Robert Paterson's Weblog

Creating a Conversation on Immigration – 3 Wise Men

People are getting tired of how the media polarizes society.

One of our goals here on Homeland is to discover how best to offer you a space where you and others can feel safe enough to have a real conversation about Immigration. It is such an emotional issue that in most other media, all we see is argument based on fixed emotional positions and that is on a good day. Often all we see is people yelling at each other.

Is there a better way? Is there a way that media can help us all see through our emotions and find a pathway to solutions that help?

We certainly hope so and this site and our work here is our first step in this voyage of discovery. But do we know how to do this? We have some good ideas. I think that we have made a good start. But you know too, that trying to change your own self is the hardest thing of all.

So we have reached out to three of the best thinkers on how media works. We asked them in the context of this project on Immigration

• Why is the media not helping us know more about our issues and know more about how to solve them?
• What would be a better way?
• What advice do they have for us at KETC?

In this post I will introduce you to them and give you some context for their advice. I will follow up with 3 posts that each contain each person’s full answers.

Euan Semple started life in the BBC World Service. He was instrumental in awakening the BBC to the potential of the web and to how social media works. Part of his own learning in that work was how to use influence rather than power for he was not the CEO but a quite junior person. Since leaving the BBC, Euan has become one of the “Go To” people that large organizations seek out. These kinds of organizations, such as the World Bank, Nato and Nokia, often have the greatest challenge in changing their culture to use social media well. Euan understands this aspect of the challenge so well.

Here is a short blog post from Euan that I think will give you a sense of the person he is: “Many moons ago, in the early days of blogging David Weinberger described it as “writing ourselves into existence”. I was reminded recently of just how transformative blogging has been in my life. How much more aware I am of my thoughts and feelings – and of the world around me. Once you have a blog you notice more, you start to think “I might write about this on my blog” “What do I want to say?” “What will people’s reaction be?”. Over time you get better at noticing and the better at noticing you get the more noticed you get! You end up in the wonderful collective web of “Oooh that’s interesting” which I now wouldn’t ever want to be without.”

Euan will bring the human and cultural aspects to the fore in his interview: starting with the great challenge for all organizations that “Conversations can only take place between individuals”

Doc Searls day job is Senior Editor of The Linux Journal, he is also a Fellow of the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University. He is a long standing fan and technical insider of public broadcasting. But for many of us who are interested in how social media might improve our lives, he is one of the 4 authors of arguably the most influential book on that all of this means – The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Here is how the Cluetrain Manifesto opens and this quote provides a context for Doc’s answers in the interview. “A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies. These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can’t be faked. Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.

But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about “listening to customers.” They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.”

As we started to talk he added this key point – that when he says “Market” he does not mean marketing, segments etc but the old fashioned “Place” where people came together and using their name and real identity negotiated important things between each other. A place that was safe and where your name, your personal reputation, was your most important asset. Where trust was created by personal honor. This is his starting point for where we go.

Jay Rosen is a Professor of Journalism at the NYU Arthur L Carter Journalism Institute. He is the author of one of the most read blogs on Journalism Press Think.  At the heart of his work are his insights into the cultural issues at stake when the “One to Many Media” is confronted by the “Many to Many” alternative. Traditionalists who hope that the web and all it stands for would go away, see him as a heretic. Those who seek to find the new path, see him as a beacon of light.

This opening in a recent interview with the Economist will give you a sense of how he thinks about the crisis that confronts the media today:

Mr Rosen: “The cost of changing settled routines seems too high, but the cost of not changing is, in the long term, even higher. A good example is the predicament of the newspaper press: the print edition provides most of the revenues, but it cannot provide a future. I know of no evidence to show that young people are picking up the print habit. So if the cost of abandoning print is too high, the cost of sticking with it may be even higher, though slower to reveal itself. That’s a problem.

