OPEN-SOURCE DEMOCRACY

Micah L. Sifray has a rather astonishing piece at The Nation about how politics has changed. He opens with this:

The era of top-down politics--where campaigns, institutions and journalism were cloistered communities powered by hard-to-amass capital--is over. Something wilder, more engaging and infinitely more satisfying to individual participants is arising alongside the old order.

The change is being driven by the community-building possibilities of the internet, of course.

New web-based tools are facilitating a different way of doing politics, one in which we may all actually, not hypothetically, be equals; where transparency and accountability are more than slogans; and where anyone with few resources but a compelling message can be a community organizer, an ad-maker, a reporter, a publisher, a theorist, a money-raiser or a leader.

Sifray says it'll take some time to change from the current top-down, control-freak political model to a more dispersed, community-driven model, but that the seeds have already been planted.

Reading the piece, I couldn't help but replace the word "politics" with "journalism." Whichever word is used, his arguments read solid. There's no doubt we're on the cusp of major changes, in politics, journalism and dozens of other endeavours that go together to make up community.

SOURCE: Doc Searls.
10:23:49 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

JON'S IMPACT

Mary Hodder at Napsterization has a telling followup about the day Jon Stewart took down Crossfire.

....when they do the show, the hosts typically keep chatting with the guests, while the audience files out. This time, after Jon Stewart, the audience was begging for more, and refused to leave. So they cut the microphones, and the audience still wouldn't leave. So the hosts and Jon Stewart had to leave the stage to continue their talk, in order to get the audience to leave.

Hodder also reports that her source for this, a lead cameraman for Crossfire, was unaware that the Stewart vs. Carlson bit has been downloaded about 1.5 million times since then.

SOURCE: Doc Searls.
10:03:50 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

Twice in the days following the U.S. election I've seen TV reports on the potential impact on Canada, and twice I've waited in vain to hear a reporter ask what seems to me to be the right question.

The gist of the stories has been that the election of Bush will be good for Canada when it comes to such issues as softwood lumber and reopening the border to allow the export of Canadian cattle to the U.S. market. Various experts have been shown on screen making the case.

The question that hasn't been asked is this: Given the fact the Bush has been president throughout the latest incarnation of the softwood lumber war, and during the ban on Canadian cattle, what is it that's making you optimistic that he will now solve these problems?

Curious minds want to know. Journalists, at least the ones I've seen, apparently don't.
9:24:52 PM  LINK TO THIS POST