Monthly Archives: November 2016

Facts, Bias, and Horse-Race Journalism

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I’ve been thinking a lot this election season about an argument from Peter Levine’s We Are the One’s We’ve Been Waiting For.

What if, instead of horse-race journalism where pundits try to predict who will win, our media environment was governed by “public journalism” or “civic journalism” – with reporters asking who should win?

This question seems to fly in the face of common understandings of “good” journalism. Good journalism should be neutral, non-biased, and fact based. By tackling an inherently biased question such as “who should win,” a journalist cannot possibly meet appropriate ethical standards.

Yet, that’s not an entirely accurate take on the situation.

I love quoting Bent Flyvbjerg’s modified proverb: “power is knowledge” – that is, as Flyvbjerg argues, those with power define what counts as knowledge and fundamentally shape reality with their power.

In Rationality and Power, Flyvbjerg meticulously documents how power shapes knowledge throughout the planning process for a new transit hub in Aalborg. The initial list of proposed sites indicates one as most promising, numerous studies confirm the promise of that site and the problems with other sites. Yet – that “promising” site was, in fact, pre-selected by elites and all the research in which that option naturally rises to the top as the best choice is carefully, artfully curated to ensure that decision.

In Power and Powerlessness, John Gaventa similarly argues that power shapes reality – as people in power get to choose not only what issues are addressed, but also what issues are raised.

Both Flyvbjerg and Gaventa warn about the invisibility of this power – in the most insidious, entrenched power structures, this subtle shaping of what does and does not count as knowledge goes largely unnoticed. It’s just taken as a giving that the issues talked about, and the framing given to them, are the factual, non-biased ways to address them.

And this is what is so dangerous about horse-race politics. It’s presented as neutral, but in fact, it’s not neutral at all. Every decision about what does or does not become part of the conversation shapes the electoral atmosphere. There is no neutral coverage.

Levine provides an example of an alternative approach: in the early 1900s, the Charlotte Observer dispensed with “horse race campaign coverage, that is, stories about how the campaigns were trying to win the election. Instead, the Observer convened representative citizens to choose issues for reporters to investigate and to draft questions that the candidates were asked to answer on the pages of the newspaper.”

In this way, political coverage responds to the interests and priorities of “the people” writ large, without devolving into a mess where no knowledge is taken fact leaving only “mere opinion.”

They may be other, and possibility better, approaches as well.

All I know is that now – one week away from the end of the 2016 Presidential Election – after all the coverage, all the ads, all the sound and fury that has gone on for months…I find myself wishing we’d spent just a little more time not asking who will win, but really examining: who should win?

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Fire and Frost: The Virtues of Treating Museums, Libraries and Archives as Commons

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This piece by Michael Peter Edson, is part of our celebration of the online release of Patterns of Commoning, an anthology of essays about notable commons from around the world. Edson's essay was originally published in the book, edited by me and Silke Helfrich and now freely accessible at patternsofcommoning.org. All chapters are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

 

Edson is a strategist and thought leader at the forefront of digital transformation in the cultural sector. Formerly with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., Edson is now Associate Director/Head of Digital at United Nations Live Museum for Humanity, Copenhagen, Denmark.  The opinions in this essay are his own.

By Michael Peter Edson

 

It was usually a note in the newspaper, a few pages back. Or, if the blaze was big enough and a camera crew arrived quickly, a feature on the evening news. It seems like house fires were more common when I was young, and the story was often the same: “As they escaped their burning home,” the newscaster would say, “they paused to save a single prized possession…” And it was always something sentimental – not jewelry or cash but a family photograph, a child’s drawing, a letter, a lock of hair. Ephemera by any measure, and yet as dear as life itself. Museums are simple places. Libraries and archives too. Collect, preserve, elucidate. Repeat forever. We don’t think about them until the smoke rises, but by then it’s usually too late.

When Hitler ordered the destruction of Warsaw in 1944, the army tried to set the national library – the Biblioteka Narodawa – on fire, but the flames smoldered.[1] It turns out that the collected memory of a civilization is surprisingly dense and hard to burn, so a special engineering team was brought in to cut chimneys in the roof and holes in the walls so the fire could get more air. Problem solved. Museums, libraries and archives are simple places, but once the flames take hold they burn like hell.

