On Cynthia Black's Action Point Talking about Internet Radio

I'll be on Action Point with Cynthia Black tomorrow (Sunday, July 1, at 12:30). We'll be talking about strategies to kick back against the right-wing dominance of talk radio, as outlined in the recent report from The Center for American Progress.

I suppose the primer for this exists in Robert Parry's "The Left's Media Miscalculation," which was featured in Judy Daubenmier's Project Rewire: New Media from the Inside Out. Parry talks about the need for the Left (or whatever you want to call it) to make media itself a front-and-center issue, just as the Right did post-Watergate. Through tremendous effort, the Republican Party became the Marketing Party, the side that got to define the terms of debate via big media.

These are different times now, of course. Big media still matters a great deal, but four years ago it mattered more. I could not have foreseen the Talking Points Memo media empire back then, and back then Markos was a guy whose posts got run on something called The Smirking Chimp under the name "Kos"; the Daily Kos as a political machine did not exist. Much has changed.

I see radio as the next unexplored frontier for bloggers. As of last August's launch of BlogTalkRadio, which operates sort of like a YouTube for podcasters, the delivery mechanism is there for anyone to play. James Boyce, with his Heading Left show (with Nate Wilcox) and Smoking Politics show (with Dave Johnson), seems to be the first pioneer to operate from the traditional progressive blogosphere (ever heard the word "traditional" and "blogosphere" in the same sentence before? Times they are a changing, my friends), but I would like to point to Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio as the king of Internet Radio. His list of guests is stellar, and it's a testament to his broadcasting skills that I disagree with the premise of several of his Libertarian positions, but I cannot possibly turn off his show. Go listen to Scott's interviews (and his Antiwar Radio partner Charles Goyette) here. His style is too unpolished, I suppose, for big media, but he's leaps ahead of most who are in the Internet radio game.

The proliferation of MP3 players makes it possible for those whose tastes don't run along the Sean Hannity/Neil Boortz/Rush Limbaugh spectrum to redefine talk radio. Let's go for it.

Naturally, the future of enterprises such as BlogTalkRadio hinges on the efforts to guard Net Neutrality. I hope to discuss that a little with Cynthia tomorrow, too.

Judy Daubenmier, Ray McGovern at Vox Pop in Brooklyn

On Saturday, June 9th, Vox Pop will host CIA veteran Ray McGovern and news media veteran Judy Daubenmier (Project Rewire). Ray will take the mike at 7:00 p.m. and hand off to Judy for a reading and talk at 8:00. The event is expected to go 'til 10:00. It's co-hosted by GNN, Guerilla News Network.

Special guest chef for the evening is Joshua Carraha, presenting Sushi Night, starting around 5:00p.m. and going all night. Sushi is $9.50 a serving, and Josh's Sushi menu includes crab, chicken, and vegetarian options.

Vox Pop is a coffeehouse, a bookstore and a publishing house describing itself as a community-empowering, retail-revolution, live-event-loving, info-shop dedicated to "vox pop," Latin shorthand for "voice of the people." It frequently hosts author readings, political candidates and musicians in unique, high-energy literary events.

Vox Pop is technically on the border of Kensington and Flatbush.
Address is 1022 Cortelyou Rd., Brooklyn, NY 11218

Tom Sumner on Issues & Ideas, KCBX FM90

Tom Sumner (Untidy, the blogs on Rumseld) will talk about political blogging, the new media of journalism, and how he came to create the Informed Citizen Series with Guy Rathbun on Issues & Ideas at 4:45 p.m. PST Wed., May 16. If you're in the Santa Barbara/San Luis Obispo area of California, tune in just before All Things Considered; otherwise, stream it live or download the podcast from the archive.

Tom Sumner on The Lynn Rivers Show, WEMU public radio

Tom Sumner (author of Untidy, the blogs on Rumseld, creator of the Informed Citizen Series, and our fearless managing editor) will talk about blogging, the new media of journalism, and footnotes unfolding in political history with former Congresswoman Lynn Rivers on The Lynn Rivers Show from 12 noon to 1:00 p.m. EST on Friday May 11th, on WEMU public radio in Yipsalanti, Michigan.

