Author Archives: stephen kaufman

How much is a Trustworthy News Source Worth?

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Now that World Press Freedom Day has come and gone, many of us, especially in the United States, can resume the “deathwatch” for the traditional news media.

As I repeatedly blogged about in an earlier incarnation, there are many concerns that the American press, and by extension American democracy (since democracy requires an informed public), face a serious crisis due to the rise and prevalence of “infotainment,” on the one hand, and advocacy journalism on the other, instead of straight news reporting.  Yet even the advertisement-driven business model hasn’t been enough to keep many traditional print sources afloat in a sea of free Web-based news.

On May 5, in an appearance on The Daily Show, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham announced that his magazine’s owner, The Washington Post, had put the publication up for sale, which may ultimately lead to its demise after 77 years of operation.  If you’re interested in buying it, please let Meacham know.

Meacham referenced author J.D. Salinger’s celebrated book, saying Newsweek is one of the few remaining “catcher[s] in the rye” that is preventing the American public from falling off a cliff into ignorance.  (Bnet.com disagrees.)

The editor urged news consumers to examine their priorities.  “We have to decide, are we ready to get what we’re willing to pay for? And if you’re not going to pay for news, then you’re going to get a different kind of news,” he said.

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch recently proposed a digital subscription model that would affect newspapers such as The Times of London and The Wall Street Journal.  That led to a recent discussion with colleagues (including fellow BTP blogger Tanya) on whether we would be willing to pay $20 a month to read The New York Times.  Would you?

But check this out: according to The Atlantic, a senior executive at Google.com, which Murdoch and others have held responsible for the current crisis, says the company is now looking at how to save the news business “for commercial as well as civic reasons.”  Google realizes that “if news organizations stop producing great journalism … the search engine will no longer have interesting content to link to.”

Is there a link between an informed citizenry and commercial profit?  The cynic in me is finally seeing room for hope.

Taxation without Representation

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When American colonists rebelled against the British Empire, they complained of “taxation without representation” because the British Parliament was levying taxes to gain additional revenue from its American subjects without giving them any say or a vote on the issue.

The next time you visit Washington, DC, check out the license plates.  Residents have adopted the revolutionary slogan as part of their long battle to gain the representation in Congress that other Americans enjoy.

In 1789, the U.S. Constitution authorized Congress to “exercise exclusive legislation” over the future U.S. capitol.  This was so the federal government would be on neutral territory rather than part of a particular state.  After Maryland and Virginia agreed to give up land for the federal district (Virginia later regained its territory in 1847), Congress moved there in 1800 and Washington, DC’s residents have since had no representation in Congress and could not even vote for president until 1961.

As DC has grown into a densely populated city, more are questioning the district’s founding arrangement.  About 600,000 DC residents pay taxes and serve in the military but lack a vote in Congress.  Congress also reviews and modifies their local budget and annuls any local laws it does not agree with.  

So why not simply give DC voting representation?  Politics is partly to blame.  It is all but assured that any DC representative would be a Democrat, and Republicans are well aware of that.  A compromise worked out over the past few years to simultaneously allocate a safe Republican seat in the House of Representatives fell apart April 20 over objections to an amendment that would have repealed DC’s gun control laws.  Utah, who would have gained the additional Republican, will get its new seat anyway, thanks to the 2010 Federal Census that will document its increased population.  The solution also denied DC residents voting representation in the Senate.  (Consider that Wyoming, population 544,000, has a Representative and two Senators.) 

Another proposal is DC’s retrocession to Maryland, which gives them Maryland’s two Senators and their own Representative.  However this would require a U.S. constitutional amendment and Maryland is reluctant to take on the responsibility and costs of governance, considering its own budget constraints and because it already has a huge metropolis (Baltimore).  Some advocate full statehood, but along with needing an amendment, detractors says this undermines the original neutral territory idea for the nation’s capitol.

There’s much more to this, but I’m out of space.  What do you think is a fair solution?

Parliamentary Elections and Presidential Debates: An Odd Couple?

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By having the first ever televised debates for the British general election last Thursday (two more are on the schedule), the United Kingdom is giving its voters more information on the policies and characters of its next likely prime minister. But is it also somehow undermining its parliamentary system by highlighting personalities and stage presence rather than party platforms?

It’s an interesting question since the election rules are quite different in parliamentary systems than in presidential systems like we have in the United States. I vote directly for my representatives in the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as separately for my head of state, the president. But British voters vote only for their Member of Parliament who then helps select the prime minister.

