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(The determination to be “fair” to all sides on all stories can at times go to such absurd lengths that Allan Little, one of our best reporters with hard experience of covering Sarajevo in the mid-90s and much more, speaks of the analogy of two men at a bar, one saying that two plus two equals four, and the other that two plus two equals six. The BBC solution to this disagreement? Put them both on the Today Programme, and the answer clearly lies somewhere in the middle.)
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My former colleagues at the BBC, including Richard Black and others whom I know as good men and women all, remain trapped like most Western-style journalists in the old paradigm of news as event, not process, always needing to be shiny, new and different.
As a correspondent, and later at every nine o’clock morning editorial meeting at the World Service on every weekday through the 1990s, I and my colleagues would grapple with this – how to tell a complex story in just a few lines, with enough of a news peg to interest our listeners. And listeners, viewers and readers have short attention spans – they’ll tune out if they sense it’s just the same old stuff.
So, in order to sell and appeal, whether public service or commercial, journalism needs events. We need clear causes, agents and forces to be visibly responsible. We need (not that we put it like this) a narrative of baddies and goodies. Where the climate is concerned, things are slow-moving, complex, and what’s more, we ourselves are the baddies. That’s not something listeners and viewers want or wanted to be told.
HT Jay Rosen - Isn't this the heart of the matter? Are not most of the tough issues that confront us complex and slow moving and they involve not "them" but "US"!
I think that the media has failed us all and has a major responsibility for the mess that we are in. We are stalled on energy, food, security, immigration, education and the economy. Why? Because our media uses a process that ensures that we are stalled.
Do I know a better way? I know a better direction which is why I am working with KETC on Immigration - one of the issues where only emotion and externalization rules and where the press pour gas on the fears of the people and so feed a political system that is only theatre.
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A demonstration at the University of Prince Edward Island campus Wednesday drew attention to the high cost of tuition fees.
via cbc.ca
Here is part of a comment on the item about fees at UPEI: "i am spending 5000 dollars just to take 10 courses, i spent close to 500 dollars on books this semester and will have to get more next semester. thats not even including living expenses, rent is ridiculous"
The pips are squeaking - my warning is "Please think about what it may mean to leave with a BA and a big loan."
If you leave any university today with a student loan over $20,000 what have you done to yourself?
Remember you cannot use bankruptcy to get out of this loan.
Will you have a good chance of getting a good job soon that will enable you to pay this off? Remember that if you do, the clock starts to tick and you have to service the loan. So the moment you start work, you will be poor as the loan payments come before everything.
On PEI what are the chances of getting a well paying job on graduation? I taught for 5 years and taught many of the best students - I cannot think of one that has such a job and that is many years ago. Most are now approaching 30!
Where are the jobs that will pay a graduate - who has in reality NO skills - the kind of money that will make loan service easy? When you took the loan did you ever think about this or did you accept that with your BA a good well paying job would be easy to get? Do you know what youth unemployment is today? Do you have any idea of what you intent to do?
With such a loan how will you really afford to buy a car or a home? What if you owe $35,000! What will that do to your life?
In reality, your BA means very little today. That is why so many then go on to grad school and dig an even deeper hole of debt and still emerge with no skills and no direction.
Your BA is not a ticket to a job. Your loan is an anchor not a sail.
If you want work and want to earn a decent living - then get some real skills and get them from a master who also has a network.
If you wish to broaden your mind keep your costs down at school. Above all live at home. Your living costs will equal your direct costs. Look at an online alternative too.
Be careful out there
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What happens when you try to pay attention to more than 150 people? Paterson says, “People become strangers to one another.” Cliques form; loyalties divide; in the military, hierarchies and rules have to be established to keep the unit together.
What happens when you try to pay attention to too many people online? One extreme possibility is Facebook Addiction Disorder. Therapist and Huffington Post blogger Lisa Haisha says people are using Facebook to escape from reality, all the while telling themselves that they are keeping in touch with people. What’s really happening, Haisha writes, is “less human interaction, less touch, less accountability, and less human connection.” If you’re spending much more than an hour a day on Facebook, you may be using it to fill a void in your life, to escape depression or loneliness. The problem is, “the more time you spend on Facebook, the more depressed and lonely you become, and you have to spend even more time online to eliminate those negative feelings. Eventually it’s a vicious cycle that seems to have no way out.”
