“House Republicans called an “emergency meeting” last week, suspending the usual procedures to rush an urgent piece of legislation to the floor…

… This particular emergency involved the lower end of the FM-radio dial. Republicans, in an urgent budget-cutting maneuver, were voting to cut off funding for National Public Radio. All $5 million of it — or one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of the federal budget.”

“It’s a credit to James O’Keefe that amid the diverse vocabulary in the English language, so many terms inadequately describe him and what he does.

Is he a provocateur, a prankster, an activist, a muckraker, a citizen journalist, an investigative journalist? Do we call these shaky videos undercover stings, gonzo journalism, political theater, political art? Does he take after Matt Drudge? Michael Moore? Julian Assange?

Yes.”

Originally posted on the Future Journalism Project.

NPR’s On the Media Producer Sarah Abdurrahman discusses how she worked with others from the Libyan diaspora to source news, and connect sources with news organizations.

Here’s some of what she has to say:

Libya is one of the most closed-off societies and, and one of the most difficult places to get information in and out of. And if I have people that I can get in touch with there and get information out to put a spotlight on it then, I mean, it – it’s a duty. There’s no question. I’ve purely been trying to get the information out. And if the people that are around me want to make comments about it, editorialize, retweet, do what they want with it, that’s fine. But I still do recognize my role as a journalist and that I can’t get too involved in that regard.

Run time: 11:25 

Originally posted on the Future Journalism Project.

Rodney Benson and doctoral student Matthew Powers surveyed public media systems in 14 countries for a Free Press report that documents [how in] every Western European democracy they examined, public broadcasting channels attract at least a third of the national TV audience. Public spending per capita on media in all 14 countries ranges from $30 to $134 a year. In the U.S., that figure is less than $4. It goes up to about $9 when individual and corporate donations are included.


In all 14 countries, public media offered higher quality coverage of public affairs, more critical coverage of government and a wider diversity of viewpoints than their commercial counterparts (a pattern that holds for NPR). And these foreign public media stations have the freedom to schedule news programming during prime time, a luxury not afforded to the American viewer who doesn’t get home from work in time to watch the nightly news — at 5:30.


As a result, studies show that the level of knowledge about public affairs in many of these countries is both higher than it is in the U.S. and more equitably spread across education, class, race, ethnicity and gender.

Originally posted on the Future Journalism Project.

NPR’s On the Media interviews Slate technology writer Farhad Manjoo about the effect Search Engine Optimization is having on journalism and the way journalists actually write.

Runtime: 5:41

Hint: How Huffington Post mastered the SEO Dark Arts is mentioned right off the bat.

On Monday’s edition of NPR’s All Things Considered, host Robert Siegal interviewed Andy Carvin, NPR’s Senior Strategist for Social Media.

Carvin has virtually become a one man news wire with his Twitter curation of MENA protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya among other hotspots. In this brief interview, Carvin explains his processes, how he tries to verify trusted sources and a little bit about what the medium and platform is doing for journalism.

Typically what happens is I start in a country and just think about who are the people that I already know. So, for example, during the Egyptian and the Tunisian uprisings, I had a lot of contacts in each country, at least half a dozen or so that I felt comfortable re-tweeting. And then as time goes by, you get a sense of who they trust as well. Who are they talking to? Who are they re-tweeting?

Libya has been a lot more complex because there aren’t many people there who are on Twitter, rumors of it being shut down altogether. And so, it’s been tough. I had to essentially start from scratch in order to find some sources there. But fortunately, there do seem to be some, including one young man who’s been sending out a live video stream. He’s reporting what he’s hearing from friends around the country. And it’s been absolutely riveting.

Run Time: 4:43. Transcript.

Managing reputation can be tricky. Take a colleague of mine. As far as I know — and I know him pretty well — he’s a capable, intelligent and amiable fellow. Oh, and law abiding too. Yes, law abiding.

Why do I say that? Because if you search on the Google for him your second result will be for a convict with his exact same name. It’s come up when dealing with clients and potential employers. This usually happens after an awkward pause and goes something like this: “So, um, I hate to bring this up, um, but, ah… ah… you ever spend time in jail?”

No he hasn’t. And when explained there’s usually a laugh followed perhaps by another awkward silence.

Search “Colombia” and Ms. Colombia greets you.

