The Dispatch building, in downtown Columbus. (Image from Wikipedia.)

Today’s Sunday column from Columbus Dispatch editor Ben Marrison falls flat because of its premise: All newspapers and all newspaper stories always advance the public good — and all other methods of gathering and disseminating information are somehow, well, less.  Until Marrison reaches an understanding that nothing is so black and white — that there is no “newspaper supremacy” clause in the First Amendment — he will fail at finding a way for his newspaper to respond to changes in the news industry.

Marrison, with back-up support from the former editor of USA Today, props up the importance of community newspapers.  He writes:

“A community won’t know how valuable a newspaper is until it no longer has one,” said Kenneth A. Paulson, former editor of USA Today and chief executive officer of the Newseum, a museum dedicated to the First Amendment. “Daily newspapers do more than report events in the neighborhood. They’re voices for progress and a unifying element in an increasingly diverse society. Newspapers remind us of how much we share and tend to offset the polarizing impact of contemporary politics.”

Voices for progress.  I want any Ohioan who believes the Dispatch, Plain Dealer and Cincy Enquirer are Ohio’s strongest “voices for progress” today to raise your hand.  Clearly, there are other, stronger voices of progress today in each of those cities.  What’s more, the last sentence seems, in practice, actually to contradict the sentence that precedes it.  I’ve found that newspapers like the Dispatch might “offset the polarizing impact of contemporary politics” at times, but they often do so at the cost of being a voice for progress.  They do so by adhering to and propping up the status quo.  And everyone knows of stories about newspapers “on a mission” to oppose or support a politician, which often results in an increase in that “polarizing impact of contemporary politics.”

Some newspapers at some times might be voices for progress, but so are some blogs.  Some newspapers are retrograde and oppose progress, but so do some blogs.  Some newspapers offset polarization, but so do some blogs.  Some newspapers polarize, and, yes, so do some blogs.  There simply is no newspaper supremacy.  I don’t even understand how someone can pretend otherwise.

More from Paulson, via Marrison’s column:

“Go back and look at the history of newspapers in towns big and small, and newspapers were always the voices pushing for better schools, more-accountable government and important civic projects. A good newspaper has always been a constructive nag for progress, and that cannot be replaced by any number of tweets or Facebook postings.”

Honestly?  Way to set up a straw man and knock it down.  The complete absence of blogs is so strange, as if ignoring a “problem area” of his argument to focus on a “lesser” form of information-sharing will somehow make the more difficult discussion disappear.  Marrison, however, concludes from this:

What frustrates newspaper people is that some readers expect to get news free. Certainly, some news is available free. But you get what you pay for.

Is that so?  Marrison goes on: “Good journalism takes time and money.”

Yes, there are some areas of news coverage that take more money than others, and, yes, at some point someone needs to pay some money to someone to get high-quality news coverage.  But Marrison’s “newspaper supremacy” theory — that supporting newspapers is the only way to keep good news coverage alive — takes several logical leaps that are not necessarily supported in today’s world.

For one example, look at the coverage, analysis and commentary in the Dispatch on this week’s execution of Jason Getsy in Ohio.  There is not a single story in the Dispatch that did not come directly from the Associated Press.  I can’t believe those aggregators, like the Dispatch!  There was no independent work that went into them; the Dispatch pulled the stories from the wire service and put them on their Web site and in their paper.

At Law Dork, on the other hand, I noted the governor’s denial of clemency on Friday, citing two Plain Dealer stories and one Dayton Daily News story for different information.  What I mean by that is that, unlike the Dispatch, I did consult multiple stories to present a more clear picture about the happenings than would be achieved by relying wholly on one source.  I then, on Monday, provided extensive and original analysis of Ohio Attorney General Rich Cordray’s unusual interjection into the death penalty process, clued in on the matter by blogger Doug Berman, who had found the coverage in the Tribune Chronicle.  I was the only person to provide Cordray’s memo to the public.  Then, on Tuesday, Marc Kovac, a statehouse reporter, covered the execution process on Twitter, providing me with my Tuesday post regarding the time of death.

Newspapers do play an important role in the process of information-gathering and information-sharing, as do wire services, but so do blogs and those on Twitter and elsewhere.  Anything can be a source of information; anyone can share information.  Finding a way to support good reporting of important issues is a challenge that we must confront.  It is not, however, the case that a newspaper, by virtue of being a newspaper, has better coverage of a topic.  And Marrison is ignoring reality — at his and his newspaper’s own peril — if he believes so.