Another example is the decline of trust. In the mid-1970s over 70% of Americans told Gallup they had a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the press. Today: 47%. Clearly, something isn’t working. But revisions to the code of conduct that has led to this decline would be seen by most journalists as increasing the risk of mistrust. I’ve tried to argue that the View from Nowhere—also called objectivity—should be replaced by “here’s where we’re coming from.” That strikes most people in the American press as dangerous and unworkable. But the current course is unsustainable: trust continues to decline, with a big acceleration after 2003. When I mention this to journalists, they say: “Trust in all big institutions has declined, Jay.” Which is true (except for the military).  But is that really an answer? You’re supposed to be the watchdogs over dubious actors. Why aren’t you an exception?

I could go on, but I think you see the pattern. Change is too expensive; the status quo is unsustainable.”

In Jay’s interview the issue of Trust – how to get it and how to keep it will be the thread.

Tomorrow we begin with Euan – see you then.

via explorehomeland.org

I interviewed Euan, Doc and Jay separately for KETC last week. We need help and they kindly stepped up.

What is wrong with media today? What is a better way? What can we do?

Our goal? To find a way of talking about a topic like Immigration, that drives so much emotion, so that we can find a path that will help most people.

How to break the deadlock that seems to have gripped America on most issues that confront us.

What a gift they have given us.

Tomorrow Euan, Friday Doc - Monday Jay.

I hope you find them as stimulating as I have.

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

Google TV is almost here

Set-top box will blur computers and TV in the living room

ABC video follows ad – sorry about the ad. We don’t control it.

The Sony handheld controller for Google TV is set to launch on October 12th and promises to revolutionize television. Other than a controller, will Google TV be free?  Will they drive us crazy with even more ads?  

Engadget

via njnnetwork.com

I do think that this is huge - but I also wonder if we will all sit down together and watch the SAME stuff again - do you?
HT NJN Stephen Pate

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

KETC Works with Community on 'Homeland' Immigration Project | PBS

Fresh from their ambitious multi-city Facing the Mortgage Crisis project, KETC/Channel 9 in St. Louis has launched a new community-based news project on another hot topic: immigration.  

Homeland aims to "apply public media sensibilities, expertise and capacity to address a complicated and polarizing issue," said Amy Shaw, KETC's vice president of education and community engagement. The project includes a website that will feature original content created by community members and KETC staff, a series of facilitated community meetings in the St. Louis area and across Missouri, and a four-hour nationally broadcast television series. This combination, said Shaw, is designed to "push the boundaries of what public media can do."

According to the site:

The Homeland initiative is the embodiment of what public media can do well -- we generate awareness around the important and complex issues that need to be addressed in our communities, and then we create impact by mobilizing people to address these issues. In the process of talking to people throughout our region, we want to show, analyze and present what we learn. We're not going to tell people what we think about immigration or what is right or wrong, good or bad. We intend to help people embrace and understand the complexity of important issues to help communities address them in a more authentic, rational way.

NineAcademy Trains Community Members

Shaw said the project is "rooted in needs of the community," and it is clear that KETC takes community engagement seriously. Homeland is teaming up with KETC's NineAcademy, a free community media program that trains locals in shooting, editing, and storytelling. The best productions will be featured on the Homeland site and on KETC.

Although NineAcademy has already trained community members ranging from middle schoolers to senior citizens, KETC is intent on "meeting people where they are." Aware that some community members lack internet access, KETC staff has made sure that phone, face-to-face and snail-mailed correspondence is valued as much as online interaction. For example, KETC is experimenting with the idea of "conversations in a box" -- mobile storytelling kits, including inexpensive digital video recorders, that are mailed to community members. When they have finished recording their stories, they send the kits back to KETC for redistribution.

So far, according to Shaw, promotion for the project has been minimal, as the project website is still developing.

Five Sections of Site

At present, the site includes five sections that demonstrate the participatory and collaborative nature of Public Media 2.0, in varying degrees.

360 Degree Perspectives is a blog that explores multiple perspectives on immigration issues, based on KETC's meetings with community members from all spots on the political spectrum, including Tea Party members, far-left groups, and the very wide swath of Americans who don't currently identify with a particular political point of view.

Fact vs. Myth takes a nuanced look at some of the common information and misinformation surrounding the immigration debate. Check out this Fact vs. Myth video created by a NineAcademy graduate DeAnna Tipton:

Your Voice is a discussion forum for community members. Right now, the conversation is heavily populated by KETC staff, but Shaw is confident that the balance will shift over time to allow for more user-directed conversation.

