Jim (Con't): First off, Lisa e-mailed to note the year-in-review at Fork Party.that I mentioned last week. She encourages everyone to check it out. As do I. I really love the visuals they have. And second off, please check out the work they're doing over at My Dog Ate My Blog. And I'll use that as my jumping in point. In a nice e-mail, My Dog Ate My Blog invited us to contribute something. That's a kind offer. But totally unrealistic. Let me explain why. We didn't plan a roundtable this edition. What happened is Ava and C.I. went off to write their TV article and the rest of us worked on several pieces that just didn't come together. Watching the clock, Dona said, "Enough! Short pieces!" At which point, we managed to pull off two short pieces, Mike and the gang will have Highlights which will give us three articles, we'll do an editorial on Blair and Iraq which will be four and we'll do a truest or two. We'll also have Ava and C.I.'s in depth piece on Keith Olbermann which is so strong that no one will notice anything else -- which is good, most won't realize how weak the edition is. So the point is, we can barely pull it together here each week to come up with new content. It's a wonderful offer and very sweet of them but we have enough problems here with new content. Okay, I'm going to toss to Jess who'll give a brief summary of some of the stuff that won't be in this edition. Jess.
Jess: We tried but were unable to complete -- to any level of satisfaction -- an article on WikiLeaks. Possibly next week. Part of the problem, Mike feels, is that we were attempting it without Ava and C.I. I don't think anyone would disagree with his assessment that their strong voices were missed. Trina had mentioned the possibility of this at her site and she and Jim are very strongly in support of this article. I stress that because we'll probably try to return to it next week. What basically happened was that Ava and C.I. were going to tackle a topic and Jim stopped them with his opinion that the biggest TV news was Keith Olbermann and there was no way that they couldn't write about that topic. They had known Thursday what was coming but hadn't followed the press. So writing about it required them to spend over two hours on the phones and online hunting down stories to see how the press was playing it out. After all that, they probably spent another hour writing the piece at least. That was three hours that we didn't have them assisting us and, as Mike pointed out, they were sorely missed. We do hope to do a piece on WikiLeaks next week. It will not be a puff piece, it will be a critical thinking piece.
Jim: Thank you, Jess. Ava, do you want to add anything?
Ava: I'll just add that we didn't plan to write it, we didn't want to write it. We spent more time on the phone trying to find our angle than anything else. We were speaking to a friend with ABC News who said something about "place that I come from" which led C.I. to sing, "In the place that I come from . . ." A song off Carly Simon's Boys In The Trees. And that finally gave us an in and then a friend at CNN raised Ashleigh Banfield which gave us another way into covering it. Otherwise, we would still be trying to figure out our angle.
Jim: If I can just follow up, that is an issue, right?
Ava: Yeah, how we're going to approach a story is important to the writing of it. It's like your designing a house from scratch and trying to figure out where the closets will go. After we got that down, we knew we could write it. Even so there were times writing it where one of us would say "Break!" and we'd stop and go walk around for a bit because -- Honestly, because we were afraid we'd miss a main point. It's easy to roll over one or two when you're trying to get done and I have no idea how long that piece is but it feels like the longest thing we've ever written.
Jim: Okay.
Dona: And the reason he went to Ava is because one of the pieces killed -- and killed due to time, we're all ready to go to sleep and still have an editorial to go, we've already chosen two "truests" of the week -- was Jim asking C.I. and Kat questions based on e-mails. Jim was really looking forward to that and they'd agreed to it but our inability to pull anything together for the bulk of the writing session means that segment got killed.
Jim: And let me give an example of that. Justin Hesse e-mailed wanting to know why, on her 2010 year-in-review, Kat didn't include Sarah McLachlan whose Laws Of Illusion Kat praised.
