I have the extreme good fortune to have an aunt with a place at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State. (Well really I mainly have the extreme good fortune to have a just fabulous aunt, condo or no!)
Chautauqua, for those unfamiliar with it, was founded in 1874 as a "camp" to teach Sunday School teachers how to teach their students. It was primarily a religious institution. Today it is 9 weeks of arts, religious and educational lectures--each week dedicated to a different topic. Last year for example I attended the week dedicated to global climate change (Al Gore gave his presentation).
This year I'm here for the week on "The Media and News: Applied Ethics". Monday, John Harwood from the WSJ spoke, yesterday, David Westin from ABC News and today, the funny, biting and insightful Arianna Huffington. Follow me below the bump for a recap of her comments.
She began by thanking us for inviting her and told a story about how she'd jokingly said she was actually born in Fresno and her accent (Greek) was cultivated by her to gain status. She said she then recieved 37 letters from people asking her how she did it--5 from people in Fresno! She allowed as how this gullibility would go a long way to explaining why Bush is in the White House.
(Let me digress and state that historically Chautauqua has been very conservative and her story was met with wild applause and laughter as was her entire presentation.)
She went on to discuss the future of the media: Will it be print? Visual? Online? She told us it'll be all of them--that "It's 2007. Let's have a three way!"
She diagnosed the MSM (her term)as having ADD, that it can't distinguish between the "important and the titillating" in news stories. She argued that blonde missing persons are a personal tragedy--not a collective newsworthy one and that the MSM is now reduced to "blondes reporting on other missing blondes". "News" is bread and circuses.
We in the blogosphere did not escape her wit. We have OCD according to Arianna. We obsess, we fixate, we stay doggedly on something (Plame, Downing Street, Dick's secrecy follies, CNMI, etc) until--we hope--something happens and it blows up into a media firestorm. She calls us "the court of appeals of the media" because the stories not covered by, badly covered by, or buried by the MSM are championed by the blogs until the MSM is forced to address them.
The complaints about accuracy and fact checking in the BoS (blogosphere)are overblown or are equally applicable to the traditional media. Judith Miller and her aluminum tubes, as reported by that bastion of fact checking the NYT, were a prime example given by Ms. Huffington. She calls the MSM "stenographers to power", but she held up Knight Ridder as a source for good skeptical journalism. Arianna believes the power of the BoS is that we bring skepticism and discontent to the regurgitation of the CW spouted by the MSM.
She further addressed the "stenographer" problem with journalism--mentioning Bob Woodward by name. She stated that his problem in his first two books about Bush and the lead up to the Iraq war was that he was too close to Bush (personally) and he was impressed and beholden to those who have the power to grant access. In her eyes we don't have that "problem" ( ready access) in the blogosphere so we remain more skeptical. (She did credit Woodward's third book as a long overdue mea culpa.)
She ripped polling as representing only the 30-35% of "bored and lonely Americans with nothing better to do than talk to strangers at night for no money". (Hey, that's me!) But really her point was, polls are so unreliable as to be--well-unreliable. She hopes they get consigned to the horoscopes page in the future.
She has nothing but scorn for anonymous sources and those who use them. She states they exist only to drive a specific point of view without tipping their hand. She asked rhetorically why the NYT allowed Libby to use the NYT to advance Cheney's position on Iraq. Why he was named as a "former staffer" and not given his real title? Why not (Arianna asked) call Libby a "former High School student", which he certainly was?
She says that while the BoS does hold the MSM's feet to the fire, the MSM still is responsible for the bulk of reporting--but that is changing. She specifically mentioned the work done by Josh Marshall on the US Attorney's scandal and how the readers/commenters helped to research other examples of partisan firings and demotions. TPM then connected the dots and reported in depth on the scandal (along with us here of course) and that drove the story to the MSM. She holds this up as one example of how we in the BoS are having a cumulative affect on increasing public awareness in both the BoS and the MSM.
She asserts that we in the BoS make choices (usually different ones than the MSM) about what is and isn't news, and if it is actually important. We make a difference by being interconnected with each others blogs and the traditional media. But we need to expand our sphere of influence and not speak only to/with the converted.
She ended the presentation portion of the program by stating we have a hybrid future--not just in energy terms, but also in the media; Online/Print/Visual media all have a place in the future The obits written for traditional media are premature. But she warned we must remain interactive--blogs with no comment feature will never fly, because two way communication builds loyalty.
Blogs will drive the MSM (and vice versa) says Arianna. She compares our relationship to that of T1 and Sarah Connor in the Terminator. Sarah saw T1 as a threat to herself and her child, but in the end she saw that T1 was the only way into her future. She embraces what T1 offers in order to survive. T1 says "Come with me if you want to live".
The blogosphere is telling the MSM "Come with us if you want to live".
She then answered a number of questions, only a few of which I'll mention here.
She was asked about her tranformation from a conservative to a progressive. She responded that back when she was a conservative "Dick Cheney was still Saddam Hussein's very good friend, Enron was still considered a "good" corporation and Michael Jackson was still Black". Yeah, politically incorrect, but it made a point.) She said what really moved her politically was seeing that the private sector was not stepping up to deal with crucial social issues such as homelessnes. Rich people wanted "naming opportunities" for their donations and homeless shelters just didn't reflect them as they wanted to be seen. So she realized that Government appropriations had to supply those needs and her move to progressivism followed that realization. But her "switch" was based on evidence and fact--and reevaluation of existing data.
She was asked if she watched the debates. She laughed and responded "Remember the last Republican debate? They were asked who didn't believe in evolution and 3 of them raised their hands!" She says that was a low point in American politics and she felt they needed to be escorted off staqge, given remedial science lessons for a few years and then be allowed to re-enter the race in 2012. She laughed that she half expected a number of them to say they didn't believe in gravity!
Arianna handicapping the race:
Rudy G won't get the nod--he can't keep up the "charade" for enough time to win.
John MCCain also won't be the nom. The straight talk express is off the road since the GOP aren't honoring their end of the bargain he struck with them. He's done what they wanted, but they are throwing him under the bus for his immigration stance.
Mitt She says it's Mitt despite his flip flopping and "haberdashery model" looks. (Yikes, don't let me get on her bad side!)
For the Dems:
Gore--WILDCARD! She didn't count him out or in....but look to Autumn.
Clinton needs to become more fearless, dump her advisors and consultants and just speak from her core beliefs--"it won't get her elected playing to the center". She called her "brilliant and disciplined" and said she'd love to see a woman President soon! But Hillary needs to get "liberated" from her handlers who are diluting her message.
Obama same as Clinton--Barack needs to dump the handlers and get back to the Obama we knew and loved at the convention.
Edwards (Elizabeth that is!)gets major kudos for challenging Coulter's "poison" and calling her out! Arianna says Elizabeth is a wake up call for America. She had nothing to say about John.
Asked if she'd run for office (again) she said "No". It apparently took way too much of a toll on her and she ended by quoting Marlow Thomas
For a man to be called ruthless he has to be Joe McCarthy. For a woman to be called ruthless she has to put someone on hold!
Well, she'd have my vote!