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building grassroots power in and beyond the election

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14650129_10208031620332641_5797710429391184777_nI’m speaking today at a Wellesley College event entitled “The People Take Over the Election: Building Grassroots Power in and Beyond the Election.” I think this will be my thesis: We must be organized to have power and to exercise it productively.

Only when you are organized can you seriously ask the question, “What should we do?” Without an organization, you can still ask, “What should I do?” but none of us can do all that much alone. We end up combatting climate change by changing our own lightbulbs, or addressing racism by trying to improve our private thoughts. These are not pointless strategies, but they are badly insufficient.

Without an organization, you can ask, “What should be done?” or “How should things be?” or “What should somebody else–often the government–do?” Those questions are too easy. (Carbon should be taxed; police should be overseen.) The hard part is figuring out how we can make those things happen. A habit of thinking only about what should be done encourages a spectator attitude toward politics.

People without organizations end up being represented by famous individuals–celebrities–who claim to speak for them and who claim mandates on the basis of their popularity. Celebrities have no incentives to address social problems; they gain their fame from their purely critical stance. And they owe no actual accountability to their fans, since no one (not even a passionate fan) expects a celebrity to deliver anything concrete. Donald Trump is unusual in that he has moved from a literal celebrity to a presidential nominee; but he still acts like a celebrity, and presumably he will return to being a pure mouthpiece once the election is over. Meanwhile, back at the grassroots level, a person who feels represented by celebrities is unlikely to talk productively with fellow citizens who disagree.

I mention Trump here because one important fact about his core constituency, White men without college degrees, is that they used to be organized, but that is no longer true. For instance, less than 6 percent of them are in unions. That’s an 80- or 90-percent decline* since the 1950s, and they are now less unionized than college grads are.

If you have no organizations behind you, you’ll typically feel powerless. If that’s how you feel, you are unlikely to want to participate in a difficult conversation, make sacrifices and tradeoffs, acknowledge any unfair advantages, or negotiate. Again, to use Trump voters as an example: they are overwhelmingly White, and it would be appropriate for them to acknowledge White privilege when issues of racial injustice arise. But I think they are very unlikely to acknowledge their own privilege, let alone agree to concessions, as long as their overwhelming experience is one of powerlessness. And I think they are powerless if they are unorganized and represented only by unaccountable celebrities. This implies, by the way, that one of the most important tasks confronting us today is organizing the White working class.

Organizations build what Charles Tilly named WUNC: worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment. For instance, the protesters now holding ground at Standing Rock are demonstrating that they have a right to be there (worthiness), that they stand together (unity), that there are a lot of them, with a lot of supporters around the world (numbers), and that they are willing to face violence (commitment). WUNC is a scarce but renewable asset for social movements. Poor and marginalized people all over the world have build WUNC and used it to change the world.

It may be that we can do without older forms of organizations, such as unions, grassroots-based political parties, and religious congregations, now that we have digital networks. I think the jury is still out on that question. Loose, voluntary networks of activists brought down the Egyptian government, but once those networked activists confronted the organized Muslim Brotherhood, they lost the election, and once the Muslim Brotherhood confronted the even better organized Army, they lost a bloody struggle for survival.

We need organizations during an election. It might appear that when it’s time to vote, each person can exercise power individually and privately. But that power is actually pretty trivial. Nate Silver currently gives Hillary Clinton a 99.8% chance of winning Massachusetts, which means that each vote here is close to irrelevant. What matters in an election is not your individual vote but your participation in organized efforts to change the whole discussion, the balance of power, and the outcome.

Campaigns are such efforts. The Clinton campaign will spend more than half a billion dollars to build and run an organization. But modern presidential campaigns are problematic organizations because they rely so much on wealthy donors, they spend their cash so heavily on propaganda, and they establish short-lived transactional relationships with their own voters. But they are still organizations, and their power reinforces the importance of building other kinds of organizations as well.

*not percentage-point, by the way.

