Did you see that story on anything but Michael Jackson?

June 26, 2009June 26, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

In the 17 hours or so since Michael Jackson’s death has been reported, an interesting rift has developed in online communications. Apparently, some folks who have been discussing the Iran elections are upset that so many people are discussing celebrity deaths:

This is probably a reflection of a few things. First, there is an age gap in appreciating Michael Jackson’s career. If you were born after 1985, your first memories of Michael Jackson are probably the world premiere of the “Black or White” video, and increasingly fragile physique, and a series of bizarre controversies and allegations of inappropriate conduct around young boys. But it you are in the first generation to have MTV (back when it was ’round-the-clock music videos) or older, you remember that Michael Jackson almost single-glovedly invented the concept of pop music entertainment.

There’s also the fact that news, like politics, is local. The loss of an iconic American pop culture figure is naturally going to mean more to Americans than election protests halfway around the world. (And it’s worth noting that the folks who decide what news gets on TV have a role to play. This week’s DC Metro crash probably wouldn’t have had the same coverage if it happened on a public transportation system for a city that doesn’t host a major bureau for every news organization in the known universe.)

They have a point, and it isn’t the only story getting swept under a rug. Mark Sanford’s Argentinian dalliances have been muted outside South Carolina, and the Barack Obama health care debate is moving along on Capitol Hill in the background of the national consciousness.

The great thing about modern media is that, even if the “mainstream” press is obsessed with one story, an avid reader can seek out information from other sources. And it for media analysis junkies, it provides a platform for discussions that simply don’t happen in one-way broadcast media. In no other environment could the worlds of Michael Jackson and Iranian Fundamentalists collide in quite the same way.

If only there was some way to combine the issues…

Oh, we definitely know what works… don’t we?

June 25, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

In ABC’s Obamercial last night, our President gave Billy Mays and the Sham-Wow guy both runs for their respective money by talking a lot without saying much. I missed a few minutes here or there to watch the end of the Yankees/Braves game, but caught the following comment from President Obama (and verified it later through a news story):

There’s a whole bunch of care that’s being provided that every study, that every bit of evidence that we have indicates may not be making us healthier.

There’s a funny thing about scientific evidence: it doesn’t seem to last. In fact, just yesterday National Geographic was reporting on new research which may completely change our understanding of the Earth’s magnetic field and iron core. It touched off a bit of a debate in the scientific community – some are calling the research groundbreaking, some call it junk science. It sounds like the type of argument a Muslim might have with a Jew or a Protestant might have with a Catholic – or it would, if we didn’t all know that science is above such arguments.

The point is that evidence changes. One need only take a tour of the George Washington Masonic Temple in Alexandria, Va. – which sounds scary, but is actually pretty interesting. One of the first stops on the tour discusses Washington’s death, which happened in large part because the standard treatment at the time was blood-letting. A younger doctor who questioned opening Washington’s veins and suggested an alternative treatment was shrugged off.

(None of it matters now, of course, because chances are that Washington would have died at another point in the past 210 years anyway, but he may have squeezed out another few years.)

Politicians deal in absolutes because some issues require it – and the more controversial an issue is, the more firm one must be in order to win public opinion. But I’m not comfortable with Barack Obama telling me and my doctor what is necessary and what isn’t when it comes to my treatment.

Romney, Palin conspire to set up Gov. Sanford

June 24, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Mark Sanford’s admission of an affair has sent ripples throughout the political world, and have given the folks at the Huffington Post an excuse to accuse Republicans of hypocrisy for having affairs while the publicly promote marriage, life, low taxes, and fiscal responsibility. (What all those have to do with being an utter scumbag, I’m not 100% sure.)

But there are a couple reasons why the timing of the story is good. For as staunch an opponent of stimulus spending as he was, Stanford was not the next Republican standard bearer. For a party which needs regional diversity, a southern white guy is not the best choice.

Second, although the twin scandals of John Ensign and Mark Sanford are shots to Republican efforts to rebuild, the 2010 elections are a year and a half away and the 2012 elections (which will represent much better opportunities to regain seats in the Senate) are three and a half years away. Getting a scandal out of the way early makes Sanford’s political suicide a non-issue when it really matters.

All that is fine from a messaging standpoint, but Stanford obviously has bigger things to worry about. Political parties swing into and out of power with regularity; families are much tougher to rebuild.

And you thought the AP Style Guide was strict

June 23, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The Associated Press is warning its employees: watch what you post on Facebook. The company that gives us all the fourth-grade-reading-level news that’s fit to print wants to make sure its reputation isn’t tarnished by the private lives of its employees.

Given current realities, this is probably a good idea: AP’s value as a company is based on its credibility. As private lives become more public in digital environments, the chances of something extremely offensive or embarassing being posted increases.

On the other hand, there’s something to be said for transparency. Mashable mentioned on a recent post about journalism and new media that reporters’ social network presences allow us to see their personal biases, which in turn gives us the grain of salt we need to take along with anything they write.