[H/t: Matt Naugle]

Former President Bill Clinton, addressing the attendees at NetrootsNation on Thursday.

Everyone will be talking about it, so save yourself the embarrassment and check out former President Bill Clinton’s speech from Thursday night to NetrootsNation right now.  It begins about 1:39:30 on the video, which you can find below the jump.

First, he speaks about his work, and that of the Clinton Global Initiative. This is good stuff, and it’s great to see that Clinton truly loves his post-Presidency work.

Then, at 1:48:30, he goes into politics.  Clinton: “We have entered a new era of progressive politics, which, if we do it right, could last thirty or forty years.”  Around eight minutes (and the country’s political history since Bobby Kennedy) later, he gets to President Obama’s election.

Shortly thereafter, at 1:59:00, Clinton is heckled regarding LGBT issues.  It is clear that Clinton is not happy.  His immediate response: “You know, you oughta go to one of those congressional health care meetings.  You’d do really well there.”  He then cools a bit and says that, if the heckler sits down, he’d “be glad to discuss it.”

President Clinton

Then, it gets really good.  This is the pissed-off Bill Clinton of yore.  Finger-wagging and all.  We learn, more clearly than ever before, that Clinton is very unhappy with his legacy on gays in the military.

You wanna talk about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” I’ll tell you exactly what happened.  You couldn’t deliver me any support in the Congress and they voted by a veto-proof majority in both houses against my attempt to let gays serve in the military.  And, the media supported them; they raised all kinds of devilment and all most of you did was to attack me instead of getting me some support in the Congress.  Now that’s the truth. . . . It’s true.  it’s true.  You may have noticed that presidents aren’t dictators. . . . . The [members of Congress] were going to reverse any attempt I made by executive order to force them to accept gays in the military.

He then went into a discussion of the policy v. promulgation debate, saying that the intent was that gay servicemembers would be able to march in gay parades and that “whatever mailings they get” wouldn’t be able to be used to oust gay servicemembers.  But then, he concludes this whole section by saying, “I hated what happened. I regret it.”  He finally talked about the stop-loss orders issued in the first Gulf War that stopped gay discharges.

Then, at 2:03:25, Clinton raises the Defense of Marriage Act.  He says:

Let me just say one thing about DOMA. . . . The reason I signed DOMA, and I said when I signed it, I thought the question of whether gays should marry should be left up to states and religious organizations, and if any church or other religious body wanted to recognize gay marriage they ought to.  We were attempting at the time, in a very reactionary Congress, to head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states.  And if you look at the 11 referendum, much later, in 2004, in the election . . . to try and get the base vote for President Bush up, I think it’s obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican Congress [from sending a Federal Marriage Amendment to the states]. . . .

I didn’t like signing DOMA, and I certainly didn’t like the constraints that were put on benefits and I’ve done everything I could — I’m proud to say the State Department was the first federal department to restore benefits to gay partners in the Obama Administration.  And I think we’re going forward in the right direction now for federal employees.  And I don’t — I don’t like the DOMA bill.

More on all that later on here.

And, finally, he gets into health care at 2:05:10.  The top line: Referring to Obama, Clinton said: “Start with what he said.” Number one: “The worst thing of all, and the most danger to the most people, is sticking with the status quo.  It is bankrupting America, making families insecure and undermining the future of the country.” Second thing: “Figure the three or four things that” everyone wants in the bill and the “three or four things” that we all agree we don’t want in the bill.  “Then, you can say whatever you want — but first we have to win the big argument.”

On health care politics, at 2:14:28, Clinton states: “It is not only the morally right thing to do, it is politically imperative for Democrats to pass a health care bill now.”  I bet that’s the line we hear from everyone on the talk shows.  He concludes, pleading to the progressives: “Try to keep this in the lane of getting something done. . . . It is so important.”

At 2:17:50, Clinton closes out on climate change and Congress.

So, this is a wonky Clinton, but it also is a Clinton whose political wounds — from health care to gay issues — still smart.

* * * * *

Finally, some more extended thoughts about Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and Defense of Marriage Act statements, both of which were quite remarkable.

As I described after watching the clip the first time, it’s clear that Clinton is genuinely angered about the way that his role in today’s implementation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is viewed.  Sure, it’s a politician’s gloss, but his passion here is genuine, and I feel for the guy.

