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So Friday, MinnPost took some shit for running GOP Deputy Chair Michael Brodkorb's op-ed attacking DFL Sec'y O' State Mark Ritchie. Brodkorb's cudgel was a KSTP-TV report that showed Ritchie fumbling with his glasses and denying balloting problems like Martin Short's cig spokesman on the old Saturday Night Live.

Michael, who does the feral job of an attack dog well, has been milking this on Twitter for weeks. I laugh a little because this is a guy who would crawl over ground glass for Mary Kiffmeyer, by far the most partisan SOS Minnesota has had in memory. Michael's goal is to put someone as (or more) partisan in that office, and most people, watching the recount, know Ritchie was anything but a hack. But history can be re-written ... or re-edited.

So anyway, Mark Albert's KSTP report featured interviews with three election judges who said they weren't trained to doink absentee ballots if the ballots lacked signatures. I recognized two of the judges as ex-GOP candidates, which doesn't disqualify them but made me go hmm. (Albert shoulda disclosed that, for maximal fairness given the partisan consequences; don't know the third's affiliation.)

In the KSTP report, Minneapolis Interim Election Director Pat O'Connor (above) seemed to confirm Albert's thesis. But now, speaking to the dudes at The Uptake (who covered the recount far more than Albert) O'Connor calls bullshit by noting this wasn't the election judge's job. That's why they weren't trained to do it.

O'Connor - who, by the way, was NOT the city's election director during the recount (why didn't Albert use Cindy Reichert, who knew the deets but might not have advanced the attack?) - may be trying to undo some damage ... his bosses at City Hall can't have been happy with his KSTP appearance. And it does leave the question of, "OK, if not the election judges, why did the absentee ballot board fuck up?"

I didn't write about Albert's report for MinnPost, and maybe I should have. (I'm posting this here rather than there because I haven't talked to him, something I'd need to do for a professional, rather than personal, blog.)

When I was pondering whether to write about Albert's piece in the wake of his story, I did ask some Capitol reporters I know what they thought of it. The response was a collective "Meh" -- as loud as a "meh" can get. The consensus was, there was nothing new here; clearly ballot errors were made, which was acknowledged during the recount. The judges considered that quite publicly and ruled the fuck-ups not systemic or premediated. Shit happens, in other words.

Thanks to the Uptake folks for again performing journalism. Like I said, O'Connor's potential ass-covering has to be vetted (though he sounds credible here) and Albert needs to weigh in. We'll see if I want to go there post-Thanksgiving.

By the way, we're cooking the bird with the high-heat method. Highly recommended.

The new magazine company would, in theory, make it easy to buy print and electronic copies of publications like The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Esquire and Better Homes and Gardens from a single Web site. While mostly leaving the hardware to others, the alliance of competing publishers would develop software standards for magazine viewing on iPhones, BlackBerrys, e-book readers and other platforms, people with knowledge of the plans said.

Executives have talked about an iTunes model for magazines for months.

This is only going to work if 1) in addition to being able to buy an entire magazine, people also can buy individual articles (Just like you can buy individual songs on iTunes, not just entire albums); and 2) they price it LOW (How much are people going to be willing to pay for an individual article, which is typically read once? Not much, I'm guessing.)

The success of the iTunes model is separability of songs from albums and getting the price down to a reasonable amount that people will pay. Oh yeah, and an efficient buying/delivery model that works on a variety of devices.

“ ニューヨークタイムズが、毎日新聞の古田信二記者に記者クラブ廃止について意見を求めたところ、「万一誰かが記者会見場で焼身自殺を図ったとしたらどうしますか？誰がそれに対する責任をとるのでしょうか？」などとわけのわからないことを話していたことがわかった。 痛いテレビ - 毎日新聞古田信二「記者クラブを廃止すると、焼身自殺を防げない」

New Leaders in Japan Seek to End Cozy Ties to Press Clubs - NYTimes.com via kwout

A One-Word Comment Cost a School Employee His Job

A vulgar comment was made by a reader of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's website on Friday on an article about the strangest things you've ever eaten. The headline was practically asking for a juvenile response and, thanks to the anonymity of the internet, that's exactly what happened. In the comments section of the article, one user posted a single word response referring to a part of a woman's anatomy. Of course, the site's moderators quickly deleted the comment but it soon reappeared - obviously this juvenile was intent on having their say.