Consejo de niños (Spanish)

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Case: Consejo de niños (Spanish)

Nov 2 '16
Author: 
JOSE LUIS FERNÁNDEZ MARTÍNEZ
The following is a suggested structure. We recommend users follow these headings to make it easier to compare and analyze entries. Problems and Purpose History Originating Entities and Funding Participant Selection Deliberation, Decisions, and Public Interaction Influence, Outcomes, and Effects Analysis and Lessons Learned Secondary Sources External Links Notes

the ethics of vote swaps

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David Iaconangelo writes, “this year is seeing a resurgence of vote-swap websites and apps that pair voters for a major-party candidate – in most cases, Democrats in blue states – with a third-party supporter living in a swing state. … Some find the tactic a little unsettling, even if it isn’t illegal or clearly unethical. ‘I’m a little conflicted,’ says Peter Levine, a political philosopher and associate dean at Tufts University’s College of Civic Life.”

As I say in the article, you’re not supposed to do anything as a quid pro quo for your vote. Swapping would seem to violate that principle. “On the other hand, the president is a national political figure, meaning the allocation of one’s vote across state lines might be considered a matter of personal choice. And if there’s no enforcement involved …, the deal might be little more than two people talking about how they’re going to vote, since the ballot is secret, anyway.”

I also note in the piece that we may have two different theories of what a vote is. On one view, it’s an instrument for getting the outcome you want. The point of our voting laws should be to ensure that everyone has the same influence. The Electoral College introduces inequality because only some states are competitive. If you can coordinate with someone in a different state to remove that obstacle, you are using your instrument more effectively.

On a different view, voting is partly an expressive civic act. Your vote won’t make a tangible difference in a presidential election anyway (with or without the Electoral College). But your vote is one way for you to belong to a community that governs itself–and not only by voting. You should vote in the community that you belong to.

I have a expressed a similarly nuanced opinion about where you should vote if you have a legal right to choose. For example, I support the right of college students to decide whether their residence is their college or their family’s home for the purpose of voting. However, it’s not obvious to me that they should (ethically) make that choice by deciding where their vote will count the most. Quite honestly, the differential impact of where you cast your single vote in a presidential race is microscopic. I think you should decide where you are a citizen in the full sense, and vote there.

How D&D-Journalism Partnerships Hold “Infinite Potential”

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Our media collaborations panel during the NCDD 2016 conference had the whole room buzzing. NCDD member Peggy Holman facilitated a conversation between accomplished journalists and conference participants on how the D&D field can create stronger partnerships with media makers, and we uncovered some very powerful possibilities for D&D-journalism collaborations.
One of the panelists was Chris Faraone of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, and he recently penned an article reflecting the conference and those possibilities. In it, he shared advice for how our field can bring them to fruition that we hope our members will take to heart, so we encourage you to read the piece from Chris below or to find the original version here.

Talk Kin: Where Journalism Meets Dialogue and Deliberation

“Where the heck have you all been my whole career?”

I found myself thinking and saying such things repeatedly at the National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, which was held outside of Boston two weeks ago. I only learned about the host group, the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), a few months earlier, but by the time its members came to Massachusetts for their biannual gathering I felt like I was meeting long-lost cousins.

Other realms cross over into media as well  –  from research and academia, to public relations, to technology and programming. But while several virtually simpatico professional alliances may lurk out there, the discovery of Dialogue & Deliberation  –  or simply D&D for the initiated  –  was particularly surprising and exciting. Comprised of voices from a wide range of fields, from life coaches and lawmakers to psychologists and social workers, they’re primarily communicators, and are therefore kin to any journo worth a damn.

The theme for NCDD 2016 was “Bridging Our Divide,” a timely guideline amidst so much partisan crossfire and political warfare, but also a reference to how the D&D community is ready to engage new partners and expand. In their welcome letter, NCDD Executive Director Sandy Heierbacher and Program Director Courtney Breese wrote that they hoped attendees would “take a systemic look at why so many initiatives in our field [D&D] are underfunded and under-reported,” and added that their intention for the weekend was to “provide an opportunity to build a new foundation of relationships … and create new momentum.”