But, then there’s DOMA, where Clinton becomes far less passionate and far more political.  Citing the 2004 post-Goodridge, Bush-re-election year anti-marriage amendments as proof of the need for the 1996 DOMA is just lazy, and Clinton knows it.  There might very well be proof, but that’s not it.

Second, even today, it’s interesting that Clinton could make that whole portion of the speech about the politics of marriage equality, and yet removed himself and his re-election from that equation.  The whole thing is about how the Good Democrats were stopping the Bad Republicans from something Even Worse — and not how few Democrats were willing to stand up against the intolerance of the Republicans, from Clinton on down.  The whole point of his speech, really, was how we could be in a new ascendency of progressive politics, yet Clinton the constant politician couldn’t admit how he himself also was a part of the politics of his day.

What’s more, despite the rope-line report from a month ago that Clinton now supports marriage equality, much ballyhooed throughout the blogosphere, the stark lack of any statement supporting marriage equality beyond Dick Cheney’s “[d]ifferent states will make different decisions” statement is notable.  This was the netroots, this was the online progressive base of the Democratic Party.  If not here, where?

As I discussed at the time, there’s a lot of nuance in politicians’ “support” for marriage equality, and I think it’s about time that we start asking politicians to explain exactly what their “support” entails.

[UPDATE: More on the questioner (aka heckler) from Towleroad.  Lane Hudson, the questioner, has an explanation for interrupting the former President at The Huffington Post.]

[The video of Clinton's speech can be found below the jump.]

* * * * *

Former President Clinton at NetrootsNation on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009.

I love that I can use this space to focus on bigger topics and more in-depth posts, while utilizing Twitter for, as Jay Rosen calls it, “mind-casting” — the simple, link-heavy or snarky thoughts that needn’t necessitate (or don’t justify) a blog post.  I’m not an Andrew Sullivan-type “30 posts a day with two assistants” blogger, which is excellent but not me.  I’m not Towleroad or Queerty, covering everything that happens in the gay world if only with a brief mention or some snark, respectively.  For me, those can be found in my Twitter feed.  My posts here are in-depth, well-researched and, I like to think, provide a unique addition to the discussion.  If you agree and want to support my efforts, please consider sending a donation my way.

Seven years ago this month, I was learning about Columbus, exploring the city after having moved here to attend The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.  It’s a completely different virtual world than that I entered on June 4, 2003, when I opened my first blog post thus: “I have no idea how regularly this blog will be updated or — to be honest — what exactly this blog will evolve into, but I wanted to start one.”  In the spirit of both a six-month and six-year review, I am looking at what this blog has “evolved into,” what I’m doing with it and considering — to quote Madonna in Evita — “where do we go from here.”

The changes in communication have to be at the fore of any review.  They are, to me, almost as entrancing as the communication itself.  In 2002, I was writing editorials at the Tribune Chronicle in Warren, Ohio, a disciplined process that led to newsprint copy — but also gave me my love of short-form writing.  Two years later, I was entrenched in “law-student blogging,” a strange, free-form animal that I recommend so highly to any law student who wants to think in an engaging way outside her classes.  Three years later, I was an observer, keeping to my old sites and watching the way blogging was evolving from a step once-removed.  Two years later, here I am, engaged daily (hourly?) on Twitter and blogging in a very different role than that I performed while in law school — but loving it just the same.

But even as the medium of blogging and the technology that surrounds it changes, some of the reasons for my blogging, very much, stay the same.  Five years ago, I was saying a “goodbye” of sorts to Steve, a friend who was a year ahead of me in law school:

Because Steve will shutting down zipsix.com shortly, and because the 1Ls don’t know him, I wanted to thank him for convincing me of the worth and fun of this whole blogging thing. Steve was blogging before blogging was cool and is a tremendous writer and a great friend.

Zipsix can now be found in Boston and on Twitter.  He’s still a dear, if more distant, friend, and I still thank him, at least in my mind, every time I see his tweets appear.

For me, the spirit of blogging, something I hit on in Monday’s post about Tim Hortons, is that different voices can be heard — more directly, more loudly and more influentially — than in the past.  The reason that I have fallen so hard and so fast for Twitter is the same.  To an almost exponentially expanded degree, Twitter allows people who never had a direct connection to “opinion makers” and “celebrities” actually connect.

My interview with U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, a man I’d never met before the interview, was arranged by me asking him, on Twitter, if I could sit down with him for an interview while he was in town.  He agreed, and a few days later, I spent a half-hour talking with Polis.