About the Lynn Rivers Show
The Lynn Rivers Show debuted in September, 2004, and quickly rose to become one of the most listened-to programs on WEMU. Concentrating on public affairs and issues that affect the Washtenaw County area and beyond, the one-hour program mixes in-depth interviews with newsmakers from all around the country with listener calls and questions.

Judy Daubenmier at Shambhala in Berkeley

Judy will give a talk and read from Project Rewire at the Shambhala Center bookstore at 2288 Fulton Street in Berkeley, California at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 8th. A representative from the center will introduce Judy and explain the Buddhist aspects of her news media analysis.

About Shambhala
"It is the Shambhala view that every human being has a fundamental nature of goodness, warmth and intelligence. This nature can be cultivated through meditation, following ancient principles, and it can be further developed in daily life, so that it radiates out to family, friends, community and society."

Judy Daubenmier on Action Point with Cynthia Black

Judy (Project Rewire) will be on the populist political radio talk show Action Point with Cynthia Black on Sunday, April 15th.

Action Point airs from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. Sundays on Air America 1480 KPHX, broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona.

Catch any of Judy's radio interviews on our radio page.

About Action Point
Action Point exists to bring a new dimension to talk radio. Solution Politics - the who, what, when, where, and how of people taking back the democratic process from extremist special interests.

Thought-provoking questions discussed by nationally recognized guests bring urgent issues to the forefront.. Cynthia Black demands Action Points from callers and guests to outline effective solutions for derailing the right-wing agenda.

Tom Sumner on Charlottesville-Right Now

This week on Charlottesville-Right Now, our managing editor Tom Sumner (creator of the Informed Citizen Series, author of Untidy: the Blogs on Rumsfeld) will be talking about new media, political blogging, and "big" journalism vs. independent journalism with host Coy Barefoot. It will broadcast from News Radio 1070 WINA this Thursday, March 29, at 4:00p.m. EST. Catch any of Tom's radio interviews on our radio page.

About Coy Barefoot
Coy Barefoot is a bestselling author, historian, and political analyst. He is the Director of Communications and Alumni Relations at the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia, a non-partisan organization dedicated to ethics and bipartisanship cooperation in government.

Coy says he identifies with no political party in America today. He is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He is not a Libertarian nor a Green. He proudly calls himself a Jeffersonian.

Judy Daubenmier at Bookmans in Mesa, AZ

Judy will be signing copies of her book Project Rewire and talking about her favorite subject--the state of the news media, how it got here and where it's going--at Bookmans book store in Mesa, Arizona at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 31.

Judy Daubenmier in West Valley View newspaper

A story about Judy Daubenmier and her book Project Rewire appears in the entertainment section of West Valley View newspaper today. Read Author looks at media from the inside out by Beth Ott.

West Valley View is the community newspaper of Avondale, Buckeye, Litchfield Park, Goodyear, and Tolleson, Arizona.

excerpt
"It wasn't until the Iraq war that I realized it isn't just a few journalists falling down on the job - it's an epidemic," Daubenmier said. "It was the complacency of the media and unwillingness of the media to challenge George Bush that really got to me."

events
Judy will be reading from and signing copies of her book Project Rewire at Borders bookstore in Glendale, Arizona at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 24, and Bookman's in Mesa at 5:00 on Saturday, March 31.

Judy Daubenmier on After Downing Street

After Downing Street interviewed Judy Daubenmier on the history of news media and the outlook for new media. Read David Swanson's excellent interview How the Blogosphere is Saving the Boob Tube and read an excerpt from Judy's book Project Rewire here, or listen to the interview on our radio page.

About After Downing Street
After Downing Street is a nonpartisan coalition of over 200 veterans groups, peace groups, and political activist groups that has worked since May 2005 to pressure both Congress and the media to investigate whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. The coalition takes its name from the emergence in May and June of 2005 of several documents that quickly came to be known as the Downing Street Memos.

Judy Daubenmier on Charlottesville Right Now

The public is hungry for a an explanation of why the mainstream news media is the the way it is, why so many important stories receive little coverage or biased coverage, and how it gets away with it. Judy offers a full-bodied context for this, plus the history of news media over the past decades, and a look at how new media is changing the landscape ahead.

Talk radio welcomes her again, this time in Virginia.

Charlottesville—Right Now hosted by Coy Barefoot
March 15 - Thursday, 4:00p.m.
News Radio 1070 WINA

Coy Barefoot is a bestselling author, historian, and political analyst. He is the Director of Communications and Alumni Relations at the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia, a non-partisan organization dedicated to ethics and bipartisanship cooperation in government.