In the parliamentary system, that difference takes the emphasis off of personalities and puts it more on what the party stands for, and has the party itself choose its leadership rather than the voter. Theoretically, if the May 6 election results in no party having the majority, the job of prime minister will be filled through power sharing and coalition agreements between the elected legislators — like what is currently going on in Iraq, for example.

Just as we have seen U.S. politicians borrow a page from British democracy by having their own version of “Prime Minister’s Question Time,” now we see British politicians adopting the American-style televised debate.

According to the New York Times, the debates are intended to generate more public interest in the election. Under the rules, a 200-member studio audience of all political persuasions will get to submit questions, and a panel of journalists will choose which of those to ask the candidates. So, there is an avenue here for public participation. (There are lots of other rules too, including the ability for candidates to immediately challenge camera angles, lighting, or any other aspect that they feel puts them at a disadvantage.)

But detractors point out not only the fact that Britons do not directly vote for their head of state, but that televised debates among party leaders risk favoring style over substance.

“You’re boiling down the parties and all their policies to one man,” Steven Fielding, director of the Center for British Politics at the University of Nottingham, told USA Today. “It’s all about their hairstyle … and how they pronounce things.”

I can see both sides of the debate over the debates. On the one hand, it is very helpful for voters to feel more engaged and directly evaluate the differences between those most likely to become their chief executive. But at the same time, does it also make it more likely that Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Nick Clegg will lose the election for their whole party because of a careless remark or a bad hair day?

Burma's NLD: One Month to Live?

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[image src="http://photos.state.gov/libraries/amgov/3234/Week_2/041410_AP09092705364_300.jpg" caption="NLD party members welcome guests to a 2009 anniversary celebration wearing trademark T-shirts bearing a white star and fighting peacock. " align="left"]

The Burmese public received an official apology from the country’s leading pro-democracy political party, the National League for Democracy, which is led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.   We want to “officially apologize to the public for our failed policies in the struggle for democracy,” an April 6 NLD statement said, attributing its failure to unilateral oppression by the military authorities.  Now the party faces dissolution under controversial election laws set by the ruling military junta.

Founded in 1988, the party won a landslide victory in Burma’s last general election, which was held in 1990.  However, the country’s military regime refused to let the NLD take power, and ever since its members have faced persecution from the regime, ranging from intimidation to arrests.  Suu Kyi herself has been held in jail or under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years.

The military regime announced laws for a new round of elections set for later this year, but Suu Kyi and thousands of other dissenters have been barred from participating.  The NLD announced March 29 it would not register to participate in the election, citing “unfair and unjust laws” surrounding the process.

The 22-year-old movement faces a critical dilemma.  It can revisit its decision and participate in an election that is almost certain to be unfair, and risk giving the results some legitimacy, or it can continue on its path to boycott the process and be forced to go completely underground.  The junta has declared that any party that does not register for the election before May 7 faces dissolution.

Rank-and-file NLD party members are apparently divided upon what to do.  Some may decide to form a separate pro-democracy party in order to contest seats in the election and have continued, if limited, official sanction to operate, while others say they want the party to continue its work outside the political sphere through social welfare activities, humanitarian aid work, and cooperation with opposition allies.  It will also be working to urge voters to boycott the proposed vote.

The NLD says it wants to continue its nonviolent advocacy for Burmese democracy.  What would you advise it to do?

Getting People to Care: The Challenge of Activism

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If you’re trying to start a grassroots movement, your biggest challenge will likely be figuring out how to raise more awareness to your cause and mobilize support into effective action. What’s an organizer to do?

South Korean activits protest North Korea's nuclear weapons programI recently witnessed a group of students concerned over nuclear proliferation discuss this very issue. But before they spoke, a group of U.S. officials outlined the vision of a world without nuclear weapons and said, “We can’t do this alone.” They added that the United States cannot unilaterally realize this vision, and the Obama administration cannot solely convince the U.S. Congress to back its efforts by ratifying the START and CTBT treaties. The lawmakers also need to hear from voters. Afterwards, the students shared ideas for not only encouraging awareness of the topic, but also for getting people excited enough about it to take action.

Some students thought the climate change issue offered a successful model because even if some don’t believe that it is a cause which demands action, most are still familiar with both sides of the debate and have an opinion. Can we get the same level of awareness when it comes to nuclear weapons, the students asked? Can we make it more accessible to average people?