The primary focus at this site has become legal and policy analysis relating to LGBT issues. Legal analysis and coverage of Proposition 8 issues and other marriage equality — from Iowa to New Hampshire (or inequality) — and other LGBT developments has been almost nonstop over the past six months.  This has been aided, at times, by interviews with some of those directly involved in the efforts.  I’ve also provided in-depth legislative analysis of congressional action.  Also, I’ve kept a watch on other developments in the Obama Administration and Congress — from the nomination of now-Justice Sonia Sotomayor to regulatory review.

I like the site, but, more importantly, I love writing and the sense that I am informing the public debate.  I am in the process of exploring some ways to make this a more permanent endeavor, but if you like my coverage please consider a donation as a means of allowing me to continue this venture unimpeded.  Thanks!

But, unfortunately, it seems to me that it’s not just the dog days of summer that have led to this moment.  As political fires burn at town hall meetings across the country, and as LGBT activists continue to struggle to understand why our issues always seem to fall to the wayside, more and more people appear to be taking the “shoot first, ask questions later” approach to questions.

The brand that started a weekend boil. (Image from change.org.)

The latest example is the firestorm that a misguided Tim Hortons franchisee started when his Rhode Island franchise apparently agreed to sponsor “Rhode Island’s First Ever FREE Celebrate Marriage & Family Day” (brochure).  This, almost predictably led to an astoundingly widespread, loud denunciation of Tim Hortons, the Canadian-based doughnut and coffee chain.

As I noted Sunday on Twitter, I am somewhat concerned with this.  Not at all with the end result or with folks noting that the Rhode Island franchisee was wrong and misguided, but with the way in which the nearly universal LGBT online response was to just take aim at anyone in their sights — from the National Organization for Marriage to the franchise to the entire “mega-giant” chain.

A franchisee went outside the authorized sponsorship guidelines.  As I tweeted, I’d think a call from someone to the folks at Tim Hortons could have taken care of this.  Instead, everyone everywhere maligned the company itself all weekend — with most posts not making very — or at all — clear that, so far as we knew, this was the action of one franchisee.

Now that it’s Monday and the management folks at Tim Hortons are back at work, there was an immediate notice that the Rhode Island franchisee’s actions to sponsor the event were outside the sponsorship guidelines and, accordingly, no such sponsorship would be happening.

Some are arguing that this is a show of the power of social media — and it very well may be a show of the loud, rapidly raised voice that we now can muster — but I don’t see any reason, in this situation, not to believe that one phone call to the PR folks at Tim Hortons would have had the same result.

After a lengthy, excellent phone conversation with a fellow blogger about these issues, it seems to me that this situation has lessons for everyone living in the “new media” world:

• Companies:  PR is no longer a Monday through Friday 9-5 job.  You are failing your company if you don’t have someone keeping up on mentions of your company in newspapers and on TV — but also on blogs and Twitter.
• Organizations and Elected Officials:  Same for you.  For example, there was a virtual blackout of news regarding the Tel Aviv LGBT center shootings because no U.S. organizations that I could find had out statements until Monday.  You quickly can be viewed as a leader on an issue by providing measured, careful reactions that filter through the slow news stream of the weekend.  New York City Council President Christine Quinn, in fact, was the only elected official or organization who — that I saw — issued a statement over the weekend.
• Bloggers:  News doesn’t stop on the weekends.  You can add much more to the dialogue — and become a more trusted resource — by having the capability to respond to breaking news over the weekend.  But, your role as a trend-setter by providing weekend breaking-news coverage must be balanced with the limitations faced by the lack of an ability to get responses from companies, organizations or elected officials during the weekend.  Rather than “shoot first, ask questions later,” perhaps a “prepare for the worst but hope for (and consider the possibility of) the best” policy would lead to more nuanced breaking-news coverage.  Rather than imputing ill motives and assuming the worst, being careful with the facts can allow you to both motivate and inform your audience.

If nothing else, situations like this — just look at the Twitter feed for “Tim Hortons” today — show us that social media has created a new reality that empowers people way outside the traditional PR world to both begin and dramatically influence public opinion on an issue.  No matter your vantage-point, things have changed.  We all can benefit from thinking carefully about the rules and roles (or lack thereof) involved in these changes — and taking actions accordingly to benefit our long-term aims best, regardless of what they are.

This topic obviously has many implications — far outside the LGBT world — that folks are dealing with in every sector.  Please, use the comments to add your thoughts.

