Last week, at the national extreme-right “Tea Party” Convention, former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo said that “people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.” He added that President Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote.” (NY Daily News, 2/5/10) [link added]

Tancredo praised the radical ‘Tea Partiers’ for launching a “revolution,” and told the audience gathered that “it is our nation.”

Click here to tell Tancredo he doesn’t speak for you.

“Civics tests” to vote have a long and ugly record in America, primarily as a means of denying minorities the right to vote during the so-called “Jim Crow” era of legal discrimination and segregation. Such “tests” were banned by the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1964, ending what is universally considered today a dark chapter in American history.

Rep. Terrance Carroll, the first-ever African-American Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, rejected excuses made by Tancredo for these statements, saying Tancredo should know “how hateful those tests were and how hateful that period of history was.” (Denver Post, 2/6/10)

Let’s send a message to Tom Tancredo and the xenophobic, extremist “Tea Party” supporters who cheer him on. Click below to respond to Tancredo and tell him that this country belongs to all of us, and we won’t let him and his band of fringe supporters divide us. We’ll share your comments with the media and send them to Tancredo:

http://www.ProgressNowColorado.org/ItsOurNationToo

Thanks for speaking out, and reminding America that Tom Tancredo does not speak for Colorado.

Bobby

I don’t know that there’s any point in defending Tom Tancredo here – he’s perfectly capable of doing so himself, and besides, defending the man from mendacious attacks from the left would be a full-time job (just as making the attacks in the first place provides full-time employment for people at organizations like ProgressNow Colorado).

So no, I’ll focus on two small points in the email:

1. Smell the Fear: Why does ProgressNow put out emails like this, denouncing their fellow citizens’ political involvement, calling Tea Partiers xenophobes, extremists, racists (as Michael Huttner is wont to do), etc., etc.? Why do they pretend to get so worked up over the Tea Party movement and similar pro-liberty grassroots organizations, and put such effort into demonizing them and attempting to polarize opinion against them?Simple: they sense a valid threat to their own power and influence. The pro-liberty movement is, like the netroots itself in 2004, just finding its legs. Statist activists like Mr. Clark and Mr. Huttner recognize that libertarians are waking up, and are learning from the same tactics and organizational structures their own groups pioneered over the last six years – and learning it from successful example, rather than reinventing the wheel on their own. If a pro-serfdom movement can obtain one-party rule at the state and federal levels through these means, what is to stop the pro-liberty movement from doing the same – if not better?

   The hard-won political power now held by the Democrats it too great a victory for them to simply let go of now. Therefore, any threat to that entrenched power must be vigorously opposed, and preferably neutralized before it can gain traction with the voting public. Hence the use of smears, guilt by association, namecalling, and other means to paint the pro-liberty grassroots (of which the Tea Parties are but one part) as dangerous radicals who threaten the (new) status quo.

2. Mind Your Framing: ProgressNow Colorado considers Tea Parties “radical”. When did “radical” become a dirty word to Progressives? Was it when they became the establishment themselves? Seems like not too long ago, being a “radical” was, for Progressives and leftists/statists generally, a badge of honor – it meant that you aimed to bring dramatic and immediate change to The System, to bring down The Man, to [insert your favorite 1960s counterculture cliche here].If Tea Partiers are now radicals, and ProgressNow Colorado stands in opposition to them, does that not make ProgressNow Colorado a reactionary organization, interested in stopping dissent and reinforcing the status quo?

My, how times have changed. We’re clearly not in the golden age of the “radical” 1960s anymore.

Former Rocky Mountain News alternating ombudsmen David Kopel and Jason Salzman led a short (one-hour) discussion on the topic of declining newspaper readership and implications for news coverage and accessibility Friday May 1st at the Centennial Institute.

Both panelists discussed the challenge to traditional newspaper business models presented by the rise of online advertising (the “Craigslist” phenomenon).  Kopel in particular noted the apparent lack of a market of people willing to pay for high-quality local news (as witness the failure of the InDenverTimes to meet a 50,000 subscriber target – attaining only 3,000+ paid subscribers).  Kopel noted that there IS a paying market for business news.  Salzman chimed in by decrying the “greedy” ownership of the Rocky Mountain News for pulling out of Denver so quickly – “they should’ve stayed longer” irrespective of financial losses.

Both panelists, in differing degree, also decried the decrease in “investigative reporting”  accompanying the decline of newspapers (and corresponding staff reductions), with fewer ‘beat’ reporters tracking local and state government.  Salzman lamented the lack of a “watchdog” function exercised by newspaper staff reporters; Kopel expressed similar sentiments, and noted that although alternative media (particularly bloggers) did provide some coverage of events, as a rule, “bloggers are not going out and finding the stories.”  [Really?  More on that later]

Salzman (who spoke second) could not resist taking a cheap shot at Kopel for “describing the problem, but not offering any solutions.”  He then offered his take…  Surprise!  He advocated for a major government role in “saving journalism…”

- Direct support of existing newspapers through government subsidies (newspaper bailouts?) to “bridge the transition” from existing models to the ‘new newspaper economy’

- Creation of tax incentives to ease ownership by foundations or nonprofits

- Modification of the tax structure to ease ownership by unions/employees

- Increased funding for public broadcasting (PBS should be supported at even greater levels?)

