DISQUS

I think the problem re: large, full-service, commercial daily newspapers is a lack of vision. Publishers of the DFP, Baltimore Sun, LA Times, etc., have lost sight of the real value they offer to would-be subscribers. It's not content, per se.

It doesn't help that newspapers exist in an ever-growing, hyper-competitive market for information. In a commercial landscape that includes non-fiction literature, magazines, film/video, the Internet, broadcast, cable, and satellite TV and radio, plus mobile devices, a lot of 'traditional' investigative journalism will end up migrating to one or more of these media. In fact, I think this migration is already in progress because of technology's effect on barriers to market.

This is not to say one of the Tribune's dailies wouldn't benefit from diversifying its staff and coverage. However, I believe such diversification would only yield a nominal return and ultimately lead right back to the 'content is king' mindset that is part of the current industry's handicap.

If I were to publish a magazine (or a daily newspaper), it would be structured in a way that reflected local/regional influences -- ownership, coverage, marketing, and circulation -- around a central theme.

I have to ask: do you believe the very nature of commerce is about to change due to an economic contraction? If yes, why?

I say values change, or more specifically, that which we find valueable changes, but the basic paradigms don't. Print display ads in most big city dailies don't represent the value to potential advertisers they once did. But access to tens of thousands of readers does. For many readers, $.50-$1.00 for information today that I heard, saw, or read in real time yesterday no longer has value. But access to information still does.

As you note, you can't use 10,000 Bic lighters to replace the lights in a baseball stadium. But who says baseball games have to be played at night?

The business model for commercial media is evolving, not dying. The closing of some traditional outlets who are slow or reluctant to adapt to prevailing economic conditions is inevitable. Oddly enough, I believe major newspaper outlets, including the Seattle P-I, are adjusting to the new demographic realities before our very eyes. The first order of business is to stop the bleeding; print circulation numbers and ad revenues are declining while online readership increases (!?!). Therefore, the logical thing to do is reduce or terminate the print operation. News coverage, in terms of scope and focus, is to be similarly altered. Ditto for the rate cards. Perhaps it no longer makes much sense for a full-service, mid-to-major daily to devote its (relatively) limited resources to national and international news content (and advertisers!) in a media environment with USA Today, various magazines (Time, Newsweek, etc.) cable and broadcast TV news networks, terrestrial radio, the Internet, satellite radio, and other mobile media. In such a contraction, a number of rank-and-file professional journalists will inevitably be kicked to the curb. I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing, :-D.

There's not really much evidence to justify your pessimism here, Les. Advertising and advertising sales shrink and expand roughly consistent with economic conditions -- true -- but advertising, specifically commercial advertising, is as fundamental to commerce as financial capital and credit. Every sponsor who backs off commitments to, say, the local daily, redirects their budget toward less expensive, more efficient activities. And they realize there are tradeoffs involved in ending accounts with the Baltimore Sun for a viral marketing campaign over the Internet. Money will be spent, regardless.

The real question is why are full-service, big city, daily newspapers still trying to play baseball at night?

I don't understand the connection you're making between Obama's bromide about parents' roles in education and neoliberalism, for I don't believe his point to be an ideological one. It's kind of a no-brainer; more parents should take a more active role in their children's education. And to be fair to him, he's been pretty clear about a gov't that better fulfills its role in education. I'm expecting Obama's victory represents an end to the dominance of neoliberalism in left-of-center American politics, but I'm not 100% sold our new president is a Progressive, either. Left-of-center comes in a lot of flavors.

I'm OK with Obama's politics defying traditional characterizations. Then again, I'm not much for trying to fit everything and everyone into a nice, neat little box.

To me it seems as if the academy has always maintained a healthy level of contempt for what you're calling public intellectualism. Perhaps this is because higher education likes to maintain an image that conflicts at points with modernism and postmodernism. Authoring critiques on economics, history, politics, etc., for public consumption at Border's is considered gauche, y'know.

My point is that academics in the arts and humanities would do well to consider non-traditional concepts of research in order to avail themselves to a larger pool of financial support. I would think this holds especially true for Black academics, and again those situated at HBCUs.

I wasn't aware there was a time when public intellectuals were actually in favor.

Doesn't Fryer's experiment amount to a fellowship? I mean... he is working for a think tank, no? There's nothing particularly novel about fellowships or think tanks. Still, you have the resources of JHU (presently) as the basis for a fine incubator. As your professed area of focus is politics, I'd tend to believe that you've got an excellent opportunity right there in Baltimore to go beyond the typical stuff of poli sci -- opinion research and policy development -- into creating models for organized political expression and/or actual political parties. Remember the discussion we had here once about 'open source'?