[UPDATE: Apologies to Benjamin Dorsey, whose sensible comment -- "Tim Horton's needs to keep a tighter leash on its franchisees." -- I had meant to include in this post as example of a balanced, but strong, view on what was happening with Tim Hortons.]

Paula Abdul (Image from Twitter.)

It appears so.  How we found out, though, may say more about what’s happened with media over the past few years — and how the change is unlikely to ever turn around — than anything it says about American Idol.

Paula Abdul announced, on Twitter tonight, that she will not be returning to American Idol next season.

I found out when Michael Buckley — of YouTube’s What the Buck? show — tweeted to his 85,000-plus followers at 10:37 p.m. that:

American Idol has lost its fun, its crazy, its heart! @paulaabdul No doubt the show will still be a ratings hit but its a big loss for show.

I, of course, clicked over to Abdul’s Twitter feed, where — sure enough — she 10 minutes earlier had tweeted: “With sadness in my heart, I’ve decided not to return to #IDOL. I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all..Cont’d…”  She went on, in the next tweet, to share a little spite with her more than 830,000 followers on Twitter, tweeting: “I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent,but most of all being a part of a show that I helped from day1become an international phenomenon.”

I sent out “retweets” of both of those stories at 10:42 p.m. and 10:53 p.m., as well as sending it to my Facebook feed.

It wasn’t until 11:16 p.m. that The New York Times had posted its Media Decoder blog post on Abdul’s departure from the show, which one of its co-authors, Brian Steltzer, tweeted at 11:37 p.m.  The story’s news all came directly from the same tweets from Abdul that Buckley had noted an hour earlier and that I’d sent around a half-hour before the story was even posted.

The first story from The New York Times contained no more information than I was able to obtain on Twitter — and from the same sources.  The New York Times took the “verified” status of Abdul’s Twitter account to allow them to report the story.  They had no confirmation from Fox and no additional comment from Abdul.

True, Wednesday morning’s story in The Times — likely in both Los Angeles and New York — will likely contain many additional facts; quotes from industry folks; and analysis of whether anyone, with an “insider’s view,” still thinks this is just a negotiation ploy (though Fox’s eventual statement that “Paula will not be continuing with us” appears, at least, that both are playing hardball).

But, the concept of breaking news coverage, and what we expect from “traditional media” during breaking news situation, has changed.  Just as important, the ability of people to bypass that traditional media when they want to do so is clear.

[UPDATE: Idol Host Ryan Seacrest, on Twitter after 1 a.m. Eastern, sums this post up quite well: "I have read what u have read and I am shocked and saddened about paula".

And, by 2 a.m., Michael Buckley had a special 3-minutes-plus "Paula Abdul QUITS AMERICAN IDOL!!!" video up.  Enjoy Michael's freaking-out presentation of the news and trip down Abdul Memory Lane below the jump.]

Mediaite, a must-read?

All the D.C. goo-gas have been atwitter about the impossible-to-say Mediaite launched recently to “cover the media.”  Well, in the first chance I had to review one of their posts, I was astounded by the lack of depth or analysis involved in its coverage.  This, despite the fact that Publisher Dan Abrams has written that he wants the site to be “the must-read for anyone interested in media, the business of it and the personalities behind it.”

The post, written by Kevin Gotkin, alleges to list (Mediaite is all about lists) the online folks “dedicated solely to shining a light on every gay thing Obama does.”  (First of all, a note to Mediaite: “Solely” means “only.”  Two of the four blogs listed cover more than solely gay issues and all four cover things other than Obama and LGBT issues. K, thanx.)  It goes on: “These are the people who do ask, do tell (do pursue and yes, do harass) and all from the comfort of their own online home.”

And Rachel Sklar, the editor at large of Mediaite, writes of this post: “I think that’s one of our best pieces, actually. Could not be prouder.”

The piece then lists four blogs, each of which I will go through in turn.

1. Queerty.  Really?  When I think of political analysis, I would not think of Queerty.  And, really, from Mediaite’s description, nor do they.  They write:

Queerty tries extremely hard to be the most opinionated gay blog out there. They might succeed if their snark didn’t translate into insults indiscriminately being hurled at everyone and anyone.  But since its inception, Queerty has undoubtedly been writing impassioned, biting commentary on everything gay.  When Queerty gets it right, its posts are inspiring, angering, and beautiful because its writers have little interest in reporting – they scream, they shout, but they rarely let someone slip by if it affects the LGBT community.  They understand that hot, half-naked guys might draw a little more attention than a great post about Obama’s unfulfilled promises, but that certainly doesn’t mean they bite their tongues.

