ABC News Embraces Kubler-Ross Stage Five: Acceptance

"Media Convergence" starts with the death of "traditional media," which has been withering on the vine for a while now. The latest casualty is a big one - a huge chunk of ABC News.

It's not just layoffs due to the lousy economy. It's the simple fact that the news industry has held on to a business model and cost structure that hasn't worked well for years. I was struck by something ABC News honcho David Westin said in his memo to staff.

The memo listed several provisions of the news division's restructuring plan, including an expanded use of digital journalists (who both produce and shoot their own stories), the combination of weekday and weekend operations for both "Good Morning America" and "World News," and, at the newsmagazines and other long-form programming, "a more flexible blend of staff and freelancers."

"The time has come to anticipate change, rather than respond to it," Westin said in the memo.

Actually the time to anticipate, rather than respond to, change came about four years ago. But it's nice that the media is finally embracing the final stage of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief: acceptance. (I went through how the media grappled with the other four stages here.)

The good news is the industry can look to several business models to overcome its many problems. Here's something I wrote back in March, and it sounds somewhat similar to what Westin wrote yesterday. (of course, I'm not the only person writing stuff like this.)

...if you want to see the news network of the future, just look at Global Voices Online or Green Options today. These networks leverage resources (i.e., writers) that are already in the places old-school networks would establish bureaus. Most of these independent writers already have their own platforms - and since they're freelancers, they have the ability to shop their work to a number of outlets at once. Right now it may seem weird to think you'd see the same reporter working for multiple papers or networks. But I follow the reporters I think do the best work, just as I look to specific bloggers who demonstrate their expertise in certain subjects. You could still have one network send a particular reporter to, say, a war zone and pay their way for exclusive content. But getting paid by the job might work best for both sides.

This business model would still be ad-driven, I think. I like the pro publica idea but it's limited to the resources of the foundation community. BBC is also an interesting model but difficult to justify in the US.

I'd argue that my pals at Live Oak Media are probably a better example today than Green Options, but I contribute there so take it with a grain of salt. And I readily acknowledge the ad-driven model has limitations, but we've already seen how paywalls fail.

I also think the news industry is ignoring a very important resource and process - business incubation. Non-profit media relies quite a bit on foundations; those foundations are not going to fund organizations forever. But if a few foundations got together to establish a virtual business incubator for the journalism industry, with a path toward "graduation" and profitability for fledgling news companies, we'd probably develop a few business models that worked.

Facebook: Still Afraid of Nipples.

So my wife let me know about a group on Facebook called "If breastfeeding offends you, put a blanket over YOUR head!" She mentioned that a number of these group members still see Facebook remove pictures of them breastfeeding.

Everybody loves Facebook. Everybody uses Facebook. And sure, it's useful and fun and spiffy and 400 million people and climbing and all that. But this is an issue I've followed for a while now.

Facebook will tell you that they host thousands of pictures of moms breastfeeding their children, and they're right. And I think it's fair to say they've gotten a little better about this. But apparently someone there still feels that partial nipple exposure in a breastfeeding pic = porn. And that's just stupid.

And again, Facebook continues to host pro-anorexia groups on its network, even though now they try to disguise themselves or insist they're about something else. Yes, Facebook is doing a better job about this, and yes, there are many more "stop pro-ana on Facebook" groups than there were.

But let's be clear - pro-ana groups are harmful and that violates Facebook's Terms of Service. And taking action to prevent people from encouraging breastfeeding - you know, like banning pictures of breastfeeding because they're "dirty" - is also a very bad idea.

Ah, but what's ok to put on Facebook? How about the Big Boobs application and fan page with over 53,000 active users, where you can talk about your favorite porn stars and such? You know, because I'd love my wife to read my Facebook Status, "David Wescott just became a fan of Big Boobs." Of course, there are countless other groups, and pictures, and all sorts of things like that.

So, to sum up, here's the de facto Facebook TOS:

1. breastfeeding pic = OK
2. breastfeeding pic that has 1 pixel of nipple = banned, you know, because that's obscene
   
3. pro-ana = sorta not OK, but we still tolerate it sometimes
4. big boobs = totally OK, as long as the nipples are covered.
   

So PLEASE, Facebook, and whoever keeps objecting to nipples in bf pics - just remember what my wife also reminded me - breastfeeding was good enough for the baby Jesus.

