Archive for October 2009
Weekly Mulch: Throwing Tantrums Over Kerry-Boxer
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By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger
This week the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held three hearings on the Kerry-Boxer clean energy bill and, as David Roberts reports for Grist, Republican Senators had an “adolescent tantrum” about the cost of emission reductions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Congressional Budget Office, Energy Information Administration and other organizations have extensively debunked this line of debate.
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Weekly Diaspora: Legislating Hate
By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger
Anti-immigration groups and pundits cling to phrases like “Illegal Alien” because they only focus on foreignness and danger. These extreme factions are all about casting immigrants as what ails our society, conjuring up demons upon which to focus national ire, and perpetuating a subhuman category of being. It’s a convenient distraction from things that are actually endangering our nation. A new web-only series from ColorLines called “Torn Apart by Deportation“ is the perfect antidote to people like CNN’s Lou Dobbs. (more…)
Weekly Pulse: Joe Lieberman and the Opt-Out Revolution
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger
Progressives rejoiced when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced this week that the final Senate health care bill would include a public option. The announcement was a major victory for left-wing Democrats.
Better yet, it would be a public option without a trigger. Earlier proposals called for a triggered public option which would only take effect if private insurers failed to bring down costs on their own. Under the opt-out compromise, the public option would come on line automatically (albeit not until 2013), but states would later have the option of quitting. (more…)
Journalism’s Old Paradigm: Are We Facing a Glacier or a Flood?
“If no paradigm is right,” Donella Meadows, a pioneering environmental scientist and respected systems thinker, pointed out, “you can choose whatever one will help to achieve your purpose.” The best strategy will stem from asking: “So, what? What will media do for people?” says Amy Gahran of the Poynter Institute. By strengthening the collective agreement about independent media’s ultimate aim, The Media Consortium (TMC) can help its members shift paradigms more easily, choose the most effective game changers and better weather any industry shifts to come.
While changes to the news industry advanced at a glacial pace for many years, as Clay Shirky claimed, transition often comes as quickly as the levees that broke in New Orleans. Trigger events can cause sudden floods before new a system is in place to prevent it. (more…)
Journalism’s Old Paradigm: Resistance and Denial
“No one has been ‘caught up in this great upheaval’ about the fall of print business model. This change has been more like seeing oncoming glaciers ten miles off, and then deciding not to move.” —Clay Shirky
Technological innovations have been changing the game for over a decade. The current monumental shift is nothing new. However, there is a difference between knowing that significant change is coming and recognizing how best to react, which is a process that can take many years. (more…)
Weekly Audit: Dismantling the Wall Street Casino
By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger
Bailout pay czar Ken Feinberg raised a ruckus last week when he announced plans to slash cash payouts to executives at seven companies that have received massive levels of taxpayer support. While better oversight of the bailout barons is helpful, the best way to change Wall Street pay practices is to adopt a set of tough, comprehensive regulations that cover everything from the executive suite to the loan department. As is, many of the executives Feinberg cracked down on will still make millions this year from stocks and other perks, while the very banks that depend the most on bailout money are spending like mad to lobby against reform. (more…)
Two Causes of Dissonance
In our last post, we discussed strategic dissonance, which describes the tension caused by differing opinions about how an organization can best react to changing industry dynamics. For more information about strategic dissonance and the model below, click here.
Building an Adaptive Strategy
The Media Consortium began its strategic visioning by looking for what “game changers” it could create (definition below). During the research process, we realized that the most effective aim was not to introduce new game changers, but to identify strategic responses to a game that has already changed considerably.
“Game changers are developments (projects, initiatives, strategies, new models, innovations) that can ‘change the game’ for independent media by increasing their impact and influence in the next five years.
These are not incremental strategies, but rather big, bold moves that The Media Consortium could develop to take advantage of a rapidly changing media landscape.”
—TMC’s working definition (more…)
What If? New Strategic Intent for Independent Media
Most people assume that the future is something to be predicted rather than created. The future does not simply happen to us; we shape it. The Media Consortium (TMC) members and other independent media organizations can use these recommendations to imagine many “What ifs?” Together, we can plan for a better future. The Big Thaw is a guide to chart the course.
This blog is an excerpt from The Big Thaw, a guide to the evolution of independent media, written by Tony Deifell of Q Media Labs and produced by The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets. Learn how your organization can use this report. For more information and recommendations from the study, click here.
Weekly Mulch: Autumn Fools
By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger
After several prominent members left the Chamber of Commerce over its prehistoric climate change policies, the organization appeared to do an about-face on its climate stance during a press conference on Monday. Sound too good to be true? It was. Members of the Yes Men, a group of satirical, anti-corporate activists, posed as Chamber of Commerce officials and held a fake press conference claiming that “There is only one sound way to do business: That’s to support a strong climate-change bill quickly, so that this December in Copenhagen, President Obama can lead the entire business world in ensuring our long-term prosperity.” In reality, the Chamber has not changed their climate stance and continues to oppose climate change legislation. The Yes Men’s stunt is just one more in a chain of hoaxes this Autumn, including a boy in a balloon, death panels on health care reform, and recent allegations that radical Islamists are using interns to infiltrate Capitol Hill. (more…)