One teacher tells the story of a former student who had serious socialization problems and spent more time in the nurse’s office than in class. She had nearly 1,000 friends on Facebook, and she constantly updated her status so that if she didn’t show up in school or didn’t update for a while, she got messages asking where she was. These messages made her feel like she had an active, healthy social life, but it only existed in the virtual world.
This post asks a neat question - if you try and interact with more friends than you are designed to cope with - you might end up with no one!
The research is clear - we cannot have empathy with more than about 150 people. We can of course have a much larger circle - but we cannot groom enough to hold more than 150 reasonably close.
Our inner circle is actually about 8 - you best mates and girl friends are in this group. Better we work on this close group. If we pay attention there we get what we want. If this seems a bit limited let's look at how the math of connection works.
If your 8 very close friends each had 4 good friends - who had 4 good friends out to 4 then you would have trusted access to 4,096 people. If you had 13 friends (the next grouping of intimacy you would have access to 28,561 people. If you had 34 - the most practical grouping and the size of early human tribes - you would have access to 1,336,336 and with 144 friends - the most that you can manage you would have access to 429, 981, 696 people. Enough I am sure to meet any need!
These numbers are on the Fibonacci sequence and make up part of the building blocks of how humans naturally gather in intimate groupings.
All the fuss about having thousands of friends is a waste of time. Best we focus on the inner groups of up to 34. If we hold our inner group together we have a very powerful network.
For all of this takes work - to keep the trust and the real friendship demands our attention. Monkeys and Apes physically Groom. Humans have to keep chatting and interacting.
Actually Facebook is a help but it is only one way - nothing beats face to face - but interacting on FB can go a long way when face to face is not available.
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Since the 'factory' work we did is now being mechanized, outsourced or eliminated, it's hard to pay extra for it. And since buyers have so many choices (and much more perfect information about pricing and availability) it's hard to charge extra.
Thus, middle class jobs that existed because companies had no choice are now gone.
Protectionism isn't going to fix this problem. Neither is stimulus of old factories or yelling in frustration and anger. No, the only useful response is to view this as an opportunity. To poorly paraphrase Clay Shirky, every revolution destroys the last thing before it turns a profit on a new thing.
The networked revolution is creating huge profits, significant opportunities and a lot of change. What it's not doing is providing millions of brain-dead, corner office, follow-the-manual middle class jobs. And it's not going to.
So what then does school as it is prepare people for - a world that is dying and will be dead by the time most in grade 6 graduate.
Too late and too hard to change the schools - I think that each of us as parents need to start to talk with each other about what practically we are going to do to help our kids and in my case my grand children.
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So in truth FB has the potential to be a very important tool. Maybe you did not know but Plato thoughts the written word was very bad for learning. His learning pathway was entirely in dialogue and interaction via the spoken word. He is and was no fool.
Steven Johnson also makes the point about having the ideal physical environment. It was the coffee house and the salon in the age of enlightenment that offered the ferment that produced the core set of ideas that created the modern world.
I think that Co-Working places like the Queen Street Commons offer this in our own time.
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Banning Facebook is like banning the telephone. What people in authority don't realise is that it is just a tool. Any tool can be used or misused. What they should be focussed on is harnessing its potential not being paranoid about what people do with it.
Facebook, like so many social tools, is actually primarily about learning. Yes learning what people had for breakfast - but also learning news, learning what works, learning what books are best to read, learning where to find the right bit of information.
It is particularly ironic when schools ban Facebook as they are the very ones who should be teaching effective use of this technology - not keeping their pupils stuck in some industrial, factory model of learning.
A friend of Euan son was banned - here is Euan's response. I would like to add that we don't ban kids from the world - the web is now part of this world too. We have to learn how to live in all parts of the world - real and virtual.
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Immigration: Now and Then
How has the citizenship process changed over the course of American history? Scott Beck took a nineAcademy class in August and created this video called “Immigration: Now and Then.” He includes an interview with a lawyer who talks about the citizenship process today, and Scott juxtaposes this with an interview featuring a woman who came to America in the late 1970s who says immigration back then was much easier.