Which is where I entered the picture. This year NCDD tapped Journalism That Matters, a nonprofit that convenes conversations (one of which inspired me to start the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism nearly two years ago) to foster collaboration, to help bridge individuals and outlets doing D&D with those involved with journalism.

According to JTM Executive Director Peggy Holman, “the engagement space is where journalists and communities intersect,” and after taking in the conference and participating in the final plenary which examined this topic, I’m happy to report that I believe there’s absolutely infinite potential in a D&D and journalism matrimony. I have no doubt that deliberation is an industry that I will write about, revisit, and consider for years to come; for now, here are my takeaways from the NCDD event neatly parsed into two sections: comments that I heard in last week’s sessions that are relevant to my reportorial experience, and ideas for how these fields can start co-functioning.

ENGAGED MINDS THINK ALIKE

“We need to take this work to a whole new level. There’s a need for media organizations that are tied to the community in a meaningful way.”

This is essentially the whole idea driving our nonprofit journalism model. Whereas many university-based incubators recruit staff from the top J schools and provide content to major outlets, BINJ proudly works with freelancers and even advocates from the communities we cover, and primarily publishes through local, independent, and ethnic news outlets. In short, we’re the kind of grassroots operation that has open arms for interesting collaborations.

“Build on what’s already happening. We need to get people where they already are.”

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. This was a major part of the idea behind BINJ, which is not a publication in and of itself but instead boosts and adds to other outlets. As it relates to how we can connect with various non-journalistic organizations, D&D or otherwise, my philosophy has always been to harness as much content from the real world as possible. If more reporters did that, if they actually left their desks, there would be less insultingly trite “think” pieces, and hopefully more articles featuring people who really know something.

“There’s a hunger out there not just to be heard, but to be engaged at a level that we haven’t seen before.”

Even I am getting tired of “engagement” growing into such a buzzword of late  –  it’s what journalists should be doing anyway, all day and all week, I can’t stress that enough. Similarly, D&D people may be miffed to see big media organizations getting credit for the kinds of interactive programs, public dialogues, and forums NCDD members have done for decades.

There’s a positive side to said trend as well though. At least from where I’m thinking. I come from the alternative media tradition where people are entrusted to report on situations in which they are stakeholders: women on feminist movements; people of color on civil rights issues; poor people on poverty; students on education. And so on. This is a point of pride, as well as a model on which budding D&D media makers can build in beginning to publish material.

“Learning relationships.”

This is just a phrase I heard a few times that resonated with me. Considering how bad reporters (including myself on occasion) can be at building with our sources, as opposed to simply prodding them for quotes, we can all use a reminder of how learning should be symbiotic.

“So that we can tell the world our story. So this work can get out in the public.”

This may be even easier than many dialogue specialists realize. Or maybe they realize that there are some awesome opportunities to get the word out about everything they’re doing, but feel as if there’s some kind of technological roadblock. I’ll address this more below, but there are no such impediments. All you need is time or hired guns, and every last critical deliberative note can be disseminated widely via social media and other channels.

LET’S GET IT STARTED

Consider journalists your friends.

Members of the media are potential pals and allies to the D&D world, or at least we should be. Furthermore, both groups can collaborate in certain cases, while in others hacks can demonstrate to NCDD members how to generate media, since opportunities for traditional coverage are dwindling. As some of my esteemed co-panelists at the D&D conference noted, it is increasingly a waste of time for nonprofits, for example, to hassle journalists for favorable ink.

Even if one does land an occasional story in a newspaper of record, that’s still unlikely to amount to more than a quick hit that’s soon forgotten. This may sound somewhat cliche, but in 2016 it’s more important to generate your own media than it is to send out press releases.

Get involved with local and community news organizations.

This goes back to that line I heard at NCDD: Build on what’s already happening. There may be existing opportunities in your area to get in the same room with reporters, or at least to get thinking like them  –  from Mediabistro meetups, to civic engagement events like those being held by more and more media outfits, from nonprofits to commercial ones. BINJ, for example, has a Community Advisory Board with representatives from various nonprofits and advocacy groups; though we don’t always agree with members, we have spurred instructive dialogue with all of them.