I bring all this up because of a conversation this morning with my cousin. He wants to visit Colombia. He mentioned that when he did a search on the country, one of the first image results is of beautiful women. Sure enough, here it is.

This got me thinking. Usually when doing image searches for countries the first results are maps and flags. But what does the first results with people in it say about national character? How does it brand the country.

Brand Colombia: sultry.

Let’s try Iran. It’s in the news. The world’s talking about it non-stop. Negotiations go on in the UN Security Council to figure out how to halt the nation’s nuclear ambitions.

Here are the first humans we get via an “Iran” Google image search.

Iran’s digital reputation? Less Good.

Obviously not so good.

My cousin and I went back and forth on this for a while. We’d select a country and just like that, brand image in a search result.

Definite loser of the bunch after Iran is Mugabe’s Zimbabwe below.

Not only are there no maps and flags, the first result is just a disgusting abuse showing the horror of torture. The second image? A baton wielding cop chasing a civilian.

It’s interesting to watch how countries are starting to focus on digital diplomacy.

For better or for worse, many are coming to understand that much rests on actual digital reputation. That is, what topics trend in Twitter, what search results are seen on YouTube and Google.

Mugabe’s World of Nightmare

Better, what search results are buried and mostly forgotten.

National Public Radio recently had a story about Israel’s “pre-emptive PR” strategies for dealing in the Middle East.

Part of the country’s strategy to improve its image in the diplomatic world is to engage the social media world. This was most famously pursued during and after Gaza but diplomacy and reputation is a 24 hour a day, year-round affair.

The Israelis are keenly aware of this.

From All Things Considered:

Noam Lemelshtrich, dean of communications at IDC Herzliya, the university that hosted the conference, says Israel should be using new media — such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube — to get its message across to a wider audience.

“I think we are handling this very, very poorly,” Lemelshtrich says. “It’s not being handled by professionals, it’s being handled by politicians. But fortunately, the Internet and social networks allow the people of Israel, who are much better than their government, to tell their stories to friendly crowds across the world in the United States and in Europe. So I am optimistic, because the new social medium allows us to bypass the government.”

When Tony Blair became Prime Minister he famously sought to rebrand dour England. The attempt was made to make Britain “cool”.

Today, the social Web takes that out of government hands and places it in our search results.

Update

Due to a personal reasons, I’d be remiss not to post the first anthropomorphic image when searching “Russia”. Not quite sure how to interpret this but here goes.

Related posts:

1. Video Search
2. LIFE Photo Archive Now Available on Google Image Search
3. Can Search Queries Track the Flu

This fall I’ll be teaching at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. This will be very different from what I’ve done the past few years at the Graduate School of Journalism and I’m excited about the opportunity.

For starters, the semester-long course lets me deep think about a variety of issues. In particular, how NGO’s can leverage the Internets, how commercial and governmental restrictions are limiting the Tubes and how the Interweb really functions as a small world network; and what that might mean for all of us who communicate through it.

I’m calling the course Tubes, Code and Content and will be both creating and curating content around it over the next few months. Some of it is below. It’s thoughts and podcasts heavily influenced by the BBC and NPR with some FLOSS thrown in for good measure. I’ll make sure these are better organized as we move into the future but the audio files below include the themes I believe important in this day and age.

• Lawrence Lessig on Culture
• One Laptop Overview
• Clay Shirky on Social Netkworks
• Africa Connectivity
• Africa and Google Maps
• Africa and Microsoft vs Open Source Solutions
• Tibet: Someone’s hacking their computers
• Chinese Web censorship.
• France creates laws to ban sharing information
• France Law comes into being

I’m currently considering different platforms to present the course on. Current candidates include Drupal, Elgg, BuddyPress/WPMU and Pligg.

I don’t choose lightly. I believe the platform choice is as important as the actual content that ends up on it. That is, what students can actually do on the platform is as important as what content they can actually contribute to the project. Or put another way, functionality, collaboration and content creation are all one and the same.

When and as I create the course Web site, these presentations will all be modified. Hopefully, they’ll be modified with what we as a collective are continuously creating and producing.

That said, I’d like to hear what you’re thinking about and who you’re listening to as you consider your ideas about how the internet can best be used as a distribution platform and communications medium.

Either way, or anyway, we can do better than what has previously or currently occurred. Let’s connect and try. And let’s communicate and demonstrate a better path forward.