But this time, instead of just deleting the comment in question, the site's director of social media, Kurt Greenbaum, did a little sleuthing too. He found that the commenter's IP address was coming from a local school...and that's where this story starts to get interesting.

Read the rest of the story at readwriteweb.com

I've never commented publicly on the WTO shutdown in 1999. Late-night nostalgizing with trusted, drunken comrades does not count, and neither do broad assessments of political and tactical implications. I mean to say that I have never spoken in a public forum about my participation in the events, that is, about my personal experiences or analyses thereof. And I'm not starting now.

This year, November 30th will mark the 10 - year anniversary of another Novermber 30th, the one affectionately known as N30, or the Battle in Seattle. People are talking about that distant day, and about what it was like way-back-when-we-were, and about what has changed in the intervening years. Local, and even national, media outlets are offering competing commemorations, 3-part-series, re-interviews, 20/20-hindsight reckonings. Most of them are re-broadcasting the old archived recordings they made at the time. We knew then that the mainstream coverage sucked, and guess what? It hasn't gotten better with age. They're still trotting out the same tired tropes: property damage = violence, police "gone wild" (as though the behaviors they exhibited were somehow exceoptional in quality rather than just scale.) And now these reporters have that extra sheen of smugness provided by retrospection: 'where are all those radicals NOW?' they sneer, 'guess you've all settled down and accepted How Things Are.'

Earlier this week, I was asked by a radio reporter to provide an interview for her segment of the series 'WTO: Ten Years Later.' Her piece, airing tomorrow, means to probe the changes in protesting and policing that have occurred since, and because of, the Battle in Seattle. When I initially spoke with Ms. Reporter on the phone, I got the impression that she was looking for commentary and analysis on police and activist tactics. She seemed (don't they all?) to be well-informed and reasonable. She told me that she would be interviewing the "leader" of the Ruckus Society, as well as former police chief Norm Stamper, and possibly former mayor Paul Schell. We talked about meeting in a coffee shop or in my office, but she suggested it would be easiest if I came to her studio. (She suggested this without mentioning that she wanted me on mic, in the studio, being recorded. Not that it would have been surprising to learn, just that the omission later came to seem like an evasion.) I went to see her the following morning.

That night, I studied. I wanted to refresh my thinking on the subject, and to respond to the most recent analyses available. I read more than 200 pages of documents: academic papers, a RAND Corporation report, a few book chapters on netwars and the spread of non-hierarchical organizations, and a number of essays on the philosophical problems of defining terrorism and the state of exception. I wanted to be ready. I treated the occasion as I would a conference presentation or a debate.

I should have saved my time. We were barely sitting down for two minutes before it became painfully clear that the interview would be a farce. I came as an analyst, fancying myself an expert. The reporter was looking for human interest. She had no notes, no prepared questions, no provocative assertions to debate. She was pleased to learn that I had been a wee lass of 21 years when I started organizing for the WTO ministerial, and her narrative quickly emerged: young (read: naive) woman (read: naive) gets swept up in the romance of revolt, rides the whirlwind of events surrounding the WTO shutdown, tastes teargas, resolves to Do Good Things ForEVER, and promptly settles down to a work-within-the-system variety of comfortable bourgeois liberalism, thereby continuing her 'activism' in a sensible, constructive, adult way. She sometimes shakes her head in a twee and rueful way at her radical youth, but is firmly untroubled by her decision to be a respectable 'public interest' attorney.

Gag, right? A sampling of questions:

1. "So, are all your friends grown up and working for major corporations now?"

2. "I understand [from a third party] that you're attending law school. Do you consider your legal work to be an extension of your activism?"

3. "Would you consider yourself a protester today?"

My (unspoken, outraged) answers:

1: "No, bitch, they're imprisoned as terrorists, getting their doors kicked in by the FBI, hiding in exile outside of their homelands, living in fear of grand juries, impoverished, crippled, divided, AND STILL FUCKING FIGHTING."

2. "I'm going to law school for one reason: to increase my power. I've never been an 'activist.' "

3. "I also never considered myself a protester. You don't get it, do you? If the WTO shutdown was a PROTEST, you wouldn't even have mentioned it on your radio station, and you certainly wouldn't be thiniking about it ten years after the fact. Protests are also known as 'rallies' for a reason: they are essentially pep rallies. They provide people within a movement with the temporary euphoria of apparent camaraderie, some slight increase of visibility, and a consolidation of symbolism. A protest, in the contemporary arena of spectacle, is a theatrical event that serves to increase momentum and fortify group identification. It does not change the enemy. The WTO shutdown was not a protest, it was a mass action with a particular goal: to SHUT DOWN the ministerial. And it worked. So, no, thanks for asking, I don't consider myself a protester, now or then."

