Jim Moore’s blog: Innovation, Strategy, Public Policy

The following was suggested by Alex Moody, who posts on the DailyKos http://www.dailykos.com and works at Dean for America. These ideas are germinating in the DailyKos community, and are a healthy start at answering the need for a higher level of accountability in the process of selecting the next President of the United States.

It seems to me that we could make an interesting start by selecting a dozen major press journalists who are covering the candidates, and forming a non-partisan network of bloggers to monitor them. We could do this on a trial basis, and explore what it takes to sustain it. Perhaps the network might be hosted here at Berkman. We’d need to explore this with John Palfrey, and we would also need to make sure that we were indeed fair and balanced .

Here is Alex’s summary of the idea:

Media Monitoring Network

Mission Statement

The MMN is designed to monitor the journalists who report the news of today. Journalism has developed a lack of accuracy and responsibility, and has a propensity to promote controversial spin on statements and events that have been taken out of context. We stand vigilant against the degradation of the integrity of the media, and seek to promote honest reporting.

Framework

1. A community of concerned citizens who are willing to monitor and respond to careless journalism.

2. A system that provides links to the major news organizations, and the daily (or weekly) columns of certain selected journalists.

*Develop a system that divides the various journalistic ‘beats’ amongst the greater organization, to insure the widest possible effort.

3. A Web Log that allows the ‘citizen soldiers’ to report their findings to the greater community.

*Allow comments and promote discussion amongst the community to flesh out the contradiction or misstatement in the report, to insure quality results from the community as a whole.

4. A Strategic response formula, to ‘enforce’ responsible journalism.

*Develop a form response that includes:
1. What was reported by the journalist? (Direct Quotes)
2. What the reality was, and how that differs from what was reported.
3. Why this is irresponsible, and what the community expects the editor and the journalist to do about it. (i.e. Issue a correction)

*Distribute the response to the community, who then adapt it in their own words.

*Distribute the contact information for the following people:
1. Managing Editor
2. Journalist
3. National Editors Desk (Phone Number)
*Flood the above people with a concentrated response, which is respectful, well thought-out, accurate, and massive.
*Distribute open letters or online petitions to a media advisory list in egregious cases of bias or woefully inaccurate reporting.

Ok, you have to see this  http://www.takeyourcountryback.com/DEAN/…

So here is the deal–there is a Dean site http://postcards.deanforamerica.com that enables you to send a digital postcard to your friends–and then there is this unofficial site that is displaying some of the results..

So here is a creative challenge for those of us in the blogosphere and the emergent democracy movement:

How can we hold everyone in the presidential campaigns and election accountable for their statements and their biases/perspectives. Right now, the press jumps on one candidate or another, and asks superaccountability. Meanwhile other candidates are given a pass, at least temporarily. This process, in my view, has both a good and bad side. The good side is that it tests and tempers the political candidate–the person who hopes to be president. It is how we make steel in this country. The bad side is that the process is not systematic or fair.

How could we systematically hold everyone in the process to a high level of accountability? How could we hold accountable the election officials? The FEC? The independent non-profit organizations like MoveOne.org and the Campaign for Growth? How could we hold the press accountable, each day?

All of us need to be accountable in the sense of (1) staying with facts, and (2) being honest and transparent with respect to our personal interests, our interpretive perspectives, and our biases.

In extremis, Al Franken has done an effective and entertaining job of holding pundits Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly accountable. But this is not a systemic improvement of accountability across the presidential campaign ecosystem. It is not comprehensive even with regard only to journalists. Al’s book does not improve realtime, daily, immediate accountability, and it only focuses on a few journalists who–in my view–are especially eggregious in their behavior. In these cases, Al Franken’s book is unlikely to cause any change at all in either Coulter or O’Reilly’s behavior.

I’m wondering: How we can shine an ongoing, daily light of accoutability on those involved in helping select a leader for the United States?

PS: I’m blogging this at 1:15 AM from my office at Dean for America, in Burlington, Vermont. The temperature is already well below zero. The predicted wind chill tonight is 30 below zero (no kidding). It has been a long, long, busy day.

My peaceful house west of Boston, with my little Buddhist guide figure, misses me! I’m enclosing the picture below as much for me as for you. An image of serenity that I treasure as I sit here relaxing, blogging, finding some rest and humor before traveling the windy, frigid path to Wendy and Kelly’s, to sleep.
“guide in snow”