One student from Missouri thought that skilled speakers should be brought to college campuses to spread the word. Another suggested promoting the idea of college courses on the topic, and developing a comprehensive curriculum.

“People know about climate change because they are concerned about the effects of global warming, we can do the same, it’s ok to scare them,” said one student.

“No,” replied a dissenter. “We risk making the threat seem hyped-up and people will think we are exaggerating.”

A woman from California thought the group needed to get practical and start small. She suggested that because people respond to food the organizers could offer pizza and combine it with a workshop event.

I found all of these ideas to be practical in their own ways. What works for one audience might not work for another since some mostly need to be yanked from their apathy, even if through “bribes” like fear or free food. Others need to feel they have considered all of the evidence and will quickly sense if you are not being straightforward.

From earlier posts like evaluating social networking campaigns and canvassing for then-candidate Obama, I think that no matter how self-evident you think your arguments are, there will be legitimate doubts about what you’re essentially “selling” them (let’s be real). So a good sense of humility and patience also come in handy.

Laws and Sausages

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U.S. Capitol BuildingWho knew the U.S. Congress was so exciting? This is my initial reaction after following news coverage of health care reform’s laborious march from the Senate and House to President Obama’s desk, back to the Capitol Hill and then back again to the White House for another presidential signature. The run-up to the March 20 vote in the House contained nearly as many cliffhangers as a decent novel. Will the Democratic House members get the magic 216 votes needed to pass the bill? Who is twisting whose arm and what, if anything is being promised behind closed doors? Will Republican amendments sidetrack the legislation or create a inescapable deadlock? What does “deem and pass” mean anyway? And did you know the U.S. Senate has a parliamentarian?

So which analogy for Congressional procedure seems more apt: a sports contest or a well choreographed dance?

Another fascinating example I just learned about: the “two hour” rule (number 26 in the Standing Rules of the Senate), which can cause Senate committee activity to effectively shut down after two hours based upon the objection of just one member. In their anger at the passage of health care reform, Republican members employed rule 26 in order to force the cancellation of scheduled committee hearings for two days.

Democratic Senator Carl Levin appeared to be pleading as he tried to convene the Senate Arms Services Committee to discuss North Korea on March 24. “We have three commanders scheduled to testify this afternoon. They’ve been scheduled for a long time. They’ve come a long, long distance,” Levin said, from posts as far away as Korea and Hawaii. “I would, therefore, ask unanimous consent that the previously scheduled and currently scheduled hearing … be allowed to proceed.” Fellow committee member and Republican Senator Richard Burr replied that while he had “no personal objection” to continuing the planned hearing, “there is objection on our side of the aisle. Therefore, I would have to object.”

And with that, afternoon work ground to a halt. Also canceled: an oversight hearing on police training contracts in Afghanistan, a hearing on the cause of western U.S. forest fires, two judicial nominations, and a hearing on medical prescriptions for nursing home patients.

As I discover new intricacies to the American legislative process, I am coming to the conclusion that the key to being a good Member of Congress must be an encyclopedic knowledge of the rule books so one is as well armed as they can be with strategies and tactics to move legislation forward or block it, depending upon the ultimate goal.

Do these little known rules make our legislative process too complex or subject to pettiness? Or do they provide individual Senators and Representatives with necessary tools to make more of a personal impact in the process, rather than just being counted in a “yea” or “nay” vote tally?

As 19th century German statesman Otto von Bismarck reportedly said, “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.”

The 2010 Senseless Census

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I bought a well used trailer a couple of years ago and placed it on the bank of a creek in Maryland’s Appalachian hills.  It essentially serves as a sturdier and more permanent shelter than a canvas tent.  There is no running water.  Because the electrical lines are haphazard, it rarely has power.  Plus there are leaks in the metal structure that have been “repaired” with duct tape.  Other than to sleep or cook food, I don’t spend a lot of time inside.  The whole point of my getting away from the city is to spend time outdoors.

The 2010 U.S. CensusWhen I arrived last Saturday, I was surprised to find a white plastic bag with the “U.S. Census” logo stuffed in the door handle.  It was the first (and likely the only) time my remote trailer will ever receive mail.  For the next minute I stood in front of the door imagining a government census taker trekking into the woods, knocking diligently and repeatedly at the door, looking around at the wilderness landscape with no sign of human activity for weeks, but apparently believing that someone must live there full time.   Maybe the census taker assumed I was crouching in fear on the other side of the door, convinced that the 2010 census is just part of a nefarious conspiracy.

“YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW,” it reads on the envelope.  I opened it up and saw the question “Does Person 1 sometimes live or stay somewhere else?” but the form doesn’t have any way to indicate whether or not this trailer is my primary residence.  Hey, I finally I have something in common with wealthy Marylanders.  Only instead of deciding whether I want to be counted at my mansion in Potomac, my yacht at Rock Hall, or my villa in Chevy Chase, I get to choose between my apartment in Takoma with the bent-up metal door and graffiti or my dilapidated trailer in the Appalachian woods with its random patches of silver duct tape.

I finally found the answer to my dilemma after returning to the city and consulting the Web.  “If you have more than one home, completely fill out the form for your primary residence. For the second home, mark “0″ for number of residents and indicate you live elsewhere. Doing that may help avoid costly visits from a census taker.”

What does the census have to do with democracy?  Census data will be used in future government decisions of how to determine the boundaries of my voting district, or even to eliminate or create new ones, depending on the number of people living there.  The data will also be used when decisions are made as to how federal funds will be allocated.  This is why my “response is required by law.”

Presumably my relatively impoverished rural habitat would gain more benefit from claiming me as a resident than Montgomery County, which is already one of the richest counties in the country.  So, can I decide to switch my official residency?  Well, no.  The online guidelines say multiple home owners should be “counted at the residence where they live most of the time.”  Plus, knowingly providing a false answer could earn me a $500 fine.

One more thing I noticed on the form.  “If not returned by mid-April, a census taker will come to your door.”  I picture the hapless worker trudging through the woods again on a rainy April day and knocking earnestly on my trailer door, and then peeking through the window to see if I was hiding under the table wearing a tin foil hat.  I am overcome with pity.  Both of my forms will be in the mail very soon.

Film about Burmese Underground Journalists Up for Oscar

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Coverage by citizen journalists brought international attention to the 2007 Saffron Revolution.

Coverage by citizen journalists brought international attention to the 2007 Saffron Revolution.

In their tightly controlled media climate, most Burmese will not be able to watch the upcoming Academy Awards March 7, but their political repression will have the world’s attention. Among the Oscar nominees for best feature documentary is the film Burma VJ, which chronicles undercover Burmese journalists and how they were able to capture and smuggle out footage of the military government’s brutal crackdown of the 2007 Saffron Revolution.

U Gawsita, a Burmese monk who is featured in the film, welcomed the Academy Award nomination in an interview with thewrap.com. “It shows that the world is standing with the oppressed people of Burma. It’s not ignoring the suffering of the people.”

Much of the film’s footage came from amateur journalists associated with the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), based in Oslo, Norway. In a video interview with the National Endowment for Democracy, DVB Executive Director Khin Maung Win says the station, which has expanded from shortwave transmissions to satellite television, is able to reach 10 million Burmese per month — a significant crack in the regime’s near monopoly on information. Providing DVB with content is a risky undertaking, since cameras must be hidden and footage must be clandestinely sent out of the country. There are now 10 DVB journalists in prison, but Win said that “even though they know the risk, they are committed.”

Their job is to cover precisely what the military regime is trying to hide, such as human rights violations and activities of opposition figures such as National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Given their constraints, Win said probably only about 20 to 30 percent of the military’s abuses can be documented, but even that small percentage shows “the power of media and how it can challenge the authority.”

Burma VJ director Anders Ostergaard emphasized the importance of citizen journalism to democracy.

“I believe it’s very powerful. We saw the same thing happening in Iran in the spring. It is here to stay, and I think it’s a very powerful tool for democracy and awareness. We tend to think that new technology is always ‘big brother is watching you,’ but it can also be ‘little brother is watching you.’ And that’s quite a good thing,” Ostergaard said.

What is the state of citizen journalism in your country, compared with Burma? How much do you rely upon “unofficial” news sources?

Journalism and the Exposure of Covert Intelligence

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Need a challenge? Try covering intelligence issues as a journalist. Like other beats in journalism, you are heavily reliant upon getting people to talk to you, in addition to any other detective work you can manage on your own. But unlike other beats, you are focusing on topics in which many people are actively trying to deny you information, or even steer you in the wrong direction.

The tug of war between governments and journalists over what information will be made public comes out most clearly in intelligence matters. The journalists want to be the first to let the public know what is going on, while the government wants to protect intelligence sources and methods.

