Archive for October 28th, 2009
Weekly Pulse: Joe Lieberman and the Opt-Out Revolution
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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…)