Homeland Series is a behind-the-scene look at the making of the four-hour series that will air in 2011. The broadcast element of this project is, as Shaw explained, "a piece of puzzle," not the be-all end-all culmination of the project. In fact, no pieces related to the project have aired yet, although there has been much activity both online and face-to-face. Community meetings have shaped the entire direction of the project, including the decision to create the four-hour broadcast piece.

Finally, From the Beacon showcases related work from KETC's newspaper partner, the St. Louis Beacon. The Beacon was a partner in the Facing the Mortgage Crisis project as well, providing cross-platform news coverage to the benefit of both organizations.

Challenges

Although the project is developing smoothly, Shaw said that, "We were a bit naive in considering how challenging it would be to take on one of the most difficult and challenging issues of our time." As polarizing as this issue may be, the tone on Homeland remains congenial with only minimal moderation, indicating perhaps that people are tired of the sensationalized, black-and-white coverage of the issue that is often provided by traditional media.

In addition to the polarizing nature of the subject matter, KETC is also dealing with the fact that the station has not traditionally been a news organization. Now, as they experiment with community-based public affairs coverage, the team must constantly evaluate what works and what doesn't or, as Shaw put it, "go through a daily recalibration." The lessons that KETC's staff learn through this project could very well inform a powerful community engagement model for other stations around the country.

In the coming months, the Homeland team will continue to tweak the design and engagement aspects of the project in order to make the site more community-oriented. KETC is also working on some major internal shifting, and a rebranding effort to highlight the station's overall push toward public engagement. In the future, KETC will be taking on more than one in-depth community engagement project at a time. The subject matter for these future projects will come from -- where else? -- the community.

Katie Donnelly is Associate Research Director at the Center for Social Media at American University where she blogs about the future of public media. With a background in media literacy education, Katie previously worked as a Research Associate at Temple University's Media Education Lab in Philadelphia. When she's not researching media, Katie spends her time working in the environmental field and blogging about food.

via pbs.org

Reinventing ourselves - hard hard work!

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

News & Media - The Technical/Social Connection = Trust = Success

NPR showed us that how you connect to content is key to audience growth - so far they and I have focused on the the connection as being web and social media based.

But there is an even more important "Connection". That is Trust.

Do we trust the source of the content? What is the Social Relationship between the News Source and the Public? What are the Power issues? What is the motivation of the new organization? Whom do they serve and why? All these relational issues affect Trust.

So what is the central connection between the news source and you?

Here is how Craig Newmark thinks that this issue will play out.

 

HT to John Bracken for the clip.

At KETC we have made this issue of the relationship with our members and the wider public in St Louis our central concern.

We keep asking ourselves the question of how can a local public TV station establish the Trust that we need to become vital to our community? While this is our own question - it is also the broder question that will affect all news sources.

We agree with Mr Newmark that we have a start based on our non-commercial model. But what do we have to do to make this more real?

No station on their own is smart enough to come up with the answers. For this demands a revolution in mindset.

Fortunately for us, 3 Wise Men turned up with gifts. Gifts of wisdom about this issue of Trust and Relationship. They showed up because they care deeply that the answers are found. 

Euan Semple, Doc Searls and Jay Rosen have kindly agreed to be interviewed and we start a series next week on their advice for

• Why the current model for news is not helping the nation solve our problems
• What would be a model that would
• What KETC - or in fact any public station can do to enact this better model

More soon

Albums to iTunes - Schedule's to iTunes?

One thing we know about the new media is that we don't buy the Whole Album any more.

Our old normal was that we had to buy the whole album. We also had to go down to the store to get it.

Now if I want a Beatles song, I download it when I want. I buy song by song, on my time.

So what! You know all of this - this is not new! No it isn't but isn't this a pattern that will apply to everything.

As NPR is finding out by its research - content remains vitally important but what makes it valuable to day is how we get it.

This pattern of the connection being as important as the content will soon apply to all radio and to all TV.