That’s the Mediaite way, apparently, of being “dedicated solely to shining a light on every gay thing Obama does.”  That alone was enough for me to know that Mediaite is nothing more than the Mouthpiece Theater version of a blog.  An example of their “great post[s] about Obama’s unfulfilled promises” was the irrational post highlighted by Mediaite: “Obama Must Issue Exec Order to Begin DADT Repeal. And Yet He Won’t.“  No, that is not true — and no one, other than Queerty, has ever claimed so.  Queerty is good and fun for many things, but I’m not sure who goes there for analysis of LGBT political and legal issues.

2. David Badash and his site, The New Civil Rights Movement.  It’s a good site, and I think David deserves a place on this list.

3. The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan’s blog.  Andrew is the original gay blog, and I recall the dark-blue andrewsullivan.com site from way back when, so he is likely always going to show up on such lists.  As they point out, he doesn’t always focus on gay issues these days — in fact, his blog became an essential part of the Iranian election discussion — but people do pay attention when he says something on gay issues due to his lengthy tenure of writing about such issues.

4. AmericaBlog.  The idea that a site focused on analyzing and commenting on media would blindly reprint John Aravosis’s fabrications and misstatements is quite unfortunate.  They write:

AmericaBlog just launched its gay-only off-shoot of the motherblog, but the site would have made this list with or without its own homo URL.  Gay AmericaBlog could be considered the more outspoken counterpart to its friend-blog, Towleroad (a site that would have made this list if it wasn’t trying to be the gay CNN by reporting instead of commenting).  Yes, the advertising on the site takes up exactly half of the screen, but the posts never stray from their intent to deliver the truth that “a great nation deserves,” which, unfortunately, often includes deep criticism of Obama and his administration.

The “truth” a great nation deserves, generally speaking, should be true statements.  If by “more outspoken counterpart” they mean “yelling and screaming regardless of whether facts back it up,” then, yes, AmericaBlog is outspoken.  And if “deep” means “irrational,” then AmericaBlog fits the bill.

Among the posts that Mediaite highlights:

• Obama Defends DOMA in Federal Court, where the full headline, strangely omitted by Mediaite, is: “Obama defends DOMA in federal court. Says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget. Invokes incest and marrying children.”  The “incest and marrying children,” which other times shows up on AmericaBlog as “pedophilia,” has been discussed at length by me, most notably at “Not a Vendetta” and “Chairman Frank and Aravosis’s Misstatements.”
• Obama DOJ Lies to Politico in Defending Hate Brief Against Gays, where reality was made up, as I discussed in those earlier posts and Professor Nan Hunter, quoting Marty Lederman, also discussed.
• President Obama Revealed Today Another Reason He Can’t Act on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which I responded to here: “AmericaBlogReality, Watching Distortions Spread.”

Regardless of the specifics, which cause enough concern, it’s clear that Mediate’s definition of being “dedicated . . . to shining a light on every gay thing Obama does” is shouting loudly and often about and at Obama.

If Mediaite thinks this is one of their “best pieces,” as their editor at large wrote, then I’m not so sure this venture is going to succeed.  If it actually wants to become a “must-read for anyone interested in media,” then the site likely should spend more time on those time-tested journalistic tools of researching and investigating its pieces to ensure they at least pass the laugh test for accuracy and less-than-superficial coverage.

[UPDATE: Gotkin claims, via Twitter, that "The facts I wrote were about Obama's biggest CRITICS, not the best 'political analysis,' as you seem to assume."  My response: "The all caps was helpful, but no, I understood what you were aiming at. I don't consider shouting criticism. Skeptical coverage is."]

If someone wants an actual representation of coverage of Obama and LGBT issues online, here’s my list:

1. Towleroad might not be an opinion blog, but the blog does more than any other to do what Mediaite said it was looking for: “dedicated . . . to shining a light on every gay thing Obama does.”  Towleroad is today’s gay newspaper, and Andy Towle deserves great credit for the work he does.
2. Daily Dish
3. Pam’s House Blend is a site with which I sometimes disagree, but not because I’ve felt that Pam or her other contributors have a disregard for facts or civility, but rather because we simply disagree at times on the best approach.
4. Kerry Eleveld at The Advocate is bringing more and better coverage of gay issues to the forefront than ever.

