstream media outlets again capitalized on Breitbart's coverage, accepting his selective coverage as accurate.

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Tips for Young Journalists from David Cay Johnston

Unfortunately, since I've been feeling under the weather, I was unable to come to class when we had David Cay Johnston visit. However, I was able to attend the event tonight. Johnston is an investigative reporter who covers issues like taxing, accounting and business, and I believe, an excellent example of and "old school" investigative journalist. He began his career as a teenager at the San Jose Mercury News, working thought the ranks and later going on to work at the New York Times, and eventually to win a Pulitzer. From his address to Ithaca College students on behalf of SPJ, his advice to young journalists is as follows:

1. Take at least one class in statistics

2. Take an evaluation class

3. Read history

4. Open a real dictionary (paper, not digital) and read it all the time. Buy Strunk and White's style book. "No sentence should have any unnecessary words."

5. Take a class in business administration.

6. Write concisely, with verbs and then nouns, even less with adjectives and adverbs.

7. Sit in the front row.

8. Always think about the people that you are writing about; remember that they are human beings.

9. Have fun - "it's a lot of fun - not a lot of money, but it's a lot of fun."

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Of Transparency and Objectivity

In the ever-evolving world of media, blogging and online media have established themselves as the future of news. Blogging has always had a very personal connotation and as such, the approaches to credibility have changed as the news mediums have as well. Blogger David Weinberger has suggested that "Transparency is the new Objectivity." I have personally always believed that it is impossible to be truly and completely objective, without bias, so his suggestion of full disclosure appeals to me. News is now produced almost instantaneously, and as such it's important to acknowledge the process and the margin for error because of the speed and method used. I am also an advocate of the method of correction with blogging - showing the full history of the writing, using either a strikethrough, parentheses or annotations.

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Popular alternative band Radiohead is a great example of cutting out the middleman; after the band's contract with EMI ended, they championed a new model of music distribution for their album, In Rainbows - a sliding scale. Fans could opt to pay for the $80 deluxe set or the digital download at 99 cents a pop OR whatever they believed was a fair price for the album. Like many independent media outlets, Radiohead could successfully go independent because their was an audience for their product. By eliminating the middle man and asserting their independence, Radiohead has more creative liberties. Here's one of the most popular songs from the album, Reckoner.

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In class, we had a visitor; William Jacobson, a professor at Cornell University, also runs an extremely successful conservative blog, Legal Insurrection. Jacobson shared that he began the blog knowing little about the world of weblogs, but now blogs daily. 

One of the most interesting points of discussion that Jacobson touched upon during his visit to our class was the experimentation with revenue models; while he has found his blog to be economically successful through advertising sales, he stressed that we must account for the fact that content online has been generally free for the past two decades, which presents problems when trying to create content behind "locked gardens." The survival of the journalism industry and its future should be found elsewhere.

His advice for blogging included establishing relationships with other blogs, which can be helpful in increasing viewership and linking. Jacobson also noted that even though the blog is independent news, having mainstream media site link to you can not only boost readership, but can also reinforce credibility. He also suggested daily postings for new content, to keep readers tuning in for more.

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Arianna and AOL

I can vividly remember the day that Arianna Huffington sold The Huffington Post to AOL; it was my first year of college, and like any typical Park student, I turned to social media, where my peers were lamenting the "sell out" of one of the landmark popular independent media outlets. Huffington, a former Republican turned liberal darling, already faced criticism for being a "political sell out" and after the AOL sale, faced harsh criticism for her judgment in the decision.

The Huffington Post differed from its peers; its liberal, bloggy pieces, sprinkled with literally bold headlines and provocative photos were obviously not trying to appeal to a mainstream audience. Its writers weren't paid in money, but instead in viewership and publicity, which of course, has led to the criticisms of Huffington's millions of dollars of profit from the sale of a media outlet that was founded on writers writing without payment. It was an ironic twist, that a media outlet that stood for the independent left would be sold out for millions of dollars.

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With the changing face of journalism, media outlets are hardly making a profit, which means that nonprofit media outlets are definitely losing funds. This, of course, makes it somewhat necessary for them to utilize "handouts" according to writer Jack Shafer at Slate. 

He argues that the philanthropy behind these financial bailouts come with conditions; whereas mainstream, corporate outlets usually answer to the honchos at the top, nonprofit outlets must sometimes cater to the whims and desires of those who have generously given to their organizations. The need for "cause and effect" with this philanthropy can also present problems when philanthropists emphasize "influence" or "change" instead of revenue. 