Currently KETC, my great client, offer as wide a choice as possible conventionally - they have 4 channels and they have something for most of us most of the time as a result. This is surely a "good thing" and a lot better than most.

But then I don't have a TV and more and more and more people don't either. Like my music I want good content but it is how I get it that is the point. I look for an easy and legal connection. I don't mind paying for good content either. 

 
This is how I get my TV content the same way I get my Music. For instance, last night after Tony  Curtis' death I rented Some Like it Hot too.

This is where I watch it too - much better than my TV

Now I am not everyone. I am not even part of a large group yet. But as new web streaming devices get better, then most of us will get our TV and Radio content the same way that most of us now get our music.

How long does TV and Radio have before Wifi and the Web are pervasive?

The new NPR research is clear to me. If you create a beach head with the webby folks now - you will be ready. NPR not only grew their audience by expanded into the 35 year old cohort who loved the content but did not listen to appointment radio.

Public TV has an audience that is in their 60's! But they do have a ton of great content. Time surely to make it very easy for me to get it when I want to. Maybe a Netflix kind of deal - so much a month gets me so much content?

But where does this leave the local station? That is what KETC and other stations that accept that this is coming are working on right now. 

This is not easy. Frankly we know the direction to take but the unknowns are in the why, the what and the how. I help them think about this - but I am not that smart so we have asked for some help. 

Next week 3 wise men offer their advice. You know them. I am stunned by their insight. I know you will be too. Stay tuned!

This Is How It Starts « Rosenblum TV

Hitler arrives at Nuremberg for rally 1933 – another very popular orator

Normally I don’t write about politics here.

But not today.

I recently posted a note to Hoda Kotb from the Today Show. She had an item on her Facebook page asking what she should cover in her show.

Most of the answers posted related to shoes or clothing or divorces.  I told her she should speak out about the growing trend to publicly accepted racism in our culture, with Muslims paying the role of the Jews this time.

So far, she is sticking to shoes. Kotb, by the way, is Arabic for book.

The Failings of Public Education

When I went to school in the 1960s, almost all of my teachers were women.

They were women because in those days, the only jobs women could get were teacher, nurse or secretary. And so the smartest went into teaching.

And they were good. Very good.

When new opportunities opened for women in the 70s, (and I am old enough to remember when a woman going to Harvard Business School was still a big story), the smartest flocked to careers as lawyers or MDs or CEOs.  They followed the money.

In the days when women had no choice, schools could get away with paying teachers $23,000 a year, or less for women, and no one said a word – and they were able to attract the best talent in the country.

When other opportunities became available, the schools should have responded by making teaching as competitive as law, and paying as much.  But they didn’t. Instead, we debased the public educational system in America.  Oh, there are still those who teach out of pure dedication, but that’s like asking people to go to medical school and then head off to work for Medcin sans Frontiers. There are those who do, but not many.

I taught for many years at both Columbia University and NYU, and over the course of time, I watched as the level of basic education that my students came in with dropped and dropped and dropped. They were not stupid. Far from it, they were just uneducated – increasingly so. And interestingly, they didn’t care.  Most did not know the difference between Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, and if they had to find out, they could always go to the web and Google it.

What we eroded was a basic foundation of fundamental knowledge, which by now, I think, is pretty much gone.

And the price we pay is that we have created a society without the ability to process information through any kind of historical wisdom.

So when Glenn Beck goes to the Lincoln Memorial and proclaims that he is the true heir to the Civil Rights Movement; when he and his Tea Party follower proclaim that the President is the racist here; when he fundamentally rewrites the history of this country to suit his own ends, one would think that an educated nation would laugh him off the stage.

But they don’t.

They don’t because we no longer have an educated nation that can process what he says through a lens of intelligence.

We have a nation of people who get their information superficially, and lacking in any kind of grounding of basic education, can be easily swayed by demagoguery of the worst kind.

For two generations we have ignored the infrastructure of this country.

Our bridges rust out and collapse.

That makes news.

Well our schools are rusted out and collapsing. And when the education of our nation rots and collapses, its is a whole lot more serious than when a bridge collapses, or deciding which shoes to buy.

