Analytical Memo: Classmate pitches for Independent Media

For the last few weeks of my Independent Media course at Ithaca College, my classmates and I came up with our own pitches for an independent media product. We performed these pitches to each other, and the students who were not giving a pitch were instructed to pretend they were a board of stinking-rich directors who were potential investors for that particular project. Professor Cohen would even yell out, "Pass the caviar!" periodically, to remind us to stay in our snooty characters' mindset. After each pitch was given, we asked critical and realistic questions about the constructed plan for the project, as well as gave some suggestions to strengthen the pitch.

This exercise was a vital way for us to realize the reality of creating our own independent media. It was also a template of how to start thinking of the costs we would run into, and therefore brainstorm for potential revenue sources.

There were some awesome ideas, ideas that I actually believe would be very very successful if my classmates were to be ambitious. My two favorite ideas were The Police BEAT, and ManualFocus.com.

The Police BEAT would be a non-profit service that would both report on police brutality as well as function as a anonymous tip-line for citizens who were victims of police brutality. It would begin in NYC and would investigate cases of reported mistreatments from the NYPD. One service of the website would be a Yelp-styled map and review of police departments all throughout the city. It would provide reviews and cases of particular cops. I liked this idea because of my own particular passion for both outing the corruption and racism within current policing systems, as well as dissecting those same issues within incarceration. The planned layout of The Police BEAT was user friendly, and had a legitimate plan for gathering user contributors or tips, investigating these sources and stories, and then creating a final report. To market The Police BEAT, the creator wanted to use Facebook and Twitter to go viral and utilize hashtags and the visual effect a photo has on both of these social media platforms. My suggestion to the creator of The Police BEAT was to add a tab about the rights citizens have, and what they can do in a legal sense if they feel they are being harassed by the police. In this sense, it would also be smart to have a legal professional apart of The Police BEAT's team, as well as advertise public policy lawyers on the site for revenue.

ManualFocus.com would be a non-profit website that would function as an advanced Instagram that had an emphasis for teaching basic photography skills. The website would be picture based, almost like a website version of a Instagram, that would be separate the photos into categories via a tagging system. If the viewer found a picture they liked, and wanted to take something similar, they would click on the photo and a short description consisting of what camera was used, and what the camera settings were would pop up. I would love to use this website because I own a DSLR, but don't feel very confident with messing around with some of the camera settings, such as those that change the amount of light let into the lens or the speed of the shutter. I would use my camera in more of an artistic, and professional way if there was a website that would teach me how these settings affect the image. I do believe there is a huge audience for this type of website, and as mentioned in class- it would also be a great app for a smart phone. I could imagine it would be a tough website to manage- from observing the users of the site as well those who are posting pictures. However, it would be a great place for advertising to bring in revenue if the advertisements were as photogenic as the pictures on display.

My personal pitch was for a two-part documentary that would explore the differences of gun culture in different regions in the United States. By examining the gun culture and the way citizens are sensitized to guns, I want to see if there is a relationship between gun access and gun violence. For example, in rural communities in which families own many guns for hunting game, is there more or less gun violence because of the way a gun is valued by that family.

Long Live Izzyness!

Last night, April 28th, Ithaca College's Park Center for Independent Media hosted its sixth annual Izzy Awards. The Izzy Awards recognizes amazing journalists who chose to involve themselves whole-heartedly in independent media outlets for the greater good of mankind.

The two receivers of the award this year were John Carlos Frey and Nick Turse. John Carlos Frey is a fellow with the The Nation institute. His beat is focusing on the violence occurring on the U.S.-Mexico border, a place he calls home. One of the most important things about independent media for Frey is the ability to take the time necessary for a story. Mainstream media must report to make a deadline. Frey told the audience about taking a whole year to find a vital piece of one of his investigative pieces. It was a video (that was merely rumored about existing) an eye witness took of a brutality of a Latino man being accused of note having a green card. It took him a full two years to put together this story with all of the needed evidence, something that would not have been permitted in mainstream media.

However, once Frey had the completed story in a package ready for TV news, all of the mainstream outlets he pitched it too wouldn't take it. Frey's struggle with network news was a platform for him to talk about the censorship of important stories in network television, the censorship of the stories that do not fit the politics of the corporations that fund the networks (wait aren't they suppose to be objective?! ha ha).

Nick Turse is currently a managing editor on TomDispatch.com and published a book in 2013 titled, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. The book featured classified Pentagon documents as a lead towards systematic violence against Vietnamese civilians, and was put into context through personal interviews. When asked about the difficulty of both exhibiting the emotion and also remaining somewhat distant from the emotion in stories (such as those described in his book) Turse commented that although there were days when his mental state was in the worst shape of his life, he found journalism to be very "therapeutic." He said that there were times he felt guilty, asking the interviewees to relive the most tragic experiences of their life, but his purpose was to retell these stories in the most dignified way, so as to create change.

Something special about this years Izzy Awards was the first induction of journalists to the I.F. Stone Hall of Fame, for journalists who continue year after year to produce content to win the Izzy Award again. It was of no surprise to anyone that those journalists were Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill.