While Shafer is hardly detracting from nonprofit media outlets, many of which are prominent, trustworthy and arguably, better than their mainstream or corporate equivalents, he is merely cautioning that nonprofit journalism should be just as carefully examined as other media forms.

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I CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGER?!?

Believe it or not, this photo and hundreds of others like it on humor weblog, Cheezburger, are much more than just  humorous memes - they're economic means, in fact, lucrative enough that one of the blog's co-founders, Erik Nakagawa, now devotes his time fully to the website. Readers come to see GIFs, videos, and of course the LOL CATZ with pidgin English captions. The blog is sustained by advertising, the value of which is increased by the fact that it is recognized as one of the most-linked-to blogs.

It's good to know that there are forms of revenue for independent outlets, even if they are featuring cats with silly captions.

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Half the Sky...and half the story...

Half the Sky, a documentary by NYT journalist Nicholas Kristof and journalist Sheryl WuDunn (who he's also married to) documents the oppression of women internationally, covering topics like female genital mutilation, rape and sex trafficking. I haven't read the book, but decided to watch the documentary on PBS. However, as I watched celebrities like Eva Mendes and Meg Ryan interact with the oppressed women on screen, I knew something felt off. Nicholas Kristof, throughout it all, also appeared as the white savior, "saving" these girls from helpless situations. 

The premise isn't bad; there's no doubt that these situations are oppressing these young women. But there was almost a level of exploitation and voyeurism in the way that the subject matter was handled and the narrative was constructed. Why did we bring in celebrities to "learn" about these girls' situations and to "help" them? Why were the words running on the bottom of the screen, "learn more about Eva's journey" as opposed to the rape victim that she was shown embracing? I understand that they are trying to raise awareness about these women's issues and perhaps they believe that they'll have a wider audience or higher ratings  if they use celebrities. But I can't help but feel like the stories were no longer about the women that survived horrific ordeals, but instead about how these Americans came in and helped, which just smacks of Western white imperialism/elitism. It somehow brought back to mind Three Cups of Tea or the Kony 2012/Invisible Children debacle - "doing good" should still be examined carefully, from actions to motives (which brings me to another point - what makes us more qualified to know how we - meaning Kristof, WuDunn and their celebrity friends and the US in general - should help these people when we aren't approaching it from their cultural standpoint or with the intention of staying there? The documentary moves from country to country. You can't just administer aid for a certain period of time and then leave and expect everything to be better - but this is probably a discussion for another time.)

And then I read this awesome post from Racialicious, a blog that offers critical commentary on race and media: http://www.racialicious.com/2012/10/08/your-women-are-oppressed-but-ours-are-awesome-how-nicholas-kristof-and-half-the-sky-use-women-against-each-other/

Incredible insight on how this documentary uses "us" and "them" to reinforce "the other" - if not deliberately, which makes it all the more tricky.

But anyways, to tie it back to Independent Media - all of the mainstream media outlets were praising this documentary, with few dissenters as far as the treatment of the subject matter and the subjects themselves. 

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One of my favorite things to do is have the radio on while I'm sleeping vegging out  doing homework; NPR and Slate (another one of my favorite independent media outlets) always have cool shows; this one is about the election and alleged liberal bias in the media. 

True, I mostly included that last one because it specifically addressed media, but I always try to listen to Slate's Double XX podcasts because they're AWESOME and offer alternative narratives on women's issues. This one is about Marissa Mayer's maternity leave (which is actually quite relevant to media because of the way that they covered her pregnancy, which would have been quite different if she had been a man. Gender binary and mainstream media, y'all!)

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Mother Jones, one of my favorite independent news sources, released video footage of Mitt Romney saying that 47% of Americans are dependent on the government and that "my job is not to worry about those people." He also said that "I'd have a better shot of winning this...It would be helpful to be Latino." Watch it for yourself! Then watch the second video here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/watch-full-secret-video-private-romney-fundraiser

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Colorlines and race in the media

I was very excited when I read on the syllabus that we would be examining Colorlines as a part of the Indy media curriculum because I had discovered it this summer when my friend was interning for them. As media consumers, and even more so as media producers, it's extremely important to look at media representation and narrative in the media. From the language used (for example, "illegal alien" versus "undocumented immigrant") to the perspectives covered, it's extremely important to provide inclusive media coverage. It's especially important to remain aware of it in contemporary times, when a popular belief is to be "colorblind," a dangerous thought process when institutional racism is still uncomfortably and very much apparent in everyday life.

I think that a great and not often examined example of this is the assumed hypodescension of President Obama. Colorlines had a very good reader's response on this: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/09/what_does_it_mean_for_black_america_when_obama_calls_himself_mixed_reader_forum.html