Under this barrage of banality, my rage simmering unexpressed, I had the acute awareness that anything I said could be snipped apart and stitched back together in completely distorted form. I stonewalled the reporter, telling her repeatedly that I was not interested in discussing my personal history. It became very clear, during the 30 minutes or so I spent at the radio station, that I had failed to evaluate my own motivations for granting an interview in the first place. As I sat there, I realized that my participation was sheer ego gratification. I had been flattered by the attentions of the reporter, by her insinuation that I was a credible witness, or even an unsung expert. The problem is, I don't actually have any authority from which to make statements about the WTO, policing, the militarized state, any of it. In her eyes, I have no authority at all. If I had wanted to establish credibility, I would have had to reveal facts and stories that I don't wish to reveal. It was a stalemate. As the reporter became angrier and angrier at my refusal to divulge any "personal anecdotes" from N30, or to frame my political engagement in the context of a come-to-Jesus redemption story, or to reveal anything at all about my "emotions," "life lessons," or "inspiring thoughts," she got nastier. Eventually, I was shown the door, and it was locked behind me with a resounding click.

Walking away, I was angry with myself for giving in to the temptation. I shouldn't have answered her call; I shouldn't have appeared in the studio; I shouldn't have consented to the manipulation that followed. As I walked further and faster, I became angry with the reporter, as well, for misrepresenting her purpose, for underestimating my clan, for belittling our efforts. But, as always, walking helped to clear my head. And I remembered some basic principles that were very clearly articulated duriing the heady days of 1999.

We don't talk to the media. We don't give interviews; we don't appear on television. When reporters call, we hang up. When reporters attend our public meetings, we take our business into private session. When reporters attend our private meetings, we eject them. It was simple then, and it's simple now: reporters are not your friends. Whatever mild sympathies they may feel for your ethical standpoint, they will never put those sympathies above the demands of their medium, their jobs, their purportedly 'neutral' position. If you are being interviewed, you are being manipulated.

That's why we made our own media. That's why there are Indymedia centers, even today, ten years later, all across the globe. That's why we broadcast pirate radio, and letterpressed broadsheets, and photocopied our own books, and hijacked newspaper boxes to distribute satirical editions of the local rags. That's why we communicated through graffiti and shortwave and hand signals and face-to-face whispers.

I understand that there are tactically legitimate moments to engage with, and use, the mainstream media. But let's not forget: those engagements must be rigorously proscribed and carefully managed. And they must be viewed instrumentally, as means to an end, and embarked upon only when the potential return outweighs the inherent risk. Don't talk to reporters because you want to Tell Your Story or Be Heard. Save your stories and your authentic voices for your comrades and allies - your enemies don't deserve them. They're only listening so they can hurt you later.

Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr...Can news orgs be everywhere?... This evening there was some buzz about Newsweek's Tumblr, after Nieman Lab tweeted about it. Its design is quite nice and it includes a lot of content that is curated...

Read the rest of the post here.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper urged journalists to "shine light into dark corners" of government affairs during a speech late Saturday, but wouldn't take questions from reporters covering the event.

Harper, who is known for his sometimes prickly relationship with parliamentary reporters, made the comments during an ethnic media awards dinner north of Toronto.

Freedom for Canadians goes hand-in-hand with journalistic freedom, he told the dinner guests gathered at Seneca College in Markham, home to thriving Asian communities.

Members of the ethnic press and their readers understand what it's like in countries where "truth is only what the state says it is" and journalists are co-opted as government mouthpieces or threatened with their lives, Harper said.

Things couldn't be more different here in Canada, he added.

"Our government does not tell journalists what to say, or attempt to intimidate those with whom it disagrees," he said.

"Instead we believe strongly that Canadians' freedom is enhanced when journalists are free to pursue the truth, to shine light into dark corners, and to assist the process of holding governments accountable."

Shortly after making the speech and handing out awards, Harper was whisked through the black curtains behind the stage without taking media questions.

The prime minister's staff said before the event, which was open to the media, that Harper would not be taking questions from reporters covering the event, which was organized by the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada.

© The Canadian Press, 2009

The very fact that the internet has exploded print media’s business model means that quality control is really all that traditional journalism has left.

Unless you're the News Corp, in which case you'll print any old shit.