We call this "mainstream crossover"

My last post talked about how bloggers are really influential - notice blogger John Aravosis in the video below. Yes, that's CNN. Yes, he's wearing a suit and tie and not pajamas with cheetoh crumbs stuck in them. Note the little back and forth between Howie Kurtz and John Aravosis at the end.



Just a reminder to all of you - a conversation with a group of bloggers is ON THE RECORD. Yes, the White House laid the ground rules for the meeting and said it was on the record, but just sayin' is all.

Bloggers to WH: We're Not Gunga Din

OK, so kudos to the White House for inviting a small handful of progressive political bloggers to meet with Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to Vice President Biden. It's not every day that bloggers get to do that - actually, it's not everyday that ANYONE gets to do that - so it's good to see that the Administration has a basic understanding of the important role bloggers play in politics.

But I was more than a bit surprised at the message some of the bloggers came away with from Bernstein - apparently liberal bloggers aren't carrying the Administration's water enough when it comes to talking about the stimulus package they signed into law last year.

I wasn't there - but here's what Erin Kotecki Vest at BlogHer had to say about it:

...I also walked away feeling the message we were supposed to leave with was this: It's our duty as bloggers to help sell YOU on the stimulus. Bernstein wanted to know where the positive blog posts were on the great things the Recovery Act was doing.

This is where I let out a heavy sigh and curse the DC machine that seems to have sucked the souls of many.

How am I supposed to blog these awesome stats (and there really are some good ones) on how we're on the road to recovery when all I have are "seed" projects that don't kick in for years and years and things that haven't, necessarily, trickled down to my family, your family, our lives?

And Americablog's John Aravosis, a longtime friend who supported candidate Obama fairly early in the primaries, had this to say:

...The only reason we're facing a budget constraint is because we gave in on the political constraint. We permitted Republicans to spin the first stimulus as an abysmal failure, when in fact it created or saved up to 2m jobs. Since Democrats didn't adequately defend the stimulus, and didn't sufficiently paint the deficit as the Republicans' doing, we now are not "politically" permitted to have a larger stimulus because the fiscal constraint has become more important than economic recovery.

And whose fault is that?

Apparently ours.

Bernstein said that the progressive blogs (perhaps he said progressive media in general) haven't done enough over the past year to tell the positive side of the stimulus.

Well. Where to start.

First of all, if the Administration isn't happy with the way the stimulus bill has been "sold" to the public, they should probably look in the mirror. But let's just say dressing down a blogger for not cheering hard enough isn't my idea of an effective outreach strategy.

See, John Aravosis isn't just an influential and passionate blogger. John gets invited to appear on television a lot, because he's smart and pithy and aggressive. John has dozens of contacts on Capitol Hill. And John has raised more than $40,000 for the Obama campaign, and thousands upon thousands more for Congressional candidates nationwide. There's simply no way Jared Bernstein would walk up to someone who ISN'T a blogger but has raised tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrats and scold him for not being a big enough cheerleader. Bernstein would instead thank the fundraiser for the support and explain, in specific terms, how his boss was going to follow up on the promises he made.

This is the difference people miss about social media, particularly in Democratic politics. Bloggers aren't simply "media," unbiased or otherwise. They're activists. They're fundraisers. They're the base. Remember the "contributions cloud" I put together for Senator Hagan last week?

See that ridiculously big "ActBlue" right there? That's how Democrats finance campaigns today. Through the Internet. It's bloggers like John who direct readers to send big gobs of money to candidates, through ActBlue. All those little dots represent the small amounts of money raised from more "traditional" sources when compared to ActBlue.

I don't know how (or if) Erin Kotecki Vest raised money for candidates, but I know dozens if not hundreds of top-tier commercial brands are constantly knocking on her virtual door, asking her to review products, mention particular names, and so on. She's enormously influential among online moms. She's also part of the Democratic base. And let's be clear: a big chunk of the Democratic base is very disappointed in the Obama Administration right now.

Jared Bernstein needs to understand something. Meetings at the White House are nice, and it's good that he's doing them. But as politics is practiced these days, bloggers don't work for him.

He works for them.

Haiti Speaks - Who Listens?