I'm sure they could. But part of the problem Spence has identified is the money sources Afrodemics have customarily relied upon for undertaking such ventures are drying up. In this context, he's absolutely correct to say Blacks in the academy need to develop a new business model.

My point is reinventing the wheel isn't necessary when you've never used the wheel to start with. Blacks in the academy are labor, not unlike pro athletes or pop recording artists and their relationships with team owners and media corporate execs, respectively. Scholars could organize and create infrastructures which they would control for capitalization, production, and distribution. The Internet can be of great value in that process, but the bulk of the work will have to be done offline with real human relationships.

The part that concerns me is the appearance Blackademia is conditioned to speak at people from ivory towers.

"Who is promoting this idea?"

It's a common theme kicked around the Afrosphere. As access to conventional mass media for Black punditry is adversely impacted by the recession, new media vehicles a la Web 2.0 need to be developed. You've kinda, sorta implied the same in suggesting a new strategy is needed for Black academics.

I say Blacks in the academic and pundit classes don't have a business model. In fact, they can't seem to wrap their edjumacated heads around perfectly sound and presently existing business models that every academy has at its disposal. The reality is you're going to have to work a little harder and become more transparent and responsible than previously in order to make the dough-re-mi.

... and before I play myself any further,

i-n-t-e-l-l-i-g-e-n-t-si-a.

I shouldn't drink and surf.

In so far as the production of the academy -- and in theory, that of the Black intelligencia -- is ideas, the framework for implementation will have to be built upon partnerships with those people and community institutions visited and supported by the Black masses. Here again, the challenge facing both producers and consumers of ideas is access, for the 'Black' institutional presence remains marginal, and therefore its influence limited.

This suggests to me that it's incumbent upon Blacks in the academy to actually till the soil needed for their ideas to take root. Black B-school profs and scholars, for example, could focus on creating banks and financial vehicles for organizing and redirecting capital into sustainable projects in primarily Black communities. I tend to believe there's no area of the academy the Black intelligencia couldn't develop as an incubator for the community at large to use as it sees fit.

Unfortunately...

Experience tempers my optimism for such energy and imagination existing among the would-be Black intellectual class. Most seem quite content with achieving a modicum of celebrity, even if it's for authoring some overtly trivial form of nonsense. The notion that all is needed in giving ideas currency is proprietary virtuosity over some media do-hickey -- like a blog -- is... um... naive, to put it mildly.

I understand what you're saying here, Spence. But as E.C. has noted, a culture caught up in a massive economic contraction has much bigger fish to fry than promoting the arts and humanities. I tend to believe this is especially true for a subculture, such as Af-Ams, who are perceived by most reasonable measures as marginalized. Part of the Black intelligencia's dilemma, IMO, is a preoccupation with aesthetics and philosophy over industry (i.e.; durable goods, agriculture, etc.) and infrastructure. However, I accept the Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy, and the depreciation of endowments for education, health care, and the arts, with other developments in the media and financial industries as canaries in the coal mine.

Internet access is an extremely important economic tool today, and its importance will increase in the future. But the true value of the medium will be realized only for those who possess the fundamental skills, knowledge, and creativity in commerce, manufacturing... even entertainment... to sustain themselves anywhere, with or without the technology. The problems experienced by the Free Press and NPR, for example, can probably be addressed by relatively simple adjustments to the respective corporations' business models. Such are acts of courage and vision; two commodities in short supply among the Black intelligencia.

Perhaps the Black intelligencia would be better characterized as the Black establishment.
That would explain the lack of vision thing. I think it also explains how Black people allow ourselves to be easily displaced and/or gentrified -- as in the case of NPR -- and why the Black Folks Who Ought to Know Better seemingly never have a solution at hand.

The closest thing the D.C. metro area has to a KKFI is WPFW, a Pacifica affiliate. The parent company makes sure its news/talk network programming takes precedence Monday through Friday weekdays. It's a disappointment; back in the day WPFW and WDCU (the latter now owned by C-SPAN) were outstanding community-oriented radio stations.

Morgan State University's WEAA is a much better example of community radio. I get great reception while driving in the northern D.C. suburbs; not so hot in the crib (and I'm maybe 15 minutes from downtown Baltimore).

You raise an interesting point about non-commercial radio versus public radio. NPR now isn't really much different than CBS Radio or Clear Channel in that its programming is just as centralized and lacking in localized content as Top 40 music stations. The network is effectively a monolith; the type of operation 'public' radio was intended to offset.

