After last November's election, I was thinking about the issues I have with our politics, how I'd like to see them change, and wondering what I could do to bring about any of those changes. I'm not a lawyer or a journalist, or of any particular political significance. While I'm a news and politics junkie, it's not a career path for me, so time available for creation as opposed to consumption is limited, perhaps like many who lurk here, and at least some who write occasional diaries. The power of the internet and help from the Daily Kos community can resolve the issue of not being a political professional. The question then becomes how to leverage those resources and to what end.
As I see it, one of the biggest problems we have in our political dialogue these days is a huge segment of the population actively ignorant and dismissive of facts because of their reliance on media and public figures who have no qualms about misleading them. We also have a problem with an almost complete lack of accountability at the highest levels of our society. Combine these two problems with a third that most people are not news and politics junkies who take the time to take in a lot of news, much less spend time analyzing it critically. So they have next to no motivation to insist on changes, and no clear idea of what changes would actually address what problems they do perceive. Hence we get two extremes - either an apathetic and lethargic public or the Tea Partiers.
The project I have in mind is just one thing that can be done to address these issues. One word keeps running around in my head: accountability. In my perception, we have lost more and more accountability, especially at the top ever since Ford pardoned Nixon. I think it's well past time to restore it. I think it has to start at a personal level.
When I started thinking about it, I looked around to see if there was something already in existence doing something along the lines of what I was thinking about. The Accountability Project and the Government Accountability Project hit on elements of the idea. Media Matters, Politifact, and FactCheck.org all do admirable work. What I have in mind in part is building on these efforts and tying them together.
I'm tentatively calling the idea a Citizen's Accountability Project, though I'm a bit leery of comparisons that might be made to the Tea Party or Freedomworks or other entities claiming high ideals but demonstrating instead defense of the wealthiest and best connected at the expense of the middle class and anyone that they can classify as "other". If someone has a better idea for a project name, I'm happy to hear it.
The basic idea is a kind of anti-Tea Party. Each of us as individuals taking responsibility for the news and information we follow. Each of us helping our communities to find good information that empowers critical thinking, as well as taking responsibility for spreading light on disinformation and misinformation.
How can we do that? Even for politics and news junkies, sometimes we just don't have time to keep up fully on the news of the day. As far as countering bad information, many of the people who most need correction to their understanding of news get their news from places like Fox and talk radio. As a result, they are less likely to trust sources we might direct them to. They are certainly not going to want to take a lot of time pursuing counter-arguments to information they believe to be accurate.
I think a curated site that both prioritizes a limited number of stories and pulls information from reliable sources could be a helpful place both for ourselves as people with limited time and for others who might be skeptical of a liberal blog like Daily Kos as a reliable source. The idea would be to have a group of editors define a specific number of top stories, 10 per week for example, identify the sources covering those stories the best, summarize those stories with excerpts and links to the original reporting, and then characterize why the sources were chosen. In addition to the top story coverage, there should be a section identifying and countering misinformation. At deeper levels, I'm envisioning several sections: the Watchlist, Digging Deeper, Money (your tax dollars at work/or not at work as the case may be, campaign finance watch), Blogs (of contributors & members - similar to Daily Kos, but much, much smaller), Elections (straight info such as provided by Secretaries of States offices - candidates, ballot measures, pro/con arguments as presented in voters' guides), Advocacy (union rights, education, health care, civil rights, social safety net, consumer protection, etc.), Justice (legal accountability for the top of the food chain, important cases before the states or Supreme Court).
I don't envision this project as either Democratic or Republican, but rather Progressive. Ultimately, I'd like to see more & better Democrats representing us, or exceptional independents like Senator Bernie Sanders. I'd also like to see fewer, but better Republicans, more in the mold of former Senator Lincoln Chaffee. I think a source of broadly respectable news and information that can serve as a counterweight to the beltway press can help achieve both of those goals.
If you've read this far, think the idea sounds promising and are now wondering what you can do to help, well, I'm glad you stuck around to ask! First, I'm looking for people who could serve as an editorial board. We'd kick around ideas about what stories to cover, and what sources to reference. Perhaps putting together a group here on Daily Kos would be a way to get started. I think it would also be helpful to have some input from folks with respected media chops. My list of folks whose opinions I'd be interested in includes: Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Dan Froomkin, Frank Rich, Steve Benen, Glenn Greenwald, Anderson Cooper, Greg Mitchell, Matt Taibbi, and David Waldman as well as perhaps Sheppard Smith, David Frum, and Michael Smerkonich. Anyone have any ins with any of those folks?
I'll conclude with what I view as the principles behind the effort I've described above, and a pledge for those who choose to participate.
Principles & The Pledge
- Integrity matters. Respect matters
- Good government provides necessary services that need to be paid for.
- Those who don’t believe in good government can’t provide good government.
- Good government arises out of a civil society and social contract rooted in our Constitution, not just certain parts or selectively interpreted parts
(i.e. The 1st amendment does include the principle of separation of church and state though the literal words are not there).
- Just as free speech does not include the right to shout “FIRE!” in a crowded theater, it does not support incitement to violence.
(2nd amendment remedies, Tiller the Baby Killer, abortion-provider wanted posters)
- Paid speech is not free speech & corporations are not people.
- Ambush journalism as a standard practice is not credible
- At the same time, credible journalists should have reasonable access to investigate & report stories
- Citizens have a right & responsibility to question their elected leaders in open forums
The Pledge
I will be an active media consumer.
I will not reward:
…unfounded conspiracy theories
…demonizing/vilification of opponents
…drowning out debate by repetition. or by increasing volume
…as credible authorities discredited people or institutions
…arguments originating out of petty ego or false ego
…bad faith actors
…self-serving hypocrisy (vs honestly changed view)