Glenn Greenwald was one of the first recipients of the Izzy Award, but deserved to be recognized again this year for his work to expose NSA surveillance with Edward Snowden. Although Greenwald couldn't make it to the ceremony on IC's campus, he filmed an amazing speech that touched on the function of independent media, and what kind of leaked information makes journalists be considered criminals.

Jeremy Scahill produced a film after his book, Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield and it was nominated for an Oscar this year. Scahill's passion and wit makes him a very enjoyable public speaker, and he spoke about the corruptions in the government and mainstream media that try to suppress important stories.

Notable quotes from the evening:

Jeremy Scahill: "Nobody in their right mind would hire me. So I had to find someone in their left mind."

John Carlos Frey: "TV news can make you hate your friends, and love your enemies."

John Carlos Frey: "Journalism really isn't a career- it's a burning in your heart, it's a way of life. It's the most incredible tool for justice."

John Carlos Frey: "Remain open and vulnerable to the emotion of the story."

John Carlos Frey: "Journalism is NOT always two-sided… Someone is getting shit on and someone is doing the shitting."

Nick Turse: "The most important question to end an interview with: who should I talk to next?"

Jeremy Scahill: "You can tell a lot about a country by looking at who's in prison and who's on a book tour."

Comcast, bad dog!

These past two weeks in both my Independent Media, and Government and Media classes, media consolidation and net neutrality have been intertwined in our conversations.

One of the big names that is inevitable to be mentioned when talking about these topics is Comcast. Comcast is the world's largest mass media and communications company by revenue - at a whopping $62.5 billion dollars. Additionally, it is the largest cable provider and internet service provider in the United States. So yeah, Comcast is one of the top dogs in control.

As a concerned citizen and a promoter of maintaining net neutrality, I was excited when I came across an article dogging the top dog Comcast.

The article starts with a disgruntled Comcast customer who is upset because of his lack of internet service in his own home. The customer is a web designer and estimates that he has lost anywhere from $500 to $1000 because of time he has to spend dealing with his lost internet connections. Although he has reached out to Comcast several times, he has to use his iPhone as a hotspot or go to a local cafe to use the internet.

The article then continues on to mention Comcast's campaign to convince Congress to let them take over Time Warner Cable for $45 billion dollars, saying that it will benefit both companies as well as the customers.

The customers disagree.

David Cohen, Comcast's executive vice president, states that Comcast is aware that it has trouble delivering a quality service to its customers, he says the company is working on it. But is seems the customers aren't believing Comcast's barks:

"You are seriously everything that is wrong with the world," a Seattle woman with the handle Kate J. wrote in October on the review site Yelp. "I am 100% sure you are run by Satan himself. I feel confident that you are responsible for cancer, homelessness, war, suicide, 9/11, and every darkness in the world." 

The article continues on with horror stories from customers who have complained about not being able to depend on Comcast's services in times of great need. One couple lost all internet service with Comcast, even though they depend on using the internet for the wife's chemotherapy computer. Another family told a story of a time they were robbed but couldn't call 911 because their phone line had been disconnected. The website, Consumerist, awarded Comcast with the title of "2014 Worst Company in America."

A merger of Comcast and Time Warner will control 40 percent of all broadband access in the U.S., and most importantly in locations where it will be the ONLY choice for broadband (no competition).

Net neutrality and why it's super important

Net neutrality - the idea of having a free and open internet - is very important to me. However, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast (the internet service providers, or ISPs for both wired and wireless) want to disband net neutrality because they claim there is too much traffic on the internet. This traffic is the fault of "bandwidth hogs" who are slowing services with downloads and internet television. 

This article explains the idea of a "fast track," and a "slow track" that the corporations would create. The internet would essentially be divided like cable TV in which customers would have to pay for the websites they want to use in the "fast track." If they don't want to pay, or more importantly - can't afford to pay - for the services, then their internet connection will be extremely slow. 

In 2012, Free Press and other organizations created a mockumentary titled, "The Internet Must Go." It is a 30 min film about a man named John Wooley, who was hired by the ISPs to convince people that net neutrality was a bad thing. 

Wooley interviewed leaders of organizations, senators, and even the creator of Reddit to get a better understanding of the importance of net neutrality. Some of the organizations got their start by creating a simple website that went viral. They explained to Wooley that this wouldn't have been possible if net neutrality didn't exist, because start-up websites and personal blogs are too small to appear on the corporations internet cable lists. One of best quotes from the film was from the president of TheColorofChange.org who said, "At the end of the day, America works best when all of its voices are heard." 

In my opinion, one of the biggest misconceptions about net neutrality is that it is needed because there is only so much bandwidth. However, the pipes and wires that create the internet space is NOT a finite resource. In fact, if the ISPs invested more money into their services, we would all have extremely fast internet. 

Currently, the American broadband infrastructure is ranked 28th for speed and other services on the list of developed countries. This is embarrassing! We are suppose to be one of the most advanced countries of the world, built on a document that declares freedom. Instead we are prisoners to our capitalistic mindsets that don't allow for development. 