I'm curious as to what the reaction be of African-American listeners to NPR's (again) marginalization of Black voices.

It turns out the foreign manufacturers in southern, 'right-to-work' states have been equally proficient as the Big 2-1/2 at getting public largesse. So much for the integrity of those shouting "corporate welfare"!

The one lesson very few Americans seem to be learning here is we're beyond a point where ideological solutions are viable. There are times when the state's intervention
in the market -- done responsibly -- is an appropriate course of action. This is especially true when widespread socioeconomic reformation is needed.

I'm not sure if what we're seeing is anti-blue collar bias as much as anti-union bias, the latter of which I believe is explained by Americans' relative economic unsophistication.

Why do you feel Obama will not make the correct decision(s) on the economy?

"Gas, electricity, water (and home heating oil in certain areas) are universal commodity resource dependencies. Before we think about manufacturing anything extra, IMOHO it would behoove us to interrogate our relationship to these universals as a prerequisite to any further potential activity."

Oh, I agree 100%. In fact, I'm focused on the same area -- with a nod to 'green' industry. As I wrote, the Big Two-and-One-Half could be easily be refitted to produce
fuel cells for homes. Just as easily, they could use some of their capacity on speeding up the development and deployment of alternative fuels, in addition to building fleets of cars that can use E85, CNG, electricity, etc.. I know GM bought such a company -- Coskata (?) -- that supposedly has developed a practical and inexpensive cellulosic ethanol process using bio-, and thermochemical processing.

By contrast, New Orleans to me represents a fantastic opportunity for harnessing hydropower and producing fresh water by way of an updated water management infrastructure.

Wouldn't the choice in projects be influenced by the resources specific to a given area?

If we're talking Detroit or another Rust Belt city, for example, there's an abundance of underused industrial capacity and specialized labor which can be adapted or updated for use in projects ranging from housing to energy production. There was a time when GM manufactured household appliances and satellites. It stands to reason the company's plants could be configured to make fuel cells (for private residences) and wind turbines.

One caveat: what may work in Motown may not be practical for New Orleans, however, and vice versa.

You've raised several very interesting points. I made special note of your recognizing Black politicians and Black voters as connected more symbolically than politically. I've made the exact same point several times in discussing what's known as Black politics in the Blogosphere.

I have two reactions. One is that I do not believe there's a Black body politic of any substance beyond the symbolism of racial identification. Part of what I think happened with the first generation of Black politicians is they fused their affiliations with the civil rights movement to traditional Black social networks for a distinct machine. The production of the machine largely reflected the sensibilities of the Black upper- and middle-classes, along with those of liberal Whites. I'm not positive there were a lot of Progressives among their ranks, for there would have been more activity toward entrepreneurship, industry, and capital formation than conventional job placement. But I'm thinking the Coleman Youngs of that first wave of Black politicians acted in the interests of expediency.

My other reaction is perhaps 'we' remain politically unsophisticated in not recognizing politics is more about economics than culture. We're witnessing a 2nd generation of Black politicians, many of whom do not share the traditional pedigree of their predecessors. AAMOF, to characterize them as politicians is a stretch, for those who aren't legacies (Harold Ford, Kwame Kilpatrick, Jesse Jackson, Kendall Meek, etc.) are technocrats-once-removed from law- or b-school. But while they're conscious of their connection to their Black constituents, their solutions to date appear reflective of their indoctrination into late-20th century economic populism, AKA supply-side theory.

I remember your list of new entitlements for Obama. And I'm hearing you here discuss accountability and transparency, which are two things he (and every public official) owes us. One thing I believe the President-elect and many the new jacks are about is accessibility; they appear open to new ideas on how to make things work. I'll take that bit of humility as a positive sign for Black Progressives. The rest is on 'us'.

Jesse Jackson's winning presidential primaries in states like West Virginia during the 80s signaled to me Whites were ready then to vote for an African-American as chief executive. There wasn't nearly the same level of partisanship back then, but the political machines maintained by both parties represented a virtual ceiling for Black candidates in statewide and nat'l elections. So the first symbol of Obama's victory is the way in which technology -- in this case, the Internet -- was (again) harnessed to build a new and different political machine.

Politically, I believe Obama's victory represents the voters' disenchantment with ideologues. He may in fact be the first conspicuously non-ideological candidate for the Presidency we've seen, which likely explains how so many seemingly disparate groups of people identified with him. The trillion dollar question is whether Whites now see Blacks, Latinos, Asians, etc., as partners rather than rivals.

Congratulations on your book, Lester.

I fully endorse the idea of free tuition at public colleges and universities. It is something that is completely achievable at the state level, and thereby renders the Federal gov't's involvement -- and by extension, that of the President -- moot to a large degree, i.e.; less need for GSLs, Pell Grants, G.I. Bill bennies, etc., to subsidize college tuition. The funds could from those programs could then be freed up by a President Obama for use with other higher-education related expenses.

I believe if there were a such movement launched within a state, for example, like Maryland, that as it approached a critical massof additional like-minded states, the President could be leveraged to add the authority of his office. So, we're probably only differing on matters of mechanics.

However, I also believe the #1 priority for the next president is leading a structural revival of our economy. As a practical matter in national politics, an emphasis upon free college tuition is problematic given we're experiencing so much trouble achieving quality in already-free primary and secondary education.

I didn't write Black voters choose Democrats out of contempt for the GOP. I was addressing the idea of 'Black party discipline' which, IMO, doesn't exist. Blacks just aren't coordinated in such a manner -- although I understand how it seems that way from the results. I believe there as many reasons why Black voters pick Democratic candidates as there are Black people.

On the second point, you're completely incorrect. The POTUS is the head of the Federal government, in addition to being the head of state and commander-in-chief of the military. His ability to act unilaterally is constrained by Congress on the one side and the courts on the other. He does not write legislation. He does not adjudicate law. When issuing executive orders, the President is only free to interpret how a law will be enforced. A lot of a president's authority is symbolic, as when he uses the proverbial bully pulpit to influence or galvanize public opinion.

As you noted, the President is a public servant in the sense he does our bidding as determined by Congress. But we do cede him various powers and privileges under the law that add up to a considerable amount of discretion for the POTUS to do the job of running the gov't. So, if there are ideas, or actually an agenda you have in mind for the next President to follow, the most efficient way to affect them/it would be through Congress.

Think globally, act locally.

Maybe I'll take a stab at condensing your list later.

Again... I don't believe the overwhelming Black voter consensus for Obama to be unified around any particular policy, or set of policies.

What I know about a chief executive is their main responsibility is to articulate a vision for which others act. With all due respect to your laundry list, most of these action items can be condensed into 4 or 5 broad policy goals. It will be Obama's role as President to state these points as challenges for the American people.

You would think in this day and age candidates for public office would understand better the risks of television -- that it can amplify or distort the features of a person, place, or event in unanticipated ways. One funny thing about Tuesday night's 'debate' is the format was thought to be favorable to McCain. He got his ears boxed (again), substantively and viscerally.

But we shouldn't allow ourselves to accept these events as debates. They're actually tightly controlled sales presentations. That's why to a large degree the choice of moderator doesn't matter. The criteria for choosing a host comes down to a personality whose image is credible, well-established, and non-partisan. I suppose there's a VH-1 VJ or reality show host who could hold down the fort, but many of today's young(er) journalists simply lack the chops. Farai Chideya is illustrative of my point; News and Notes' blogger's roundtable is news as Buppie entertainment -- frequently unreliable infotainment by, of, and for conformist Negroes. It's NPR's 'hood.

The questions' lack of rigor is a function of the debates being controlled by an undemocratic, opaque organization controlled by the two major parties with the consent of the media. If you're judging by what's presented on the screen, you'd think there are only two candidates running for president. That's no accident or coincidence. The only thing I can think of to force the issue is the use of new media technologies to further decentralize how information is produced, distributed, and consumed.

In theory, the town hall format provides a more casual environment befitting a less-than-capable, but still charismatic, public speaker. I believe McCain's people were thinking he resonates with the American public on an intimate level in a way a conventional debate format doesn't capture. Obviously, they grossly underestimated Obama's charisma.

Whether we characterize it as war, defense, or security, I somewhat disagree with the idea the issue itself isn't important. It should be second in importance to the economy, but I also think as a subject the economy is far more abstract, and therefore harder to address. So defense takes precedence in most voters minds until there's a widespread economic crisis.

If Black political dissent against Obama -- or any candidate, FWIW -- were to organize and abide by the rule of machine politics, they probably would have some effect.

Admittedly, that's a huge 'if'. That which usually represents Black political dissent amounts to chaotic shouting and militant posturing after the fact. But while the exercise of dissent is central to Progressivism/Liberalism and most Blacks vote (ostensibly) left-of-center, very, very few Blacks are Progressives. I'm less sure it's correct to equate Black political dissent with Progressivism. Or any 1 political ideology, for that matter.

D.B. Woodside.