What is happening today at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Dr. King’s I Have A Dream Speech is nothing short of pornography. Public pornography based on a collection of lies.

But we have a public that has lost the ability to discern the truth for itself.

This is how it starts.

And if you know anything about history, you already know how it finishes.

But alas, most people don’t even know that.

But they will. Sadly.

via rosenblumtv.com

I quote Michael Rosenblum in full today. For he touches on the peril that confronts America today.

Can America get its Mojo back?

In Jane Jacobs great book Dark Age Ahead - she makes the point that the signifier for a great states's decline is growing xenophobia. Leading to a retreat into a fortress culture. This is what happened to China and what happened to the Muslim world. Both were many steps ahead of Europe but bothy retreated into themselves.

In the "fortress" thinking is not allowed or welcome. As Michael notes - many do not care that they know nothing. There is a pride in ignorance.

Such a society will look to the simple and to demagogues. Such a society will set up the the preconditions of "Collapse" - a structural inability to respond to challenges.

Don't we see signs of this inability today? As I see it we do.

This is why I am passionate in my support for public TV and radio's efforts to expand their role from providing good content to providing a safe place where the community can have a discourse about issues that are important to them.

At KETC in St Louis this effort began with creating such a safe place to help each other cope with the mortgage crisis. Now we are trying to find a way of facilitating the kind of discourse that will enable America to have a better approach to Immigration - an issue that will surely determine America's future as much as any other.

WGTE in Toledo will be doing the same soon on local agriculture.

My hope is that such an approach - of having a local in depth discourse on challenging topics such as who is an American? How we get our food? Jobs and the economy? Health? Education? Is our only chance of breaking out of the polarization of our politices and the over influence of the corporate will.

I don't see any other opportunity? Do you?

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

The Path to Success as an immigrant? Putting the PUBLIC into public TV

via explorehomeland.org

Here is a film made by Grace Holdinghaus, a graduate of our community film making class - The nineAcademy - she went into the community to ask her question and this is what she found.

As important as her film is on its own - the larger issue for me is that KETC is helping the public learn how to be film makers and is offering the also a space on it's website to have their films seen and shared.

Putting the Public into Public TV

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

Immigration and the Media - A new way ahead at KETC - What about you?

via explorehomeland.org

This is from our "beta" site at KETC where we are getting ready for a real launch of our work on Immigration next week.

This short clip says a lot about what we are trying to do. The main focus of this clip is a conversation about how the media is handling Immigration. As you will see, the people at the dinner table are not impressed!

They remind us that Immigration has become not only a "Hot" issue but is also very polarizing. How the media handles issues like this is seen by them as being a major part of the problem

They fear that if the media does not change this practice that we will never get to the place we need to to deal with this issue or in fact with any complex issue.

So what to do? KETC is not a traditional news organization but it is a public TV station in St Louis. What are some of the things that we hope to do over the next months?

Firstly it is to create spaces where real conversation can take place.

This clip shows a tiny aspect of this intention. In this case we had been involved in a conversation on Linkedin about immigration that had surprised us with how civic the tone was. There were people with many different and strongly held views - but they were polite and respectful. So we asked some of them if they would like to continue the conversation over a dinner that we would host and film.

This is the first clip of what will be many and what we hope will become a series where particular topics will be raised. Here you see what they think of the media today - not much!

We will be doing much more of this - making it safe for people to have a conversation - both on film and online.

We are also helping the public have their voice. Until now the public's voice is very filtered. We are creating a space where people can talk directly to people.

To help pull this off, we have set up a school to teach the public in St Louis how to make their own films. We can all point and shoot video today - but telling a good story and editing well is hard. Every week we are training new classes of the public in how to tell a story on Video.

So we are we are putting the "Public" into the Production of Public TV.

You will see a lot of films made by people just like you about immigration. We are using the web and this space to offer the public their own voice.

We are also putting the public in the driver's seat in how we conceive of a traditional show as well.