Proficient in Facebook, working knowledge of Twitter

June 22, 2009June 22, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

A few weeks back, my office was going through a search process for hiring interns. One resume item caught my eye: under special skills, one applicant had listed his familiarity with various blogging and social media platforms.

Three years ago, the last time I had a job search, I could not have boasted in an interview – let alone in writing on my resume – about my expertise at looking up old high school friends, joining online groups, and staring at videos of portly adolescents staging lightsaber duels. In 2009, that’s an asset.

Via TechRepublican, I stumbled across a Path101 post that discusses this very phenomenon – and draws what I think is an apt parallel. While there are workers who refuse to learn these tools but recognize their importance, there’s a generation of college graduates who use social networks every day the way other people use telephones – meaning, according to Path, that in five or ten years knowledge of certain online environments could become as standard among job seekers as knowledge of standard word processing software is today.

That also puts a short life span on the “social media expert” occupation that many in the consulting world are looking to carve out as their own.

It’s still Iran, and not iRan

June 22, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

As I was heading out the door on Friday afternoon, a colleague brought my attention to Peggy Noonan’s Friday column in the Wall Street Journal – especially the final few paragraphs, which discuss the role of technology in the Iran election protests:

“Some ask if the impact of the new technology is exaggerated. No. Twittering and YouTubing made the story take hold and take off. But did the technology create the rebellion? No, it encouraged what was there. If they Twittered and liveblogged the French Revolution, it still would have been the French Revolution: “this aft 3pm @ the bastille.” It all still would have happened, perhaps with marginally greater support. Revolutions are revolutions and rebellions are rebellions; they don’t work unless the people are for it. In Iran, Twitter reported and encouraged. But the conviction must be there to be encouraged.”

That’s noteworthy advice for anyone trying to build an online political movement: it won’t work without offline excitement and action.

Mashable has another story of the role of media in Iran – the disturbing video of a young woman, Neda Soltani, dying on the street from a gunshot wound. Blogger Pete Cashmore asks, “Among the myriad Tweets and Facebook messages, could it be that a YouTube video becomes the galvanizing moment in Iran’s troubled election?” I’m surprised that he sounds surprised – in crisis situations video will always be the most powerful means of communication. Videos of the human effect will create a connection with events which simply cannot be duplicated by a 140-word Twitter post.

Technology is giving us a better picture of what is happening in Iran, but it isn’t causing it. The rules of revolution don’t change, only how we watch them.

Sunday Funnies: Happy Fathers Day

June 21, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Despite my earlier promise, I couldn’t find anything funny about Jethro Tull. But with today marking the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, I figured out an alternative. Behold the blooper reel from the first movie my Dad and I ever went to – Star Wars.

Iranians can still Tweet – thanks, W!

June 18, 2009June 18, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ 2 Comments

Maybe Hillary Clinton “wouldn’t know a twitter from a tweeter,” but Jared Cohen does. He’s the 27-year-old State Department official who, realizing the need to keep lines of communication open among Iran’s protest movement, picked up the phone and asked Twitter to delay their scheduled service interruption. He had established a relationship with Twitter executives at least since he organized a State Department envoy of new media crepresentatives earlier this year.

MTV lauded the foresight with the headline, “Iranians Keep Twittering Thanks To Young Obama Official.” Unfortunately, MTV disproves its own headline with its story, revealing the shocking truth that Cohen was actually hired by Condoleeza Rice three years ago.

The guy hired by George W. Bush’s administration kept Iran talking using technology and new media. The Obama appointee doesn’t even know the name of the technology.

Activation is harder than flipping a switch

June 17, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Bloomberg reports that the first big post-election test of the Obama Campaign’s 13 million-strong activist list may expose confusion and dissension in the ranks. The grassroots activists who responded well to the broad, simple messages of “hope, change, and Obama” are, like the rest of us, a little intimidated by more involved themes like “mandated private insurance, public health plan options, and pre-existing conditions.”

And even more important, not everyone agrees on what a new health plan should look like. There are likely many left-wing Obama supporters among the 13 million strong that feel a nationalized, socialized, single-payer system works best for everyone. They may also feel alienated by the big business support for health care reform – pharmaceutical companies, insurance providers, unions, and other big-money operations smell lots of public dollars, so of course they love the idea of a system where the government hands them over a cut of taxpayer money.

It’s always easier to build a large list based on broad ideas than to engage individuals on specific policy ideas, so don’t expect a swarm of voters to march on Washington DC with banners demanding a public-private cooperative and comprehensive health care system. But Obamacare may not need all that help. I expect the real mobilization will be in certain targeted Cognressional districts in Virginia, North Carolina, and other areas where Republicans hold a seats in district won by Obama in 2008, or in historically Republican districts held by Blue Dog Democrats.

The list may be 13 million, but politics is local. It may only take 1300 well-placed phone calls to change a Congressman’s vote.