Coy says he identifies with no political party in America today. He is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He is not a Libertarian nor a Green. He proudly calls himself a Jeffersonian.

Catch any of Judy's radio interviews on our radio page.

Judy Daubenmier appearing at bookstores in Arizona

Judy will be signing copies of her book Project Rewire and talking about her favorite subject--the state of the news media, how it got here and where it's going--at Borders bookstores in the West Valley area in Arizona in March. Here is the schedule for when she'll be at the following store locations.

• Tempe on Saturday, March 17 at 2:00
• Biltmore on Sunday, March 18 at 2:00
• Glendale on Saturday, March 24 at 1:00

Judy is an excellent speaker. She'll be back lecturing at the University of Michigan before long, so catch her if you can.

Eric Baerren on Project Rewire

Blogger Eric Baerren just finished reading Project Rewire (Judy Daubenmier) and has written a couple of thoughtful, informed essays on the book. He examines it through the lens of a national perspective at his personal blog Among the Trees.

Michigan-centric readers can read his essay on Project Rewire through a regional lens at Michigan Liberal (great lakes, great ideas, great tradition).


Excerpt from Among the Trees:

The most interesting thing about Judy Daubenmier's "Project Rewire" is how it tells its story -- through a collection of blog posts and essays published online.

The meat of the book is fairly familiar -- the media failed in the run up and during the conduct of Iraq to do its job. There is no simpler way than that to put it.

We all know the media failed, and anyone who's followed the twin threads of media and the war knows that blogs and independent thinkers online followed closely the media's performance and complained sometimes bitterly about how the information was presented.

But, "Project Rewire" gives us a chance, in a kind of running format, to watch how coverage unfolded based on criticisms posted as the coverage took place. It's a way to rewatch the big, newsmaking events not through the media itself, but through the eyes of people consuming the media and finding that it wasn't a satisfactory experience. ...

... I'd be remiss in leaving the impression that the book is merely a collection of blog posts. It provides a basic history of the American media, building it to the present day. You get the story of how we got here, and the story of what has unfolded before our eyes, and are left with precisely what we have today -- a giant question mark. ...

Judy Daubenmier at the National Conference for Media Reform

Judy Daubenmier will be a panelist at the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis.
Her panel title is Trust of Verify: Propaganda and the Press. it is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 13, from 9:00 to 10:30a.m.



Addtionally, Judy will also be involved an overlapping event: Media Giraffes--people sticking their necks out for journalism--is holding a conference for journalists called Journalism that Matters on Thursday and Friday. Look for her there as well.

Judy Daubenmier on Santa Fe Radio Cafe

Judy (author of Project Rewire) will be the guest of honor on Santa Fe Radio Cafe, hosted by Mary Charlotte Domandi, on Tuesday, January 9th. That's KSFR, Santa Fe Public Radio at 90.7 FM.



Mary Charlotte asks insightful questions -- and lets her guests talk -- every weekday morning at 8 on the "Santa Fe Radio Cafe." The people you know and the people you want to know.

Judy Daubenmier on Media Matters

Judy will be on the radio show Media Matters, hosted by Bob McChesney, on Sunday, Jan 7.

Media Matters features host Bob McChesney in conversation with a variety of guests. Listeners may call with comments or questions.

Bob McChesney is a research professor in the Institute of Communications Research and the Graduate School of Information and Library Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Check local program availability with your local NPR affiliate. As always, we will post the show a.s.a.p. on our radio page.

Judy Daubenmier on KCBX & WEMU

Project Rewire is resounding with veteran journalists like Judy herself. Judy's radio tour continues next week with interviews on both coasts. If you miss these streams, you can catch them soonafter on our radio page.

Wednesday 12/13 An Evening With 6:30-7:00 PM PST. Hosted by Guy Rathbun, on KCBX FM public radio from San Luis Obispo.

Friday 12/15 The Lynn Rivers Show 12n - 1:00 p.m. EST, on WEMU public radio out of Yipsalanti, Michigan.

Judy Daubenmier

The William, James Cata-blogue: Project Rewire, Special Plans, Untidy, Blogging America

Taking the Hyper Out of Link:
The Important Work of Bringing the Internet to Print

[posted by Tom]

Last April I read a post on Tomdipatch.com--Mike Davis’s history of the car bomb, “The Poor Man’s Air Force”--and then, few weeks ago, I read it for the first time.

As the great Krugman might say: What do I mean by that? I just mean that when I read the original post--as with much of my online, onscreen reading--I pretty much raced through it. It had been linked from somewhere else, another piece I undoubtedly raced through to get the gist of. It was all my loss. Don’t ask me what I was reading that took me to Davis’s piece, and don’t ask me why I would have forgotten the Davis post were it not featured in Harper’s, where I read it--really read it--for the first time. I’m sure that when the Harper’s editors saw fit to bring this online post to a wider audience, they likely did not imagine the wider audience would include some who had actually read through it before, but there I was--a first-time reader already familiar with the material.

Davis’s work in this and the follow-up post (“Car Bombs with Wings”) is so good I almost wish I were writing about his insights and masterful historical perspective instead of this other thing I’m on about: the important work of bringing good material originally published on the Internet to print.

You may know this one--you get into reading something on the Internet, find a link you cannot resist clicking, go read that post, then inevitably find more links there to click. Like the childhood game of telephone where a message morphs slightly with each transmitted and received whisper, it does not take long to find yourself far from your original topic. It’s very active, interesting, and lively reading.

But--maybe it’s just me--I get left with a lot of gist from this kind of reading, not a lot of ruminating over the deep thinking of these online authors.

Or maybe it’s not just me--a few others have looked into the idea that reading print beats reading off the screen. P. Karen Murphy at Ohio State actually studied this very thing and found--pardon my aplomb-- material in print is easier to understand and more persuasive than material onscreen. That’s for the same material in the same format with the same graphics. In other words, print adds literal and figurative weight. Over at Carnegie Mellon, James Longhurst agreed.

Don’t get me wrong--I have no desire to curtail any of this online publishing activity. I’m on record as a hale advocate of this grand writing project we’re witnessing. I’m just saying that moving some of this great material into print is a necessary step in the process.

A couple of years ago I decided I might try doing something about this situation. Some background: I was working as a computer-science textbook editor and wondering if there wasn’t some little thing I could do to help all these great writers who were publishing on the web get wider recognition (and, I suppose, do something that may use my position in publishing to help move this country in a different direction).

I began looking at the web entirely differently, not just accepting its existing state, but as a giant editing project. Sure, 99.99% or more of what goes up on the web needs no more than one read-through, if that, but if Technorati’s numbers are right, there are over 55 million blogs churning out material. Let’s be conservative and say they’re posting once a week on average--using the theory that .01 percent of those posts are good enough to merit further consideration, that would make 5500 posts a week deserving closer attention. Let’s be yet more restrained and just pick about one percent of that figure: 55 great posts a week, close to 250 a month, nearly 3000 a year as an extremely conservative number. And that’s just the blogs, not all the other great Internet sources. Ever think you may be missing something?

I started a little set of books called The Informed Citizen Series (bloggers being the Internet’s informed, and informing, citizens) and signed a few notable bloggers to go about collecting good material worthy of reprinting, set in the context of a broader story, with an introductory essay by the blogger. I made a prototype for the series, Untidy: The Blogs on Rumsfeld, and Athenae of First Draft (Allison Hantschel) did a collection of material on Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans, where intelligence was cooked to justify the Iraq War. Just now there is a third book in this series, Project Rewire: New Media from the Inside Out, by Judy Daubenmier, one of the researchers for Outfoxed who blogs at The News Hounds.

I agree with Jennifer Nix and Glenn Greenwald about the importance of success for progressive books and other products. As Greenwald put it:

The Right long ago realized that the economic success of its political products translates into all sorts of critical benefits--from creating the perception that its ideas are popular and credible to ensuring its advocates widespread media access. That's why they expend so much effort to ensure the success of their books--even going so far as to have organizations purchase them in large bulk and then sell them at a huge loss--and it's also why it is so important to them to disparage the economic viability of liberal media projects. For better or worse, the impact which a political product can have is a function of its economic viability.

I would add to the mix the New Politics Institute report by Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller, emphasizing the dominance of progressive voices in the blogosphere. It is beyond worthwhile to bring some of what is produced on the Internet into print; it is a logical next step for growing what has taken place on the Internet--what Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas call the Netroots--into something more pervasive, something that penetrates the consciousness of not just those of us who have been paying attention.