It's now more than a month since a horrific earthquake killed almost a quarter million people and displaced thousands more in Haiti. Arguably this is when we truly learn about the amazing resilience of the human spirit, because this is when the shock has worn off, most of the global mainstream media has left, and crisis responders have other crises to address.

It's a bit of a shame, really - while it's somewhat understandable that the world's attention is focusing elsewhere, there are amazing stories of perseverance and inspiration being told. Perhaps more importantly, Haitians are telling the stories themselves.

I've sung their praises countless times before, but Global Voices Online deserves so much credit and respect for bringing these personal stories from citizen journalists forward. I make special note of a recent post by Fabienne Flessel that looked at how Haitians were celebrating Valentine's Day this year.

GVO's commitment to this story and to covering it from the perspectives of those living it is unique among "professional" media, yet amazingly common in the world of social media. Something for communications "pro's" like me to keep in mind.

Earth & Industry's Gang of Four - Lighting an Eco-friendly Candle

It's been said it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness. I don't recall seeing anything about a candle's carbon footprint, though...

Those who subscribe to the Earth and Industry Radio "Gang of Four" podcast on iTunes (yes, you can subscribe here) may have heard us take a not-so-upbeat tone in a recent "2010 Predictions" episode. So we thought we'd try to get back to our positive nature and suggest some things environmentalists can do to regain momentum when it comes to sentiment on climate change.

I think it's worth a listen - Jeff, Maria and Tim are really smart.

The Contributions Cloud

It's well established I have a thing for text clouds (and wordle) - particularly in a political context. Cloud generators are neat tools - but if you know how to apply those tools you can generate some interesting questions. I first learned about the idea on Americablog, when I saw a cloud of a State Of the Union Address. Since then I've used cloud generators to compare speeches between different political figures, and even to compare groups of bloggers in different online communities.

But what if you could use a cloud generator to measure influence - not only in a specific conversation, but in a series of political decisions? If you believe that political contributions have some semblance of influence on a politician, and you believe that the more one contributes the more influence one has, a cloud generator might be an interesting tool. I decided to give it a try. Again, I should stress that I use clouds to generate and guide questions, not necessarily conclusions. Here's what I did:

1) I went to opensecrets.org to get the "top 20" campaign contributors for the most recent campaign cycle available for my two Senators - Richard Burr and Kay Hagan. (I'm not trying to make a political statement. Readers may recall I used them as examples in my idea for C-SPAN.)

2) I went to wordle and for every $1000 donated I entered the name of the contributor in the text box. I removed spaces from the names of donors to make sure it showed up as a single word. So if "Guy Smiley" contributed $10,000 to Senator Hagan, I would have entered "GuySmiley" 10 times.

3) I messed with the fonts and layout and stuff to get a cloud that looked spiffy.

Some caveats - Senator Hagan was "in cycle," and Senator Burr wasn't - so Senator Hagan raised a ton more money. Also, here's the disclaimer from Open Secrets:

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2009 - 2010 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

So let's get to it. Here's the "Contributions Cloud" for Senator Burr:

And here's the cloud for Senator Hagan:

At first blush it looks like Senator Burr got his campaign cash from mostly corporate sources while Senator Hagan got hers from, well, Act Blue and Emily's list. (those basically indistinguishable dots in Senator Hagan's cloud are mostly labor unions and a few progressive PAC's.)

Again, Senator Burr wasn't in cycle and wasn't doing a lot of aggressive fundraising, so I'm not sure it's fair to jump to a bunch of conclusions for him. It may make more sense to do this with House candidates, who are always in cycle. But I do think Senator Hagan's cloud is rather telling - The amount of money she raised from individuals online absolutely dwarfs everything else. Technically, ActBlue is a Political Action Committee - but essentially it's an online portal used by progressive Americans to donate to political candidates at virtually every level.

Do the people who contribute money to candidates through Act Blue speak with one voice? Hard to say, though there's no doubt they skew left. But the most important question that comes to my mind is this: Are the Democrats now this dependent on the online channel for campaign finance?

Discuss... ;)

Question Time: Kicking It Up A Notch

This has also been done before in other countries, but I have to say President Obama deserves credit for this and I hope the White House does it more.



One of the biggest complaints people have about their government these days is that government is too cloistered; not transparent enough and simply not listening to people. This is a step in the right direction - a small step, but a positive one.