Ruminating Out Loud

Taibbi has two commentaries on the state of media viewed through the prism of the Palin Phenomenon: (1) Yes, Sarah, There is a Media Conspiracy and (2) “Sarah Palin, WWE Star.” Below is my take on the state of media environment

The danger of the current media climate is that there is no rational assessment of the merit and demerit of ideas and candidates. As Taibbi puts is accurately, the decision for coverage and the narrative that gets cultivated about what is being covered is dictated by interests that do not always have the good of the public and country at large at heart. Profit incentives have got quite out off hand to the point where the popular outlets have completely abandoned their responsibility as the fourth estate of this democracy. There is nothing that testifies to this more than the following apt critique from Jon Stewart.

The other danger is that not only there is not that much responsible journalism, but also it is becoming increasingly easier for folks to be immersed solely in propaganda that seeks to amplify their point of view than challenge it. This reinforcement of prejudice and narrow-mindedness makes for increased polarization of the population. You can watch the videos I posted recently at Voices of the Times.

That is not to say I am not guilty of similar tendency. I, however, would like to think that I am more amenable to reason and have been willing to entertain ideas from the other side that are more than reflexive objection. I don’t hold dogmatic views about policy. There are some clear cut issues which do not stand to reason. Such is the issue of whether Sarah Palin merits to be the leader of the free world. Sullivan has been doing an excellent job exposing her for the incompetent and fabricated political figure she is. That she can command this much attention and credence is a symptom of the unfortunate media climate that exists.

In my small and humble attempt at blogging, I have made attempts at pulling together information that is relevant and interesting. As far as politics is concerned, I admit there is a bias towards seeing Obama succeed and giving him the benefit of the doubt and believing that he has the acumen and wisdom to make good decisions that are beneficiary to the country. Some of these benefits may not be apparent in the near term or may not even result in political fortunes for him or his party at large. The sober and determined effort he continues to display at tackling big issues is what gives me confidence about him. I am, however, not a journalist by profession. As such, not bound by the professional obligation to act as a medium through which unfettered information is channeled to the masses with out the influence of my own personal opinion. Journalists have an awesome responsibility to get to the unvarnished truth and communicate to the masses. It is not clear that the majority are playing this role effectively. What passes for being effective these days is acting as a mouthpiece for the talking points of opposing sides with the claim of balance and without a critical attempt to get to the truth.

In the advent of social media there is probably hope for the Truth to bubble out to the surface with the help of citizen journalism. The barrier to mass communication has been significantly reduced thanks to the great equalizer that is the internet. However, until effective aggregation and synthesis of the vast amount of information generated is developed, most of it may continue to be damped into the null information with little chance of it becoming relevant and available for informed decision making.

Just watch. You’ll be amazed by the transformation that is taking place in the media landscape in such a short span of time with little fanfare or attention.

Granted it would be great to have a bill that will magically half the cost of health care, to the level other industrialized nations spend per capita, and still provide universal coverage. It would be great if we could simply control the exploding cost that is pacing to bankrupt our country. It would be great if we can ensure that a great nation like ours ensures that no single citizen is made to suffer for the lack of health care. It becomes quickly apparent that addressing all the issues concerning health care reform at once is no small matter in the current dysfunctional political and sensationalist media climate. As indicated in a previous post, I believe President Obama is poised to get a significant health care reform in place. Such a reform may not satisfy the aspiration of  liberals. It surely will not satisfy the conservatives who are bent on seeing him fail at the expense of what is best for the country or even those who oppose him on the grounds of principle. James Kwak gives a good synopsis of the coverage vs. costs balance that will be hard to strike in crafting a reform and expresses a similar sentiment as above by suggesting that even providing universal coverage will be a major achievement.

“Looking further down the road, though, perhaps a bill that provides universal coverage but falls short of “bending the curve” would still be a major achievement for the American people. Not only would it address one of the most embarrassing features of our society, but it would only increase the pressure to do something about costs. Today our health-care system adapts to rising costs by shifting the pain onto the unemployed and the poor. Universal coverage would make rising costs a shared national problem.”

My take on President Obama and his team’s  political skillfulness and dexterity have been documented, among others, here, here, and here. These previous postings had attempted to highlight the disconnect political punditocracy in the media and reality, which I believe have consistently resulted in the underestimation of the politician Barack Obama. In the latest episode of these events, these has been a cacophony of nay-saying directed at the recovery plans that are being put in place by the government. In their true form, the Obama Whitehorse has chosen to pick on some of the loudest voices and take them on with a laser-guided focus and attention. Here is Nate Silver’s take, who by the way has been one of the most reliable and prescient observers of the political process with a keen insight on trends, which most often fly under the radar of the media establishment until they have effected themselves into substantial political re-organization.

…The significance in all of this is not so much the particulars of any individual fight, but the willingness on the part of the White House to confront its critics directly, but picking and choosing the specific targets with forethought. The theme that has emerged, from the Rush Limbaugh dustup over “I want (Obama) to fail” on the stimulus plan, to Santelli’s CNBC rant, that the White House is rational and is empathetic to what is really going on in America — the phrase “Main Street” is uttered hundreds of times by Obama and his aides — and the critics are set up as some combination of ignorant, out of touch, non-suffering elitists who want craven political gain and not to do what’s right in a crisis.

When Obama first responded to Limbaugh, the reaction on cable news (I’m thinking of Chris Matthews in particular) was one of, “What’s Obama doing? Doesn’t he realize this just gives Limbaugh what he wants, elevates him to Obama’s equal? Isn’t that a bizarre miscalculation?” The way it’s always been done is, don’t give oxygen to your critics.

Well, the White House is clearly comfortable going after individuals as props, as foils, for its own arguments. It’s aligned with the brand of Obama as problem-solver-in-chief, calling out specific instances and individuals to say, hey look, see what I mean about a petty political culture? By keeping examples fresh, the White House is betting that Americans will side with it, and marginalize the “people who rant on cable television.”

In essence, tone implies substance. If you’re “ranting,” you have an agenda, you’re contributing to an unhelpful public policy climate. You might attract wide attention, as the Santelli incident did (Gibbs confessed he’d been watching it over the previous 24 hours on cable). By contrast, the highly popular Obama is seen as calm, thoughtful, nuanced and deliberate. Whereas Bill Clinton probably wouldn’t have been able to pull this personality contrast off (he was seen as more ebullient and combative in his personality), it works effectively for a popular Obama…”

For a revealing and informative comparision of demographic, geographic, and traffic data comparison of social networks, check out a post by Brian Chappell of Ignite Social Media. What I find to be interesting is how there are may players in this domain while almost all the attentions is always given to the few big winners.

Here is a presentation by faberNovel about Google that I found to be fascinating. There appears to be a paradigm shift in how information and connectivity is viewed in the new age. I find slide 24 to be particularly revealing. The comparison between traditional value creation, where businesses are created and focus on monetizing the individual information domains, and the network value creation, where the connection between the various services and information domains are the primary backbone of the business architecture. With the emergence of social media, broad distribution of internet access, and prevalence of mobile devices capable of connecting and communicating at all time, it only makes sense to focus on exploiting the the network effects arising from the interlinks between information and service domains.