I have two main issues with the idea of not having net neutrality for our country: 

• First, I understand that the meaning of the word "free" in "free and open internet" does not mean that customers shouldn't have to pay for their internet services. ISPs do provide the infrastructure that is needed to be able to surf the web, write a blog, or watch hours of YouTube videos. However, it does ensure me the right to free speech. Also, the ISPs don't own the rights to my creative content of free speech.
• If the ISPs are allowed to charge for one's free speech, then it essentially creates censorship for those who can't afford to pay extra for their internet services. This idea preys off of the economic inequality in our country, and states that if you can't afford to purchase freedom then you don't deserve it. That makes me sick to my stomach. 

IC Weekend Update

In celebration of Seth Meyers's visit to campus, Dom Recckio and I made our own IC Weekend Update. Here are tonight's top stories:

I Walk the Line: Between Journalist and Activist

Walking the line in the journalist's case is not to be confused with Johnny Cash's idea behind his song "I Walk the Line." Although the song is cherished because of his distinct voice and the infamous chord progression, Cash sings about walking a straight line of decency by following the rules.

It's not that journalist's shouldn't follow all of the rules, I just believe there are times in which the journalism field requires outliers that are willing to break the rules, or the journalism norms, to shed light on injustices. But I am talking about the line between journalism and activism that in some nonprofit organizations might seem a bit hazy. Are the issues that nonprofit organizations choose to report on in the best interest of the public, or the donors? Or do they themselves have a particular agenda that sways their reporting?

David Carr (one of my all time favorites after watching Page One) wrote an article in the NYTs titled "Journalism, Even When it's Tilted,"that where in instances in which American mass media doesn't cover some topics, nongovernmental organizations - some with agendas - are filling those voids. However, Carr brings up the question of "who is a journalist and who is an activist, and can they be one in the same?"

Kevin Davis from NetNewsCheck.com wrote a similar article titled, "Greater Scrutiny for Nonprofit News?" Davis too has heard the question of whether or not mission-driven organizations that do not have a steady cash flow and rely on donors can "sustainably and ethically perform the core public accountability functions of the fourth estate." 


Davis concludes his article with the standard that all non-profit news organizations should mention any individual or company that donates over $1000, so then readers know where the support is coming from. Davis writes:

By adopting clear and practical editorial independence policies, coupled with an unwavering commitment to transparency, nonprofit newsrooms can avoid the inherent risks in accepting philanthropy to produce much needed and valued public service and investigative journalism so desperately needed in a free democracy.

The most important part of that quote to me is calling reporting a "valued public service" that is "desperately needed." One of the reasons I decided to study journalism is because of the impact good reporting can have on an issue that I might be passionate about. However, if I seek to report on an issue I am passionate about, is that expressing a type of activist bias? 

In the previously mentioned NYT article, Glenn Greenwald is quoted saying a statement about journalists that I immediately wrote on a sticky note and hung above my desk. He said, "All activists are not journalists, but all real journalists are activists. Journalism has a value, a purpose- to serve as a check on power."

The day you can't trust anyone- not even the internet or the media

A few minutes are left on the clock for one of my favorite and most dreaded days of the year, April Fools' Day. I am a prankster, tried and true, but only because I was raised in a household whose mantra was: prank or be pranked.

Ever since I was young, my parents have gone over the top for April Fools' Day. I don't mean your classic toothpaste in Oreos or plastic wrap under the toilet seat types of pranks - they are in a whole other league. Some of the highlights include: 

• Convincing my middle school to create a fraudulent report card with failing grades and remarks such as "Bethany talks too much and is too boy crazy."
• Getting in cohorts with the local police station to steal my car while I was at an evening dance class
• Pretending my dog was lost, and told me I had to go find her. I found her. On our roof.

They're cruel, but they're geniuses. This year my dad started my day with a text that seemed like a white flag of surrender…

But later in the day, it turned out he and my best friend who is currently studying in LA, and interning with Ellen, joined forces to try to convince me he was going to be on the Ellen show. 

However, my parents aren't the only ones I tip my hat to on April Fools' Day. Media venues have a great history of being involved in the holiday. Also corporations create hilarious (and always almost believable) videos or ad campaigns in attempt to trick the masses. 

Here are a few of my favs for 2014, complete lists from Salon and Mashable

• Netflix added two documentaries in which you can watch bacon sizzling or a rotisserie chicken cooking
• Google Maps created a new type of maps in which users can find Pokemon. "Gotta catch them all?" If you do, you can become Google's very own Pokemon Master
• Google+ offers a feature in which David Hasselhoff photobombs your pics
• YouTube claimed to have insights of what video viral trends were going to occur in 2014 (such as clocking and dad kissing)
• Jimmy Kimmel invents a spray on yoga pant
• Twitter announces to users the creation of the "Twitter helmet" a helmet that users can wear and Tweet from (imagine google glass but instead of glasses, a giant bird head)
• TripAdvisor tries to send users to fictional locations, such as Mordor or the Death Star