Kat: And to Justin I'd say I still love the album but I had ten slots to fill for the best of the year. When I wrote that piece -- and even now -- I didn't feel that Laws Of Illusion was one of the ten. I love it and listen to it. And a year from now I may feel differently. The example I always use is the Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang. I really loved that album when it came out but when I did my year-in-review, I didn't put it that high on the list. However, in the time since, it has continued to be an album I play and many on the list I no longer do. It's my opinion at that moment and time.
Jim: And that was one of the milder topics. I really wanted to do that piece. Wally, look back on the week and tell me anything that particularly stands out.
Wally: That maybe someone else wouldn't notice? How about the fact that the House Veterans Affairs Committee still hasn't scheduled any hearings and will apparently go through the month of January without any hearing. Last week, we attended a House Armed Services Committee hearing that was nothing but basic points about the Committee itself. I don't mean that as an insult, just noting that the Armed Services Committee has at least done something. House Veterans is doing nothing. I really find that amazing. I can't believe there's not a huge outcry for them to get to work.
Jim: Alright. Marcia, same question.
Marcia: I'm assuming this is leaving out the Chilcot hearing since that's the subject of the editorial. I'm blanking. I spent the week last week fact checking morons. Let me think a minute about what other people were covering. Wait, C.I.'s "I Hate The War" -- let me pull that up. Okay, "Since Saturday, 4 US soldiers have died in Iraq and a fifth has been injured. And it's a sign of both how much is going on in Iraq currently and how little most US outlets are paying attention to Iraq. Three, four years ago, could you imagine the US military announcing 4 deaths in one week -- 3 in one day -- and picture it receiving so little attention?" I think that's a huge point and one really worth underlining. Back in 2006, if I'd been reading this site or any other community site --
Jim: You hadn't started your own site then.
Marcia: No, I hadn't. But if I'd been reading any of the community sites and the week had gone by without anyone registering that, I'd have been shocked, true. But I also would have been shocked if Democracy Now! and all the rest had also ignored it. Now last week, the community covered it. But it was "Democracy Now! and all the rest" that ignored it. Amy Goodman reduced it to a single sentence and thought that passed for coverage. In 2006, we would have been screaming our heads off. These days, so few even notice.
Dona: Can I jump in? Mike and I are texting during this about what we have and don't have and we're counting this as the eighth piece and we still need an editorial but how we're doing that is by excerpting from C.I.'s Thursday snapshot. And I know there were some thoughts on that. Click here for our repost -- we are reposting that section of it -- but basically Project Censored wanted to whine about infotainment and yet offer listener's nothing at all. Now on our end, where it mattered was that a few of you especially wanted to comment. That was Rebecca, Betty, Mike and Stan who all cover TV at their websites. Rebecca's doing Brothers & Sisters, Betty's doing Desperate Housewives, Mike's doing Chuck and Fringe and Stan's doing No Ordinary Family. Starting next month, Marcia will resume writing about The Event. Rebecca, let me start with you.
Rebecca: It was really cute to listen to that first segment, the two men trashing this and that. C.I. didn't name the sports star. I think she was wanting not to wallow in the trash and I can understand that and I also know that her opinion was the sports star broke no law and she didn't see the point in joining in the blood leeching off of him. But the men were blaming infotainment press and all but, as C.I. noted, they didn't call out the sports press which was all over the story. And I bring that up because this is what pissed all of us off, sports never gets called out. Who covers TV for The Progressive or The Nation? No one. But they both use Dave Zirin to cover sports. Sports writing reaches a predmoninately male audience. Is that why the allow sports in their alleged political journals? I don't know but I know that the sexism is rank.
Betty: And I would agree with that and point out something that we all work from. We're all reposting C.I.'s Iraq snapshots. If I'm writing about Desperate Housewives, there's a chance someone not paying attention to Iraq will come across news of it because they're reading my take on Desperate Housewives. I know that I've gotten a few new readers in the last months as a direct result of my one day a week coverage of that show. And while the show is not Shakespeare, it is the arts and I don't see anything wrong with covering television. I don't watch reality TV -- which was the main object of scorn in that broadcast -- but that's because it doesn't interest me. If it did, you better believe I'd be writing about it.