When The New York Times exposed the government’s surveillance of U.S. citizens without obtaining warrants in 2005, then-President Bush was visibly unhappy and said the sources of the report had committed a “shameful act.”

But we have also seen just recently how The New York Times also agreed to a White House request for a delay in publishing its story on the capture of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. For more information, check out this very interesting interview from the BBC.

I recently went to a book signing by Shane Harris, who wrote The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State. He compared the challenge of uncovering truth and fact in the intelligence world with being asked to write a review of a play that is being performed in a theater which never raises its curtains.

“You hear footsteps behind the curtain, you hear people moving around, [and] you catch snatches of muffled dialogue,” he said, adding perhaps there will be a brief glimpse behind the curtain or someone involved in the production will whisper some information about the plot in your ear.

But that person is often followed by an official who says, “I know somebody just came out and told you what they thought was going on behind the curtain. That’s not what is going on at all. We’re not going to talk about what’s going on behind the curtain,” Harris said in his analogy.

As intelligence reporters, we are “constantly grabbing these fragments of a story where we can and then going back … and trying to fashion them into a mosaic in a narrative,” he said.

But, conversely, chroniclers like himself “often see the totality of a narrative that even the people in the play behind the curtain don’t always see.” He related how he once went to intelligence committee staff at the U.S. Congress to confirm bits of information he had gleaned from private and government sources. “Stop asking us these questions,” they told him. “Clearly, you know more about this story than we do.”

Suppose you were working on an article like the Mullah Baradar capture and were told by your government to delay it or to not publish it at all. Where would your “red lines” be in that type of scenario?

A Debate that Helped Transcend “Sound Byte Politics”

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Republican lawmakers raise their hands to challenge President Obamas policies.

Republican lawmakers raise their hands to challenge President Obama's policies.


We Americans are used to our watching our political leaders savage each other with bold short statements and sound bytes that seem made to fit in one-minute TV and radio segments. For that reason, I found it refreshing and very informative to watch President Obama and Republican Congressional Representatives engage in a real debate on Friday in Baltimore. Unlike most televised U.S. political debates, the questions to the president came directly from his opponents, rather than through a moderator, and neither side had to stay within the confines of a short time limit.

Peter Baker of The New York Times told PBS Television’s Gwen Ifill that the exchange had been “remarkable,” in both its civility, given the extreme partisan acrimony that has festered between Democrats and Republicans, and also because it was substantive, giving viewers a much clearer idea of where the two sides agree and differ on issues, free of sloganeering and generalities.

“We haven’t seen anything quite like this in a while. I’ve covered a number of presidents. I’d be hard-pressed to remember a time when we saw a president exchange views and debate the opposing party for an hour and a half on live television,” Baker said.

Dan Balz of The Washington Post compared it to Prime Minister’s Question Time in the British House of Commons.

Obama told his Republican hosts to challenge his ideas and said he was prepared to respond in kind, saying a real debate is “absolutely essential” for the well being of the country.

“It’s only through the process of disagreement and debate that bad ideas get tossed out and good ideas get refined and made better. And that kind of vigorous back and forth — that imperfect but well-founded process, messy as it often is — is at the heart of our democracy,” he said.

Let’s end the mutual demonization in the media, he said. While political rivals can energize their supporters by portraying an opponent as an extremist, it also “boxes us in in ways that makes it difficult for us to work together, because our constituents start believing us,” Obama said. “They don’t know sometimes this is just politics what you guys — or folks on my side do sometimes.”

The climate of extreme partisanship plays into the “slash-and-burn-style” that gets a media response, he pointed out. Responding to a question from Representative Paul Ryan from Wisconsin, Obama said if he told him “I think Paul Ryan is a pretty sincere guy and has a beautiful family,” those remarks would not make the news and they would not give the congressman much credit with his constituents.

“And by the way, in case he’s going to get a Republican challenge, I didn’t mean it,” Obama continued over laughter. “Don’t want to hurt you, man.”

Reading the press accounts afterwards, it seemed that spokespeople from both sides were declaring a victory in the debate. But I’m looking at it more as a victory for American voters than the politicians. I learned a lot about how the two sides truly see solutions to challenges like health care and the economy, rather than the simplistic and inaccurate charges of “Bolshevism” and “nihilism” that have been lobbed back and forth for the past year. More such debates, please!