Traditionally TV producers think deep thoughts and then go out and find the stories that they hope the public will like. We have reversed this process as well. Over the last 8 months, we have gone out into the immigrant and refugee communities in St Louis and asked them what was going on. We have talked to more than 300 groups and to more than 1,000 people.

Before this we knew as little as most people do about immigration. Now we know a lot. You will meet many of these people on our site. You will discover them as we did - no longer as labels but as people. Not as "the other" but as flesh and blood people like you.

Based on all of this interaction - we are also making a 4 hour documentary about immigration. Months of engagement in the community has given this work the kind of roots that are unusual.

Starting soon we will share with you - long before the work is finished - parts of the stories, people in the stories, issues raised by the stories - so that we can use your feedback and interaction with you to refine our work further.

Finally we will share with you what we have learned from this work. Even if we are partly successful, we hope that we may help others go further.

I wish I could say to you that this has been easy or even fun. It has been the hardest and most painful work that I and many involved have been through.

Why? Because it is all about Culture. We have had to give up all our expertise and become novices. Novices who have no master to make it all safe. For this path has not been travelled before. I now know how Columbus' crew must have felt before they hit landfall.

As I said KETC is not a news organization. Nor are we a social media organization. We all know the words about how to use social media and how to have conversations. But it is another thing to act upon them. All our norms about who were are and how we do things have been challenged. We have all felt stupid and we have all experienced personal failure and stress.

But we have hope now - we can see that we are making progress. We are not there yet but we can hear the birds and smell the shore.

Our hope is to establish in our actions, the new habits for how a TV station can serve the community in which it lives. In effect to open the doors to the public and have the public come into the station that after all is theirs.

Our hope is to show that public TV can create a place where Americans can talk about hard things and find a way forward together.

We launch formally next week. We have not got all of this worked out yet. So we start with only a landfall. This is only the beginning. In 4 months, much will have changed from where we are are. In fact we find that every week that goes by is different.

If you are interested in immigration. If you are interested in how to get the public into public media. Then please join us and please help us by well "helping us" - please get involved.

We need your views of how we can make what we do better. We need you to work with us to make Public TV - Public. We are not smart enough on our own to do this.

There is a lot at stake - if we can use a new model that promotes a true discourse - then some good may come out of the immigration debate. Isn't that important?

If we can find a way to blend in as a station with our local community, then we might have found the connection that we need to take public TV to a new level of relevancy. Isn't this the holy grail of the new media?

If we can help cope with a complex problem like immigration then we might also know how to help with other complex issues such as energy, food, the war, our education system, health and the economy. Isn't this the way forward for the nation?

Someone has to start somewhere. Why not us and you?

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

What is the "right" voice to cover Complex Issues?

At KETC we will soon launch a project on "Immigration" in America. The deep question that we will be asking in a year of hosting an online space and making a 4 hour documentary is "What is the experience like for all people and where should we go?"

A huge challenge for us then is "Voice". What is our position? For the range of opinion is vast, the emotions are high, many see the issue in terms of good versus evil, few look into any of the pragmatic aspects.

It's a minefield!

Jay Rosen has been digging into the traditional perspective taken by the orthodoxy that journalists have to have:

• No opinion of their own
• Showcase issues as having two sides

He has opened a hornets nest!!!

I called him last week for advice and here is what we came to.

First of all we were clear that Immigration is not a simple or even a complicated issue - issues that are knowable and that can be resolved by applying known rules. It's a Complex Issue: Being Complex means that it can only be known via the process of "Emergence" - lots of trial and error leading to patterns not to single solutions.

 

Source: NOOP.NL

On Jay's site I made the point that this felt like a Quantum world where only zones of probability could be determined and where the view of the observer would always affect the observed.

Another reader said that this was "Bullshit" - but while the issue of complexity may not be Quantum it does share the reality that there can be no single right answer.

The other point is that there can never not be bias. We all live in a world of a cultural screen. We all screen in or out what does or does not fit. To believe otherwise is to be naive.

So where pragmatically does that leave us at KETC?