Also, don’t forget:

• The Bilerico Project is a multi-person site that often provides a wide variety of perspectives on LGBT issues.
• The New Civil Rights Movement
• The Box Turtle Bulletin is a smart site that provides analysis and insight with a few good contributors.
• Independent Gay Forum provides more poitical balance than most LGBT-related sites, and also provides always interesting thoughts.
• GayPatriot is a gay Republican voice.  Gasp.  We often disagree, but the site is certainly providing gay voices criticizing Obama.
• Rod, 2.0 is a gay non-white voice. Gasp again.  We agree much more, but Rod provides a unique voice.
• Queerty
• Good As You is similar to Queerty but with less skin and more coverage of the Right.
• Yes, AmericaBlog, is worthy of viewing, because — let’s face it — he has the traffic and sources.  And, often, when he sticks to the facts, John Aravosis does a very good thing.  But too often, he falls off the factual wagon and goes in the mud for his commentary — without skepticism — to be reliable.
• Oh, yeah, and Law Dork.  You should read him. ;o)

Read on if you comment at Law Dork, you’re a regular here . . . or would like to become one!

With that in mind, and in light of the increased numbers of commenters in the past month — which truly thrills me — I would like to ensure that we all do what we can so that all commenters and readers can feel that it is a civil and temperate discussion taking place at this blog.  And though I don’t respond to every comment — and though I have myself fallen into intemperance in comments — I do respond to many comments, and I don’t want the comment threads here to turn into the intemperate, uncivil sniping attacks that I’ve seen at some other sites.  I am less liberal than other bloggers and readers and far more liberal than many more, and I would envision the discussions here open to both groups.

At the same time, civility is not the same as squishy.  Strong, aggressive debate is important and predictable in many of the topics discussed here, and I don’t want people to feel that legitimate criticism is in some way discouraged.  Please, go for it.  Just be civil in doing so.

With all that in mind, I truly have appreciated many of the comments — and have seen those comments add nuance and twists to my own thinking, and for that, I thank everyone for their thoughtful comments.

Though he admitted it was hard to explain on Twitter, I think I get his point.  Though his commentary is about a point in time, it easily applies more broadly.  As he writes:

But the big question remains: How far will HRC go in keeping the pressure on the president, and did the cover the group provided early on give the administration the sense that the gay movement would just lie down and get trampled?

It’s true the many of us were surprised by the strength of the language coming from HRC President Joe Solomonese following the filing of the Smelt DOMA brief last month.

Signorile then goes through several interpretations of the what and why of Smelt — which this blog and many others have gone through many, many times — but reaches the ultimate conclusion that the Administration was showing itself to be “tone-deaf” to our concerns and that “[t]here are ways to make a constituency feel better about your intentions, even as you drag your feet for political reasons.  Obama hasn’t done even that.”

It’s true, and though I’m not sure I place as much blame at the feet of HRC as Signorile does, it’s clear that the D.C. dome of politics does cause there oftentimes to be a completely different perception of an action in D.C. than outside the Beltway.

And on that point, I think Signorile is right in that the HRC/A-list gays really didn’t understand the depth of the activist/blogger uproar.  Sure, there are a couple, like Stampp Corbin, who bridge both — but most folks fit into one camp or the other.  Even the more pro-Obama bloggers like me have been critical of Obama’s inaction on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the slowness of movement in ensuring that his Justice Department is, within the scope of their duties, accurately reflecting Administration policy.

The point is that regardless of who or what it is, D.C. institutions oppose change, need pushed into making changes and move slowly when change happens.  (Look at health care reform for one of a zillion examples.)  From President Obama to agency heads to members of Congress to advocacy organizations like HRC, Signorile is right that everyone needs to be pushed to keep up the pace on movement for the changes we want and deserve.

In a piece as much about the failure of traditional media as Froomkin’s new gig, Greenwald writes:

In yet another sign of how online media outlets are strengthening as their older establishment predecessors are struggling to survive, The Huffington Post has hired Dan Froomkin to be its Washington Bureau Chief and regular columnist/blogger.  Froomkin will oversee a staff of four reporters and an Assistant Editor, guide The Huffington Post’s Washington reporting, and write at least two posts per week to be featured on its main page and Politics page.

As important as his column-writing may be, the prospect of Froomkin controlling a little force of mini-Froomkins — reporters who can help him investigate and write about the parts of Washington ignored by others — may be the more important development in Froomkin’s hiring.

