Watchdogs of democracy?

About a week ago, I finished reading Helen Thomas’s Watchdogs of democracy?: the waning Washington press corps and how it has failed the public. And I absolutely loved the book.

If you’re in journalism, interested in journalism or think the media is a left-leaning entity, I would highly recommend giving it a read. Thomas calls out the press for doing nothing when President Bush called on America to go to war with Iraq. She points out that it is the media’s function to question our leaders and ensure the public is getting all the information. “Gotcha journalism” is the biggest buzzword, but asking those kind of questions usually helps expose corruption or incompetence.

Thomas goes on to talk about media consolidation, and its impact on the messages Americans receive.

As Representative Maurice Hinchey once said, media consolidation “is the most critical issue facing the American people today: whether to allow a handful of people to determine what information we receive and influence the decisions we make.”

Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) summed up the issue well when he said the FCC rules “will lead to even fewer media giants owning and controlling what people see, hear, and read in America. That’s truly dangerous because the health of our democracy depends on multiple viewpoints being debates. When you have only a few companies controlling everything, you get one corporate view.”

Even if you’re not interested in the rest of the book, I would suggest picking up a copy and reading her epilogue.

She definitely sticks it to bloggers, saying they aren’t really journalists and shouldn’t be credentialed for events. Thomas says that “real journalists” work for papers, wire services or television outlets. But those outlets are the ones being impacted by media consolidation.

While blogging may be more of an opinion piece, in lieu of journalism, bloggers are digging up facts and writing posts that are in the public interest. The problem stems from writers who are pushing their opinions as reality, and the readers who believe those interpretations to be true.

Overall, it’s a great read, though. I would urge you to go out and borrow the book for a weekend.

Heading down Arkansas way

On another note, I’m in the process of getting ready to head out to the brand new terminal at Indianapolis International Airport. This will be my first trip through Weir Cook Terminal, and from everything I’ve heard, it’s fantastic.

I’ll be working this week’s Sun Belt game on ESPN+, Florida Atlantic at Arkansas State.

I was looking forward to heading to Arkansas for the weekend. It’s in the south, it should be warm, right? Apparently not. The forecast for tomorrow has the high at 48°, but we’ll be there at 7:00am and it’s going to be cold!

Rental car delicious-ness

I couldn’t believe I got this rental car in Monroe, Louisiana. A Ford Mustang? From an airport that only takes prop and regional jets? And they had a whole fleet of Ford Mustangs?

I guess I should look into moving to Monroe, LA, there’s apparently more happening there than it appears.

So, I made it a goal this summer to start reading again. I say “again” because I haven’t sat down to read a book since high school. And even then, the last one I read was The Red Badge of Courage and I didn’t really pay that much attention.

In college, I was supposed to read the “Freshman reader,” which is a book assigned to all incoming students. I didn’t read it, I had no desire to, and we weren’t even going to discuss it in a class. I read textbooks, instruction manuals, blogs, newspaper article and scripts with great regularity, but nothing from the fiction or non-fiction section of the library.

When I was a kid, I loved reading. Granted it was Encyclopedia Brown or those choose-your-own-adventure books, but I loved it. I was passionate about reading things. I guess I just got too busy with everything else, and now I feel like I’ve missed out.

Well, I decided that missing out should come to an end. @mmagnolia22 and I went and got library cards at the Central Library in June (I even got a new driver’s license to prove I was a Marion County resident).

I didn’t check out any books until August. Whoops.

Here’s the deal, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to read. I mean, there’s so many choices. Novels, non-fiction, biographies, large-print, the Bible, periodicals. That book place has everything! Then I had a quick conversation with myself in my head.

“You know, authors often go on press tours to promote their latest work.”

“I know, I get so bored when I see them on The Daily Show.”

“Wait, we’re a fan of TDS. We could read some of those books.”

Join the club!

And thus, The Daily Show Book Club was born.

I went through the 2008 guest list (via Wikipedia) and found people promoting books I thought sounded interesting. I haven’t gotten very far into 2007, but you can find a list of every guest here.

I’ve currently got a list of 21 books, 2 of which I’ve already finished. You can find my currently checked out books in the sidebar (which is no longer on the side, but at the bottom of the page).

I finished reading Allen Raymond’s How to rig an election: confessions of a Republican operative, I’ve provided a brief review below.

I recently also completed David Perlmutter’s Blogwars. This is a fascinating read if you’re interested in politics and blogging, more importantly the two together. Parts of it were a bit over my head (I never thought great Greek and Roman thinkers would have something to do with political blogs), but overall I was glued to the pages. I discovered a lot of great political blogs that I quickly added to Netvibes for easy access (I also shared that tab on my public Netvibes page; I’m a big fan of Pollster.com).

How to rig an election

I really enjoyed How to rig an election (as @mmagnolia22 will tell you, I won’t stop talking about it). It was a fascinating read.

I’m not giving anything away, but the author spent time in prison for his part in some questionable campaign tactics. And this all takes place in the late ’90s and early ’00s.

You see how Raymond won elections in New Jersey and elsewhere, while following his rise to prominence within the Republican party. Some of the actions he takes are downright terrible, but there are some interesting lessons he shares. The one that most struck me was when he made the point that he never outright lied in a campaign, but he twisted the truth until it reflected the reality he wanted to show.

At one point, he discusses the barometer used when trying to decide if a certain action should be taken.

“while I don’t necessarily recommend that you do the program, I don’t see anything illegal about it.”

For me that was a green light. Everything I had learned about campaigning dictated that it was all about not stepping over the bright line of the law. You could stepy up to the bright line, just not over it. Throughout my career, “It’s not illegal” was always enough to march with.

His whole point was the get the reader to take a closer look at the messages peddled by politicians and their staffs and to take a critical eye to campaign materials. It worked.

I would highly recommend this read leading up to the election, you can find both campaigns using strategies discussed in this book. And you can’t go wrong with reading his opinions about George W. Bush before he became President.

“When I was young and irresponsible, I was young an irresponsible,” and the press had started accepting that as an answer. I found it personally infuriating. In the first place, on what planet is the age of forty a part of one’s youth? In the second place, it should count. What basis do you have to judge a candidate on if not his own deeds? His words?

There was just a seed of him being defined as the scion of wealth and privilege saying “You know my name, you know my Daddy-It’s my turn to be president.”

There are some grammatical errors that were missed, and odd sentence structure, but if you imagine you’re reading a blog entry (and focus on the fact this wasn’t written by a professional writer) you’ll soon get over any bad feelings. Except maybe on page 41, where this little gem occurs

mis52
[next line]
demeanor domestic violence.

How to rig an election
Raymond, Allen
Simon & Schuster

Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library
Amazon.com

Next up on the list of recommended reading:
Watchdogs of democracy? : the waning Washington press corps and how it has failed the public
Thomas, Helen

White House ghosts : presidents and their speechwriters
Schlesinger, Robert