- Provide an individual $200/annual tax credit for newspaper subscriptions

Kopel then responded by pointing out several pitfalls and fallacies in Salzman’s purported “solutions” – among them the editorial leverage that would be exerted by government “investment” in newspapers (Pravda, anyone?), the non-solution of changing ownership incentives (aside from there being no existing barriers or disincentives to ownership by unions, employees, foundations, or any other entities, the “solution” completely fails to address the problem), and the inherent pitfalls of providing a tax credit or subsidy (what publications would be approved? by whom?).

However, some of the most interesting discussion arose during the Q&A (which was cut short due to time constraints).  Some samples:

An ”Online” model for news: Salzman noted the existence of some online news sources (he specifically mentioned Face The State and Colorado Independent) but decried the limited audience for each – a problem he suggested be rectified with the “support and nurture” of government (funding) assistance.  Kopel noted that “device convergence” will eventually push more content to more ‘receivers’ – cellphones, PDA’s, the “Kindle” reader, etc. - with a business model built on “micro-commerce” (essentially, very low cost pay-per-view that is transparent to the consumer, much like charges for text messaging on non-unlimited plans).

Questioners noted that small community newspapers seemed to be filling the vacuum in coverage of local news.  Both Kopel and Salzman agreed that the smaller papers – particularly in small towns – were NOT experiencing the same decline as major metropolitan newspapers.

Finally, several questioners brought up the issue of perceived bias or just plain inaccuracy in newspaper coverage.  Here, interestingly enough, both Kopel and Salzman downplayed the issue of bias or coverage inaccuracy.  However, multiple attendees cited examples of reporters just plain getting the facts wrong – in addition to more instances of reporters failing to understand the issues, background, or context on which they were reporting.

After acknowledging that journalists are not subject-matter experts (SMEs) by background or training, and frequently lack expertise in the subject areas they cover (Kopel noted that the knowledge deficit was particularly acute in the legal, scientific, and historical fields), the panelists posited a ‘new’ model of ‘distributed knowledge’ – or really a return to the origins of American journalism, the “pamphleteers” of the American founding.

Again, Salzman decried the “pampleteer” phenomenon, lamenting the loss of the “shared narrative” and “common base of knowledge” that existed under the ancien regime of major newspapers and “Big 3″ networks.

 Analysis:

Despite providing some informed insight based on their several years of journalistic experience, particularly in assessing the changing business/market environment facing the mass media in general and newspapers in particular, the panelists largely missed the boat when it comes to understanding the rise and impact of alternative media and alternate information sources.  Questioners correctly noted the widely-held perception of bias and inaccuracy in mass media reporting; both panelists erred in downplaying the impact of this phenomenon.  The decline of newspapers (and search for alternative sources of information) is directly related to the death of journalism as a profession.  Unlike the “glory days” of monolithic media dominance when Walter Cronkite was the “most trusted man in America,” journalists are now widely recognized as biased, lacking in integrity or just plain lazy when it comes to “doing the homework” on a story.  Combined with increasing availability of alternative sources of information, growing numbers of people are seeking their news elsewhere.

However, the worst journalistic transgressions are sins of omission, not commission – the stories or news they DON’T cover.  Historically, newspapers and the mass media have acted as gatekeepers for information – if they don’t recognize (and publish/broadcast) something as news, it ain’t news.  This is not a new phenomenon – in fact, an excellent book titled “The Spike” (in the news world, to “spike” a story means to cancel its publication) described this as far back as 1980.  The Liberal Establishment Mass Media (“LEMMing“) attempts to ignore or minimize the recent Tax Day Tea Party rallies nationwide is the latest and most prominent example of this – but, thanks in large part to alternative media and social networks spreading the word before, during, and after the event, the rallies were too large to ignore.

That is, they couldn’t be ignored entirely.  That didn’t stop the LEMMings (including the only remaining major Denver newspaper, the Post) from failing to cover aspects of the story.  Although Brian T. Campbell, organizer of the Denver Tax Day Tea Party, expressed satisfaction with the Denver Post’s coverage of the event, on questioning he conceded that this was mostly due to the fact that they didn’t ignore the official police estimates of attendance (“more than 5,000″) and got his quotes right (how low have our expectations fallen?)  Left unmentioned in the Post’s coverage, however, was the fact that local lefty gadfly Michael Huttner (quoted extensively in the article) not only lied about attendance and lied about speakers at the event, but was also escorted away by the police for attempting to disrupt the event.  Aren’t those tidbits newsworthy?  One might think so…

As it happens, that information WAS covered – and publicized – by alternative media.  Those much-disparaged citizen journalists – bloggers and “pamphleteers” – have consistently beaten “professional” journalists at their own game – investigating and breaking stories, covering local events and government activities (meetings, hearings, legislative debates, etc.) and doing so quickly (near-real-time or even real-time streaming coverage – such as the Ayers-Churchill “forum“) and with multiple media (text, still photos, and video) while providing original sourcing and references - allowing readers to conduct fact-checking as they read or view the news.

Bottom line: “if you’re getting your news from television or newspapers - you’re not getting the news.”