Dona: Mike?
Mike: Well, one thing is that we're usually including some other stuff as well. The snapshot's every day -- that we include it -- but usually we've also got something else in there as well. Betty and Stan, for example, will generally include some political analysis from Hillary Is 44 in their posts if that site published anything that day. But this is really a Rebecca thing, period. Rebecca comes from p.r. and she was the one who first really grasped -- or at least put words to -- that we could reach a lot more people with wider topics. Meaning that the five of us are covering different shows instead of all of us showing up on the same day to write about Chuck or whatever. And that's not a minor point. I couldn't do the snapshot. Sometimes, I'll do a post where I write about two or three news stories out of Iraq and that's really straining my blogging abilities, honestly, for one post. But I can write about something different from what anyone else is doing and thereby do my part to increase awareness of Iraq. And I do take that seriously.
Ty: I know Stan needs to speak and I'm sure Marcia should come in on this since she does cover The Event. But I want to point out that there is a feeling among many readers that Mike and Marcia are inclusive of Republicans. Our mail here often includes Republicans and they will often cite Mike and Marcia in their posts. They don't say, "As opposed to that evil Betty!" But they do make a point to say that Mike and Marcia seem eager to speak with them.
Mike: Marcia's pointing to me. For me, I think it comes down to the fact that I voted for Scott Brown and I supported his run. I am glad to have Republican readers. I try to be respectful of them. But for me, at my site, since the start of it in 2005, I would say that I was a Democrat -- and I am -- but talk about how we shouldn't vote blindly. In 2008, I voted for Ralph Nader and that backed up what I was saying for some people. But it wasn't until Scott Brown's race that it really did become clear to a lot of other readers. So for me, that might be why some respond that way. And all readers are welcome at my site and all the community sites. Marcia?
Marcia: Republicans know where I'm coming from because it says so on my site, that I'm an African-American lesbian. And I think, from e-mails, there was an initial concern on the part of some that visit that I would be attacking them. I don't think I have. I know my defense of Sarah Palin when she's wrongly slammed is a big deal to a lot of Republican readers of my site. And I've defended her for some time. She's not someone I would most likely vote for but I'm not going to attack her with lies. And I think that's really what's being responded to, my attempting to be fair. The fact that I'm willing to try, I think, is why some readers feel welcome. And I do see that, how Republicans would feel the most welcome at either Mike or my site. And that's not an insult to anyone else but it's a longer discussion than we have time for here.
Jim: Can you give it to me in three sentences.
Marcia: Of the community's night time bloggers, Mike and I are the most topical. Elaine's covering peace. Rebecca's doing feminism -- and I don't know how many readers absorb that immediately but that is what she's doing. Stan and Betty are focused upon the Democratic Party mishaps. That's more than three. Sorry. Mike and I are the most prone to covering the day's topical events. Ruth is as well but she also veers off into historical topics. If you just want that day's cycle, that's us.
Jim: Okay. Stan, it was your turn when we went off on a sidebar.
Stan: I would just point out that this community has a huge number of sites. That's really something. C.I. starts The Common Ills and you end up with 14 ongoing websites -- including this one -- and three that started and stopped. That's pretty amazing. And Trina's covering the economy and doing a great job and C.I.'s covering Iraq and doing a great job. So you start a site, and I was the last one to do so, and you figure out what you can offer. I can't be Trina or C.I., so I play to my own strengths. And I like movies and that's largely what I write about more and more. But it does register with some people and, for example, I've gotten more e-mail on my decision to walk away from V than anything else. And overwhelmingly, the e-mail was supportive of that decision.
Ty: Stan walked away when ABC stopped streaming the show. Ruth, you were covering a show -- and Betty was grabbing it as well -- and now you've stopped. Want to talk about that?