It might be this? (Welcome your views for this is just MY opinion)

• For patterns to emerge we must have a "Plurality" of opinions/storis and voices. With such a Plurality we have the chance of creating "Emergence" or stable patterns of norms. A kind of Wisdom of Crowds
• To do that then our job is to host safely and in a trusted way as many opinions and stories as possible and to encourage a deep but civic debate - as Jay does on his own site
• To do that I think that those if us who are the hosts should also disclose who we are and have a diverse group at KETC doing the hosting - so we too represent a broad view. (Jay discloses here - Jeff Jarvis Discloses here)

Here is how Johnnie Moore puts it:

Johnnie tells us that the answer is simple but difficult. Difficult because the answer demands that we converse in a different way. Yes the simple idea is that we talk to each other differently. The challenge is that to do this we have to give up some hard wired habits.

What we have to give up is using conversation as a duel or a combat where the dominant player wins and all ideas that don't fit are killed as are of course the divergent thinkers. What we need is a conversation that opens up new ideas and that builds community.

Here is how Dave Snowden sees the distinctions:

 
 

One thing is certain - that the Simple and the Complicated worlds are not what we are dealing with here.

So what do you think - how can we best offer up the full complexity of an issue such as Immigration?

Can we get to a good place - Immigration - KETC is trying

The statue’s pedestal bears the words of poet Emma Lazarus, written in 1883:
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

When the Ellis Island immigration center opened its doors on an island in New York Harbor near the Statue of Liberty in 1892, Lazarus’ words welcomed the 12 million immigrants who passed by “Lady Liberty” after trying trans-Atlantic journeys on their way to becoming Americans.(Daily Cufflinks)

Is this still true? Is America still the land of opportunity for those that seek it?

There is no doubt that in 2010, Immigration, will move to the top of the list of issues that Americans think about. But what will the debate be like? Send all the illegals away! Give amnesty to all! Will it pander to our worst fears? What is the truth?

Can we find a truth? Labeling people is so easy. We know “us” and we don’t know “them”, so it is easy to put our fears on “them”.

At KETC we are trying an experiment - we are going to do our best to help each other find more of the truth. For we know no more than you. We too only know what we know and that is not very much.

So here in this space we are going to do our best to make a place where we can discover more of the truth than we could know if we only bandied about soundbites. We plan to build a very complex web presence to handle a very complex issue. In addition we are planning a 4 hour TV series on Immigration today in America that I think we can use as a Social Object or Catalyst to focus attention.

There have been TV shows that have had a web add on before. There have been web series on issues. This is a first. The first time that a TV station has built a holistic whole of TV and Web. Where the broadcast has been wrapped in engagement from the first.

The TV series will be shot this summer and fall and we begin this week with the web. The engagement process, where we go out to the community and find out from them directly what is going on started 2 months ago.

Here is our design for how the web will role out over the nest few months.

News and Comment - We are getting ready to bring you the most interesting stories being written by anyone. We as a team are scanning the web and we ask you to help us here too. We are also experimenting with a brand new type of search tool, Darwin, that will look for how issues rise and fall on the web. (More on that later).  We are building human networks that will reach into the immigrants in St Louis – nurturing social bridges that we hope will enable people who today are only labels to others find their own voice and not only tell their own stories but also help each other find their way in the strange new land that is America. We hope that we can go back and forth between the web and the people and see how the truth emerges.

We will be adding a Twitter and Facebook stream to this soon and we hope that you can help us find material that will add more light to the entire topic. We hope that this space can become the best place to go to find out the wider truth. To discover an emergent picture of what is really going on.

Helping new Americans find their way - As we prepared for this project, we were stunned at how complex the journey is to become not only a legal American but also as important an assimilated American – a person who fits into the culture. We were stunned to find out how complex the legal issues are. We were stunned to find out how much conflict there is between cultures that see the extended family as the core of existence and the homeland culture that looks to the law. In this segment we plan to offer a number of views. First of all people need expert advice. Getting the system wrong is easy and has enormous consequences. We plan to find sources of expertise who can shed light – just as we did in our Facing the Mortgage Crisis project. We at KETC can never be the experts, but we can help you find ones that you can trust. But we have found that there are two kinds of experts. The technical experts and those who have lived and are living what you are going through. We plan to offer the second kind as well. We hope to have a panel of New Americans that have made it. Made it through all the system and also made the cultural adaptation. We hope to find a panel of  immigrants who too are finding their way. It is our hope that such a panel will have the practical expertise to ask and answer the best questions. For who will know more than they about how to make this journey?

