So, let’s recap.
Fire Imus for making racially charged comments. Fire Ann Coulter for, well, just about everything. Fire Glenn Beck for being a pig headed moron. Fire O’Reilly for lying. Fire Katie Couric for being a lightweight. Fire Matt Lauer for repeating GOP talking points. Fire Brian Ross for not issuing a retraction or clarification about the anthrax “evidence”. Fire Chris Matthews, Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert for being too close to the Bush administration and for not being up front and honest. Fire all of FOX News because, well, they are FOX News and aren’t really news. Fire the WaPo and WSJ editorialists because they are right wing shills. Fire TIME because they put bible stories on the American version of their magazine, while all other versions have “Talibanistan”.
Notice a pattern here?
Let’s face it, there is a change happening. And, as silly as my title sounds, we need to keep it in mind. I have written on numerous occasions about a new way that people get and discuss their news. I have discussed “infrastructure” and getting the message out. We have seen great work by the good folks at Talking Points Memo, ePluribus Media and Firedoglake at the Libby trial.
Not to be overlooked, as noted by me last week, a number of highly scientific studies show that the media is becoming more irrelevant, while the blogs are providing high quality content, are getting things done, are prodding our leaders to stand strong while supporting them when they do “right” and are moving the discussion in a different direction – we are swinging the pendulum back towards sanity.
In short, we are becoming the new media. We may not realize it now, but it is happening, and it has been happening. Back in early January, I wrote a post called We are staring at a tremendous opportunity. It is a quick read, but an important one. I talked about building an infrastructure, as well as building off of what we have here now – the discussions, the knowledgebase, the expertise, the personalities and the energy – in order to keep the pendulum swinging in our direction, and to make even more of a difference over the next 2, 5, 10, 20 years.
Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah…..get to the point
Another, and a bigger reason why I am writing this (even though I can’t resist the chance to pass up making fun of the media and, well, just about everything), is to talk about this “infrastructure”. Some of you have heard me preach this in comments, in emails or in person (or on the phone), and it is a project that I have been working on with thereisnospoon, hekebolos, theKK and the folks at ePluribus Media.
The project is called Political Nexus (bookmark this page), and it will be an interactive, multimedia center/portal with audio, video, blogs, chat and links to citizen journalism – all with a focus on progressive politics and the blogosphere. The content will be done by us, and will feature many of the people who post here and at other prominent political communities – national, community sites and local political blog forums.
We hope that it will become a center where people will go to get (and participate in) analysis of what is going on – the implications of it, what is important and why, as well as be able to contribute content as well. A lot of the audio will be done through Blogtalkradio (at least at first), some of which will be through eP Radio, and some under the specific segment titles.
While the site will “go live” in late April, we will be populating it over the next few weeks, and will have frequent updates with many of your favorite voices around the left blogosphere.
What type of stuff will there be?
As far as audio goes, we have at least three different “series”. Yesterday, we did our first show – “FrameWork”. FrameWork is best described as follows:
Tune in to FrameWork for a discussion of the week’s biggest political issues and examine the framing behind them. Featuring prominent guest bloggers focusing on framing issues, we’ll look at the arguments being used by both Progressives and the Right and explore their strengths and weaknesses. Plus, direct advice on utilizing the most advantageous arguments going into the week ahead. Whether you are a blogger, a lurker, a candidate or a politician, you won’t want to miss this insightful and actionable recap of the issues at hand and the arguments behind them.
You can listen to the first show here, which is a discussion between me and thereisnospoon (hosted by theKK) dealing with the “War vs. Occupation meme”. We hope to do these on a regular basis (hopefully once per week).
Another segment will be called “10 Minutes With…”, where we will have a brief interview with prominent bloggers and people active in the political arena. We hope to have a significant number of them, and will keep you posted as we record and release them. This show is an excellent way to get to know some of the voices behind the diaries and comments that you read or behind the “actions” that are taken by those who have worked so hard in the progressive political arena over the past few years.
A third segment, and the one that is the most interactive is a 30 minute interactive radio show called Don’t Hijack My Thread!! This will be hosted by me and by thereisnospoon (and hekebolos as his schedule permits) and will be a “rapid fire interactive” discussion of the week’s hot political topics. In the future, we would also like to have “guest hosts” for some of these shows. There will be call in participation as well as a chat room so that people who are a bit shy can still participate.
We are taping our first one later tonight and if it goes smoothly, then it will be available for download/playback over the next day. This is one that we also hope to do on a regular basis, and we think that would be able to garner lots of good debate and discussion – and also make it fun.
Conclusion
I am very serious when I say that we are the new media. There is a whole lot of new technology and many new avenues for distributing a message. This is a long term process, but we are well on our way. Cable news ratings are down. Network news is becoming more irrelevant. Print media circulation is down. Political pundits are becoming irrelevant and nothing more than clowns and caricatures.
We hope that Political Nexus will help fill the void and take our movement to the next level. You will be hearing more about this, whether you like it or not….We do have a tremendous opportunity. Let’s make the most of it.