If none of the community, nonprofit, local, or alternative outlets in your area have a comparable mechanism for input, maybe D&D experts can help get something started.

Start chronicling your D&D work.

A lot of people in the D&D world are already doing reporting in some way  –  they’re just not always publishing the fruits of their hard work, or organizing assets in a fashion fit for mass consumption. Think of the possibilities though  –  from starting a podcast or a cable access show, to taping and transcribing certain dialogues to create oral histories.

The production of compelling content on a regular basis, even in micro-installments on social media, will require somebody with press savvy or even real newsroom experience to curate and edit. But as I noted on my panel at the NCDD conference, no matter who is making the media, it’s important that they stop thinking of the task as public relations, and start considering themselves storytellers.

You can find the original version of this piece by Chris Faraone of BINJ on Medium at www.medium.com/binj-reports/talk-kin-686f7f501427#.rlsrt0357.

Checking-in at Standing Rock

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For weeks I’ve seen little news snippets about the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), the 1,172-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline that would connect North Dakota to Illinois. While the project’s official website touts that construction will create jobs and “enable domestically produced light sweet crude oil from North Dakota to reach major refining markets in a more direct, cost-effective, safer and environmentally responsible manner,” DAPL comes with a lot of problems, too.

The underground pipeline – which “quietly received full regulatory permission” from Congress back in August – would pass through the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The tribe, along with environmental groups, have been protesting the pipeline since April. Their concerns are numerous and serious.

As the Atlantic reports, DAPL could threaten the tribe’s sole water source and “the pipeline will pass through and likely destroy Native burial sites and sacred places.” And if those concerns weren’t significant enough, the tribe didn’t have a voice in the process leading up to the pipeline’s approval.

Furthermore, federal and state attempts to break the protest have been reminiscent – at least to me – of the bad old days of of union busting. Reports of police with military equipment raiding camps and wounding civilian protestors have become common. Whether you agree with the protestors or not – military force is probably not the best way to resolve things.

And this brings me to what motivated me to write this post today.

As a busy grad student only vaguely aware of the world around me, I’d heard about DAPL but in all honesty, hadn’t really paid that much attention to it. I’d seen a few stories here and there – mostly complains about how the mainstream media wasn’t covering this story sufficiently.

Then yesterday, I saw an explosion of interest. Suddenly everyone was checking in to Standing Rock in solidarity with the DAPL protestors. The reasoning for this struck me as a little Mark-Zuckerberg-wants-to-steal-your-data-ish:

The Morton County Sherriff’s Department has been using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at Standing Rock in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps. So, Water Protectors are calling on EVERYONE to check in at Standing Rock, ND to overwhelm and confuse them. This is concrete action that can protect people putting their bodies and well-beings on the line that we can do without leaving our homes.

Hence all the check-ins.

Now, here’s the interesting thing: Snopes, the source of all knowledge when it comes to these things, reached out both to the Morton County Sherriff’s Department and to the protestors, ultimately listing the meme as “unproven.”

For it’s part, the Sherriff’s department strongly denied using Facebook check-ins as a tool for anything.

Meanwhile, protestors at Sacred Stone Camp said they did not originate the message, but that “there is no doubt that law enforcement comb social media for incriminating material and monitor communications.”

Finally, they added, “we support the tactic, and think it is a great way to express solidarity.”

It seems unlikely that the fake check-ins would actually serve the stated purpose – as Snopes points out, check-ins are voluntary and “if police were using geolocation tools based on mobile devices, remote check-ins would not confuse or overwhelm them” – but the message of solidarity has been loud.

I heard more about DAPL yesterday and from more people then I have the entire time the protest has been going on. The Facebook mention even got a quick mention on the morning news.

Whether or not the Sheriff’s department is using check-ins for targeting, they have been targeting protestors, a reality the possibly erroneous Facebook meme has brought to the fore.

We all know those fake messages about Facebook removing their privacy settings just won’t go away and however this Standing Rock check-in meme originated – it strikes me as a brilliant organizing move perfect suited for today’s digital environment.

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