Helping established Americans find a place for their concerns - Many people have deep fears. Fears of having their economic future threatened. Fears of losing their community. Fears of losing their culture. Many others merely dismiss these fears as being stupid and then wonder why people become angry. We plan to explore these fears. For a fear explored is then a fear that can be coped with. What is the impact on jobs? What is it like to have your community change around you – who gets to set the culture? Most of all “Who are these strangers” and “what do they want”?

Dealing with the “Other” - Nothing is more scary than the unknown. As we walk down the street and we see people who are unknown and unknowable to us. They look so different. We plan to explore the “different”. What it is to be Bosnian in St Louis. To be Liberian, to be Mexican, to be Chinese, to be Irish or Scots, to be different. We will explore food, music, religion, family life. What is their culture. We will explore what brought people here and what the journey has been like.

We hope to give people a chance to be themselves in public to show yes how different they are but also how much they are the same. How they too want the freedom that America represents. How they care about many of the same things. About what they face from the dominant culture. How surface similarities hide fears. Such as how a Liberian can be taken for an African American until he opens his mouth and how the same is true for a Bosnian being taken for a WASP. We will find out that many immigrant groups who believe that they are unique will find out that others share much of their story such as how both a Liberian and a Bosnian have both come from a war zone so horrific that we cannot imagine – how maybe both boys saw their father killed in front of them.

Established Americans are strangers too for many newcomers. Much about the established America is hard to understand. This is manifested not only in the streets, the schools and the workplace where we all meet but in the homes of many traditional immigrant families. As the youth adapt, as girls wear new clothes, as boys listen to new music and eat new food, the older generations become afraid. As the power to translate the new culture moves to the young the old power lines in the family are threatened.

Our hope is to give all a chance to celebrate who they are and so give us a glimpse of not of a stranger but of people that we get to know who too have fears, hopes, families and a deep desire to do well in life.

Video and Story - As you can see as this project evolves, we intend to give up most of this space to you. Much of it will involve video. So to enable you to tell your story well on video, we have set up a “school”. This “school” is here to help you learn how to master short form story telling for the web. We will teach editing, all the mechanics and how best to tell a story. To help in this, we also have more than 100 Flip cameras that we will be lending to those that wish to tell their story.

The Documentary - Currently we are in the development phase of the film making process. We are deciding on what 4 big stories we will tell and what each story needs to be made. As we get more defined, we will come back to you here and tell you what we are doing. You will see the documentaries being made – the “story of” will be made as we make the story. There will be times when we need your help and we will ask you here for it.

The Team - At the moment the team is all from KETC. It involves people from all disciplines. But in time, we will withdraw to the background. Most of whom you will see and hear from will be from the community of St Louis.

via explorehomeland.org

This weekend we launch a new project at KETC. We are taking a subject that is at the heart of the nation - its social, economic and cultural heart - and trying something never before attempted.

We are trying to get away from the "He said" - "She said" - "on the one hand" and "on the other" POV of how issues are traditionally covered by the media.

We hope to offer up the broad complexity of the issue.

We are creating a TV series that is surrounded and informed by social engagement and the web. No add on after the show but the Petri Dish in which the show is born.

We are creating a "Social Object".

Over the next year, I will do my best to tell you the story of this project.

This post is from our new website. It has just been launched. It's only a starting point right now.

We are at the day of birth today. Much has been happening in the womb before this day. Much of it messy and painful. We have had to go from let's put on a show to having a real plan based on real objectives. Later I will tell you about those struggles.

Our new child is as helpless and feeble as a new born is. But as the months go on, she will I hope, grow into a strong and capable person - capable of reaching the potential that her "parents" KETC hope for her.

My hope is that by November we can have expanded the debate beyond the demagoguery that I fear and that we with your help may shed light and hope into this so complex and taxing issue.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous