Monday, May 6, 2002

Beyond Software: Today's Davenet is right: Professional journalists did a better job covering technology when the tech market was competitive. Now that a few big companies largely "own" the major software categories, there appears to be less competition, so journalists are reduced to producing endless repetitions of "here's what Microsoft did today." Journalists could (and should) play a role in changing this situation by focusing more on independent developers, shareware, etc. But the bigger point is that what Winer observes about tech journalists is just as true of journalists covering politics, international affairs, or any other "industrial" sector. Let's take politics as an example. When Bush says he cares about education, journalists tell us "Bush said he cares about education." Wow. If space and time (or the journalist's editor) permits, the story might also include the voice of some educational leader -- a prominent professor at an Ivy League school, the head of some educational research organization, perhaps even the head of a teacher's union. That's all good, but for the most part all these voices are comparable to just asking the different divisions of Microsoft what they think about the software industry. The role of journalists should be to broaden discourse and deliver as many different perspectives on a question as they can possibly find. On the education question, this would mean talking to students, teachers at all levels, faculty at small schools or junior colleges, contract-teachers who work from semester-to-semester with no guarantees they'll have a job (or health insurance, or any other benefits) in 6 months. Do these people feel like Bush cares about education? Has he done anything to show them that what he says is more than words? Of course, news coverage like this would require a lot more resources (people, cash, time) than most news organizations are willing to commit. What Winer's primary focus on the software industry tends to miss is that most of his complaints about journalism have nothing to do with journalists, and everything to do with the "BigCo's" who employ them and limit the range of things they can say and topics they can cover. Much of Winer's writing about the problems with BigCo's merely skirts this subject, but it seems to me it's the central issue. For more on this, check out Robert McChesney's Rich Media, Poor Democracy. A fast and very eye-opening read. 12:29:53 PM

Protests and Marches: Dave Enders, a junior majoring in English at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has written a great piece about his experience protesting at the April 20 war protests in D.C. Apparently, the protest wasn't quite what he expected. Enders writes: I joined a group in front of the Washington Monument to listen to speakers and wait for the planned afternoon march to the Capitol. But as Martin Luther King III addressed the students seated on the grass, the scene felt more like a reflection of things past than an indication of things to come. Asked why they were in Washington, most students gave vague answers about stopping the war, but they were unable to explain how milling about in front of the monument would do that. This is a great point: What do "protests" and marches do today? At one time, they seemed to be a radical statement, but now their efficacy is less clear. As Enders' later observes, "Washington is used to these sorts of disruptions." In other words, massive protests may have become almost status quo, making it difficult for them to disrupt the status quo in any way. I don't think that's the case completely, and the way a protest or march is run can have a significant effect on its success. Enders thinks the protesters should have been more confrontational; I agree. Why didn't the protesters storm the capital building? Why didn't they demand access to the senate chambers and make their demands from the Speaker's Podium? Why didn't they form human chains around the monuments and refuse to let anyone enter (i.e. the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, etc)? Those actions would have certainly resulted in more arrests, and people might have died if the police got out of control (which they likely would have). Yet, perhaps that's what it's going to take to shake up this system (that's what it took in the '60s). As Kathleen Christison has noted, At a time when the United States is officially engaged in a war on terrorism, which is officially defined as war against evil and evil-doers, moral arguments have a great deal of resonance. Right now those "moral arguments" are so deafening in one direction, that people who feel otherwise need to make a lot more noise to be heard. At any rate, Enders leaves us with a lot to think about. He says: I came to Washington looking for other students who, after a few years of college, have, like myself, become impassioned about what they see as social injustices. What I found were people looking for leadership. I wonder when they (we) will realize that if we want leaders, we have to be leaders. (A related question: Why don't students like this show up in my classes? If they did, how would I know it?) 10:58:54 AM