Well, this is the final chapter in my "What I learned at Yearly Kos" diary series. The catalyst for this chapter didn't actually come from the conference, but from a conversation I had with a fellow YK conference attendee very shortly afterwards. This person... let's say, "Robin," is a veteran editor, and struck up a conversation with me in the airport on the way home!
As a result, I have a whole new perspective about how the media views internet communities, and I'd like to share. :-)
Anyone who was at Yearly Kos can back me up here - by and large the media completely missed the real story in Vegas. But I was lost as to how and why.
The answer (I think), and concluding thoughts after the fold.
In the airport, I related to Robin several anecdotes about media not-getting it all over the place in Vegas. Stories about lost-looking mainstream reporters forlornly standing off to the side, ignoring a gathering of animatedly chatting Kossacks until Markos, Clark, or Dean walked by, at which point they tried to chase them down for a quote. That's not just oblivious to the real point of the conference, but
painfully, obviously, egregiously oblivious.
At Yearly Kos, the enthusiasm and power was actually tangible (along with the cigarette smoke - yay Vegas!), so much was going on. You couldn't take 3 steps without tripping over someone so fascinating that (though you may never have heard of them before) after you talked to them for 10 minutes you were sure they could change the world.
Anyone who was there can tell you, (and so could many who weren't, I'd wager) Yearly Kos was not about Markos, Dean or any of the big stars that the media wants to pin up as the blogosphere's leaders and spokespeople, as though the rest of us are just sheep. It was about every single Kossack there, and what each of us brought to the table. It was about thousands upon thousands of conversations about how to make our world better. And it was about every single person there making connections, learning, networking, building the `people-powered' movement.
But none of that fits the traditional mold for how a movement works. And the media clearly couldn't understand that this movement cannot be described by describing any one person.
Still, I was frankly very confused as to how any reporter could come to such an incredible event and still somehow walk away with nothing more insightful to say than
"Bloggers will make the Democratic Party lose in November."
Maybe it had something to do with the MSM's having disdain for newer media forms? But jealosy-as-motive doesn't seem quite right. I mean, okay, that would account for some obliviousness, but not to this level. And it leaves out the clear factor that online communities are more than just a media form.
Back in the airport, Robin suggested a possibility that resonated - that political reporting is largely no longer about issues (which is, above all, what Yearly Kos was about); it's about spin. There's a reason that after presidential debates, for instance, the media doesn't talk to the candidates at all. They're taken to a room and the spin-meisters tell them what each candidate wanted to say or how they were perceived, and the media prints that - something like "Kerry tried to distance himself from Iraq" instead of "The difference between Kerry and Bush's plans for dealing with Iraq." It's why we almost never hear about issues, and it's why, for instance, the battle in Conneticut last week was never discussed on the merits, but only in terms of politics. "Bloggers backed Ned Lamont" "the extreme left-wing of the party wants Lieberman out," "what does this bode for November?" etc. The spin has become the story.
So, back to Yearly Kos. The reason that the views and insights of 1000+ Kossacks were in most cases reduced to a soundbite or two from a couple big names is simple. Boneheaded, but simple. In the effort to force the blogosphere into a conventional mold, the media has largely decided that `bloggers' are just the next demographic group. Like `soccer moms' or `Nascar dads.' And with colossal hubris, they believe, as with soccer moms, that they `discovered' us and are trying to put the next election in terms of who we might support and who appeals to us, and what our voting patterns will mean in November. In short, they tried to spin a gathering that was in no way, shape, or form, conducive to being spun. Yearly Kos was not about perception or about ratings. It was about people.
So the vast majority of the media got it all wrong, for two big reasons. Firstly, because as anyone can tell you, the dKos community cannot be described as a demographic, or as an organization with some clear leadership structure. We are old, young, rich, poor, all races, all religions, from every corner of this country and many corners of the globe, as diverse as America herself. We are America. We define America. Which is why the media keeps failing in its flailing struggle to define us. We are the grassroots. From all parts of our society, we are all the leaders of this movement, the movement to awaken our country to the idea that we have got to plan for our collective future, and move forward, together. (As an aside, if you haven't, you should read PastorDan's sermon from the conference.) The Democratic Party is renewing itself as the party of community, virtual, and, more importantly, otherwise. And, secondly, as hard as it may be to define who we are, it's not difficult to say what we are not: passive. See, unlike soccer moms or Nascar dads, we, all of us, are a force for change throughout our country... that's what Yearly Kos was really about.
I'm sure I could ramble on for a bit more but I'm going to try and keep this shorter than usual. :-)
Robin, it turns out, is on the path to U.S. citizenship, despite misgivings about where the country is headed --- but said that those few days in Vegas had beautifully illustrated, quote, "the America I want to be a citizen of."
I, on the other hand, was born in the U.S., and I'll probably die in the U.S. I looked Robin in the eye, chuckling, and said, "Me too."
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The other diaries in this series can be found here:
Part I - My question for Howard Dean, on the Black Caucus
Part II - Science Friday, on this scientist's impressions about how to take back the debate about science.
Part III - How the economy works and why it won't much longer, a distilled non-economist's summary of the economy panel
Part IV - How to shoot like a liberal, a discussion about the surprisingly severe infrastructure problems of the Democratic Party
This series is happening so long after the conference because I got married in July, and there wasn't time till now. Thanks for reading!
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