What do you think about the current naturalization process? Is it easy, hard, just right? Could it be improved, and if so, how?
When we ask many folks for their views about immigration - a common response is "I don't mind - so long as they are Legal".
The issue today is that getting legal is so hard. The British Immigrant here came to the US at the end of the 1970's as a military wife. She filled in some forms. Had a 10 minute interview and was in!
The lawyer who also speak in this clip reveals that the process today can take between 2-8 years for a straightforward case and at no time will it be clear that you will make it. Part of the issue is the time we live in but more important is the complex bureaucracy with 3 separate departments all involved.
So if "legal" is the test - we are in a Catch 22 position - the pathway to Legal is too complex and too uncertain.
Can the process be at least be made predictable? What can be done to offer a better process?
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* TAKE THE QUIZ
How Masculine Are You?
Score ten per cent for each question when the answer is 'me’.
1 Dominant: Which of you tends to take over the running of the household?
2 Fearless: Which of you is more inclined to suggest new activities or a instigate a lifestyle change?
3 Aspirational: Which of you is more likely to suggest moving house, getting building work done, or transferring the children to a better school?
4 Possessive: Who is more likely to feel jealous?
5 Focused: Who takes care of the household bills and joint finances?
6 Powerful: Whose opinions tend to be stronger and have the most weight?
7 Leader: Which of you organises your joint social life?
8 Driven: Which of you is the more driven and determined to get your own way?
9 Decisive: Who books the holidays?
10 Assertive: Which of you is more likely to kick up a fuss about shoddy service or a poor restaurant meal?
How Feminine Are You?
Score ten per cent for each question when the answer is 'me’.
1 Protective: Who worries more about the welfare of other family members?
2 Nurturing: Who is more sympathetic when the other partner falls ill?
3 Trusting: Which of you is happy to trust your partner’s judgement?
4 Considerate: Who is most likely to show respect for the other’s viewpoint?
5 Appreciative: Which of you is more likely to voice their appreciation and give positive feedback?
6 Co-operative: Who is happier to defer to the other partner’s opinions?
7 Encouraging: Who tends to offer support and a pep-talk when the other partner is feeling at a low ebb?
8 Pleasing: Who seeks to placate the other when tempers get frayed?
9 Accommodating: Which of you hates confrontation more?
10 Open: Which of you is happier tallking about your feelings?
If I had answered these questions 10 years ago - I would have been resolutely male 20 years ago extremely so. Today I am the wife!
How about you?
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The operating system for mainstream journalism knows what to do when there’s a legitimate debate to be had. But when there’s an illegitimate debate going on (and getting louder) that same system tends to break down, especially when the culture war and partisan divide are confounded with the issue, as they are here.
A New York Times, Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC or CNN reporter receives from his professional peers and traditions no clear instructions for how to handle an illegitimate debate, meaning one that should never have arisen, because it is based on phony selection, manufactured doubt, and highly ideological reads of the available evidence. The louder the din, the more wary the mainstream journalist is of “choosing sides.” But what if choosing sides is exactly what the journalist would have to do to portray things as they really are?
This leads to a third factor. Let me repeat my question: what if choosing sides is exactly what the fair-minded journalist would have to do to portray things as they really are? Here, I’m afraid, self-image conflicts with reality. That’s painful. People flee pain. The reality is it is very, very hard for a mainstream news person to say, “These people have the facts on their side, these people are manufacturing doubt and manipulating the case, and everyone should realize this is a phony debate– okay, is that clear?” This almost never happens. But in the mind of our hypothetical reporter, portraying things as they really are–that, is, truth-telling–always and everywhere trumps all other factors. The very bedrock of their self-image is “let the chips fall where they may, we tell it like it is.” Giving that up would be like saying to the self, “my career has been a waste.” Or: “I am a fraud.”
And so it is very likely that the enormous institutional pressures against declaring,
What more can I say - As I struggle with my colleagues at KETC to find a path through the noise that surrounds Immigration - I keep wondering what the balance point is for truth?
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