Ruth: Well we were covering Cougar Town. We stopped. We stopped when ABC stopped streaming. They are back to streaming but they are at least one episode behind. We have nothing against the show, in fact, I still watch it each Wednesday night. But, as with Stan's objection regarding V, we did not see the point in promoting a show that was not streaming. I do not think this is minor, either. The net has changed so much since it started and it has certainly changed since I have been on it, roughly seven or so years. I have been on it as a user. It is six or so years that I have been on it writing. And I think people will look back in ten years and wonder, with dismay, about some of the changes that took place. I think Stan's objection will stand as an important stand and people will wonder why others did not object.
Jim: Elaine, you wrote about a TV show last week. Harry's Law which airs on Monday nights, NBC. And you do not do that usually. Do you want to say anything on this topic?
Elaine: What I would point out, what I'd rather talk about, is that Project Censored had an hour of air time on KPFA. They used it to promote a really bad column from 2008, to trash the public -- that was the third segment -- and not much else. While whining about serious stories that go uncovered, they offered no serious stories. It was embarrassing. Like C.I., I support Project Censored. I am eager to hear their Thursday broadcasts on the KPFA Morning Mix. However, I don't need junk food and that's all they offered.
Jim: And the Obama to Hitler?
Elaine: That was the first segment, a large portion of it. It didn't make for an informative segment. On the left, some called and/or compared Bush to Hitler --
Rebecca: I did!
Elaine: Yet somehow that's not a part of the tired story that made up the 2008 column which made up the first segment of the KPFA show last Thursday. It was all half-a-truth as opposed to reality. I don't have time for it and, at this late date, I can't imagine anyone who does.
Jim: Okay. Ann and Cedric were asked by me ahead of time if it was okay to bring up a personal question about them from an e-mail. They said yes, so here it is. From Anthony H., "As a newly wed couple, have you had to get used to each other's cookings and what sort of thing do you usually eat?"
Cedric: That's it? When Jim said "personal question," I thought the e-mail was going to be much more probing. Okay. I cook about two nights a week and we order in about once or twice. That leaves three for Ann to cook. I don't count my night when I'm doing volunteer work for the church because I don't eat dinner at home. Ann?
Ann: I'd go along with that count. In terms of what we usually eat. This has been a late session, writing edition. And around 3:00 a.m. our time -- we're participating by phone and not on the West Coast -- Cedric and I were both just starving.
Cedric: We really were.
Ann: And I mentioned there were some grapes but Cedric didn't want that. He wanted ice cream and had me wanting it. Then I mentioned that we had half a lasanaga still and we ended up tearing that apart with the promise that we'd go for ice cream when the sun came up. However, Cedric found four lemons that I'd picked up Saturday morning at the store and we devoured those instead. That story has no rhyme or reason and I share it because that's our eating. Don't try to make sense of it. Don't try to find a pattern.
Jim: Isaiah and Trina, we're winding down. We haven't heard from you.
Trina: Looking back on the week what stands out the most is the continued failure to cover Iraq. Panhandle Media could work itself into a non-stop frenzy when they thought they could smear the blood of the Tuscon tragedy onto Sarah Palin. When they couldn't, they went back to their half-assed work habits. It's amazing how much they ignore Iraq. I think you can see that in Greg Mitchell over at The Nation, in fact. When WikiLeaks was doing document dumps and they required reading and analysis, he wasn't covering it. When Julian Assange's story hijacked WikiLeaks and turned it into a soap opera of non-stop gossip, suddenly Greg was interested. That's what we get from Panhandle Media. They can't talk about the issues or the things that matter but if there's a gossip fire, they're hopping on the ambulance and rushing to it.
Isaiah: I agree firmly with everything Trina just said. I am really appalled by the refusal to call out the continuation of the Iraq War but even more unsettling may be our so-called 'independent' media's refusal to acknowledge that it does continue.
Jim: Okay, we're ten minutes over. C.I. said before we started if we did go over to just eliminate her. So take that up with her. This is a rush transcript.