The big-picture news, though, is that Froomkin’s hiring shows us that journalism is alive and well, as Greenwald writes:

Clearly, journalism itself is not dying.  What is dying — and rightfully so — is the staid, establishment-serving, passion-free, access-desperate, mindless stenographic model to which establishment journalism rigidly adheres. . . . People are obviously hungry for the type of real journalism Froomkin practices.  The Huffington Post immediately capitalized on the Post’s short-sighted and myopic decision to fire one of their most vibrant, passionate and innovative journalists.  In this episode lies many insights about the real reasons establishment journalism is struggling severely.

Congratulations to Froomkin and The HuffPo, which just became an even better read.

Last week, Connie Schultz, whose work I greatly respect — particularly her strong work for equality — wrote a column pitching a newspaper lawyer’s proposal to change copyright law to limit the ability of blogs to take information from a newspaper’s Web site for a period of time — suggested is 24 hours — after publication.  Jeff Jarvis, at BuzzMachine, responded in full force.

Today, Ted did a little Web chat — that, incidentally, involved no chat with any readers — to promote, basically, the idea that bloggers don’t do any original research or reporting and, once he admits that some blogs actually do just that, that blogs don’t have any real reach anyway, so they’re irrelevant without the reach of newspapers.

But don’t trust my take, here are his words [with my italicized comments in brackets]:

There was a Pew Institute study that was done last year that said last year was the first time more people got their news for free off the Internet than paid for it by buying newspapers and magazines.  [Does he not realize that a significant portion of that includes newspapers and magazines that have their content online "for free"?]  And that’s a difficult situation.  [The large Ceasars Windsor and Cleveland Museum of Art advertisements right next to the Web chat video on Cleveland.com were a nice juxtoposition.]

That doesn’t mean the news didn’t originate with newspapers, because it did.  [Note the definitive nature of this initial statement.]  Any news that you find on the Internet that you can find on almost any site [Any site?  Hedging?] that you can trust and believe and is well-researched and, watchdog process and everything else, chances are [More hedging.] it started off with a print reporter with a notebook and a pencil and a wealth of knowledge and experience in how to gather information, how to hold public officials’ feet to the fire, how to gather background and report all of the — everything is being done by the government with your tax money and your faith, it all comes from newspapers.  [Did Palin write this?]

Without that, I don’t know where the bloggers and Internet Web sites would even get their stuff.  [Well, golly, gee, I don't know, Mr. Diadiun.  In the past month alone, I've attended hearings of the Ohio General Assembly; read legislative proposals, court filings and judicial opinions; and picked up the phone to talk with folks.]

He went on to show that the last time he read anything about Web traffic was sometime before the 2000 election:

There is the wider reach that we have, both through the newspaper and through our newspaper Website, Cleveland.com, which has a much larger reach than really anybody else.  [This sounds definitively vague or vaguely definitive, I'm not sure which.]

Connie wrote about the original proposal two weeks ago, er, a week ago. And yesterday, she wrote about the reaction that her column has gotten and spent sometime rebutting something a guy [Jeff Jarvis has been one of the leading "new media" talkesr and writers since I first began blogging in 2003.] who’s taken it upon himself to support online news dissemination and public journalists at the expense of print and gave him a lot of ink in her column, which I thought was kind of unfortunate because, uh, you know, Connie’s column is read by 25,000 or 30,000 people a month, which is — has to be — many more times than this guy gets on his blog.  [My far smaller blog empire here at Law Dork had more than 38,500 page views in the month of June.]  And she gave him more publicity through that column than he would get on his own, anytime.  [No, you are insanely wrong.]

I mentioned that there was a big reaction from the blogosphere to Connie’s column last week.  A big reaction in the blog world is maybe 100 people, maybe 20 or 30 people responding and most of those are snarky comments that really don’t add a lot to the debate anyway. [My post on Obama and LGBT equality, albeit with Sullivan and Reynolds links, has received more than 6,000 views and has more than 60 comments in the 24 hours since it was posted.] It’s really a bunch of pipsqueaks out there talking about what the real journalists do, and I think that we do need to find a way to grab hold of our content and get paid for what we do . . . . [My post linked to Andrew Sullivan's Sunday column from the Times of London, and Andrew later linked to my post analyzing his column and applying its logic to a different topic.]

What a misinformed dolt.

My question of the night:  Who is further from reality, Sarah Palin or Ted Diadiun?