The success of progressive Internet media is not a question of triumphalism, as it has at times been framed in the past (usually with a cautionary word to avoid it); it’s really a matter of pervasiveness. In the time I’ve been working on bringing Internet content into print, from Barbara O’Brien’s great book on political blogs on through, I’ve seen increasing acceptance for the practice. Riverbend’s Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq was highly acclaimed and successful enough to warrant a sequel. With Crashing the Gate, Armstrong and Moulitsas thrived as they branched out from their roots on the net and into print. Other efforts to create the handy bedside edition of the progressive web include Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly, The Progressives' Handbook (volumes 1 and 2!) by Heather Wokusch, and Wait! Don’t Move to Canada by Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis. Greenwald’s book--not an assemblage of blog posts, but a coherent fleshing out of material originally published on his site--is the obvious huge success story, having shot to the number one slot on Amazon when announced, then showing up on The New York Times bestseller list. Other successes are coming down the pike: Jane Hamsher of firedoglake will launch a new publishing venture, FDL Books, with a book on the Plame Affair by Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel of The Next Hurrah).

The Informed Citizen Series attempts to do something a little different: we set out to collect material from the Internet, mainly from blog posts, and string it together as a chorus of voices to develop a story fully. We look for material that works together with a good balance of overlap and fresh perspective. I like to think of it as springing from a democratic, inclusive impulse, but it just as likely springs from a desire to make order from my admittedly chaotic onscreen reading habits, from a desire to get the Internet to just sit still and get read--no ads, no animation, just words on a page.

A genre that includes writers like digby, emptywheel, Billmon, Athenae, Michael Berube, P.Z. Myers, Chris Clarke, Glenn Greenwald, Bob Somerby, Riverbend, the scribes at Sadly, No! and Fafblog!, Barbara O’Brien, Michael Shaw, and literally countless others is a pretty damn good genre. Mike Davis called his posts on the history of the car bomb “a preliminary sketch for a book-length study.” In the case of the best Internet writing, it’s a matter of one man’s preliminary sketch is another’s masterpiece. Lacking word-count requirements, corporate ownership and an editorial board that goes with it, advertiser concerns or censorship, Internet journalists and bloggers live and die by the flash of brilliance screaming for more attention. I say we give it to them.

Judy Daubenmier to be on Young Turks

Judy Daubenmier will be on The Young Turks at 7:30a.m. Wed., Nov. 15th.

The Young Turks, the first nationwide liberal talk show and first live, daily internet TV show, is a funny, smart, irreverent and entertaining look at politics, sex, news, pop culture, current affairs and personal stories. The Young Turks airs live M-F from 6 - 9 am ET on Air America Radio and via webcast.

The Young Turks began as Sirius Satellite Radio's first original program, and, while still on Sirius, is now nationally syndicated and available on itunes and online at www.theyoungturks.com and www.radiopower.org. The Young Turks also became the first ever live, daily internet video show, thereby starting Internet TV.

Co-host Cenk Uygur wrote this about Judy's book Project Rewire:

"Project Rewire" is a great explanation of where the media went and where it is going. If you want to know where the mainstream press went wrong and how it got there, this is the book to read. Judy Daubenmier gives us hope that through that there might be rewiring that leads us out of this dark period for the press.

"Unlike the right wing, Daubenmier understands that a healthy democracy needs a free press. Her aim isn't to tear the press down; it's to help it rise back up. Let's hope people read what she has written so they can figure out how to do just that."

Young Turk (n), 1. Young progressive or insurgent member of an institution, movement, or political party. 2. Young person who rebels against authority or societal expectations. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Judy Daubenmier on The Al Franken Show

Judy will be on the The Al Franken Show on Nov. 9th. That's two days after the election, so the discussion is sure to be intense!

Al is known as the father of progressive radio. His three-hour show airs daily on Air America stations. He has won five Emmy and two Grammy awards, written four NYT bestsellers and was a founding star of Saturday Night Live.

Al is bringing Judy on to discuss big media vs. new (Internet) media, political issues of the moment and her new book Project Rewire: new media from the inside out.

An audio file of the interview will be posted on our radio page as soon as it's available.