Schreiner’s Media Landscape

The Republican convention continues to degenerate into a farce, fraud and classic example of why these people shouldn’t be allowed to destroy our country anymore. Arresting a reporter- the highest-profile left-wing reporter in the world- doesn’t do anything to gain voters and it certainly doesn’t project the image of a party or ideology that is either inclusive or unifying. Not that the GOP had anything to do with her arrest directly. But they helped created the climate both in Minneapolis and America that led to the type of Beijing-style throttling the Republicans exercised at their past convention in New York and in their enforcement of the Patriot Act.

Sadly, it’s typical. Forget about “Trailer Park Pinup” Sarah Palin. Her and McCain’s hypocrisy on and abuse of federal earmarks- a far bigger issue than her pregnant teenager- is a way of life in our two-party system regardless of whose side you’re on. If there was any reason left to vote for McCain or any Republican, it was that they sort-of represented hope of restored freedom that was ravaged by the Bush-Cheney Regime. But as with everything Bush and Republican, it’s all talk. And it’s becoming clearer every minute that McCain=Bush. Maybe not by design but more because that’s just the way Republicans roll.

As for Obama, he’s probably just sitting watching, enjoying the whole debacle. The needless arrest of Amy Goodman, McCain’s unraveling credibility and his unflagging Mr. Nice Guy campaign make him look better every day. And that’s a lot for me to say. Thanks, Amy for going above and beyond a journalist’s duty. You may just have put us over the top.

I worked as a freelance live shot coordinator for NBC during the 1992 political conventions in New York (Democrats) and Houston (Republicans). FYI: Clinton beat Bush the Elder- the last of the good times. The Democrats’ and Republicans’ presidential nominating conventions used to be important gatherings instead of meaningless pseudo-events where the leader the Free World was chosen by arm-wrestling, jawboning and good, old-fashioned intimidation and power. Issues, not images, were paramount. Now, they are made-for-TV events just like the Olympics and American Idol: the lead actor already chosen and the convention merely his acceptance speech. The conventions aren’t even as meaningful or exciting as the Oscars. At least with the Oscars, you don’t know who’s going to win or what they’re going to say.

I remember seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger sitting with the royal Bush family (W right there as well) at the Astrodome being chummy and all GOP-like. Years later when Ahnuld ran for governernator of California, W withheld support of him and actually stated that he didn’t know much about him. Odd, because they seemed pretty friendly that night. W was probably stoned, drunk or both and doesn’t recall.

At Madison Square Garden, Al Gore delivered his famous “It’s time for them to go” speech and Comedy Central made their auspicious first appearance “covering” the show- which is all it was. MTV’s Tabitha Soren (remember her?) marked the beginning and end of her dubious media career. It also developed into my first documentary since college. I shot it on Hi8 tape on a Sony pro-sumer camera which was the exciting, new small format in 1992 and the precursor to the digital revolution then just on the horizon. It was after the conventions that I knew I would never stay in corporate TV. I left the news biz a month later, returned in 1994, and retired from it in 2003.

The technology has changed a lot since 1992. But two things haven’t: 1) the conventions are pointless and 2) they’re not good TV anymore, just a sad cliche from a bygone era (balloons, signs, funny hats, etc.). For that matter, check the blogs. They’re even boring on the Internet.

NBC and other network TV big shots are all goose-pimply about the success of their hijacking the Internet for a month to redundantly televise the Olympics even though they already had their own cable and broadcast channels. They had no compunctions about seizing as much bandwidth as they wanted to show little girls in cute Spandex suits prancing about. But when it comes to sharing the PUBLIC’S AIRWAVES with the millions of business people and regular citizens who need and use the Internet, NO WAY!

A firm in Virginia has proved that the broadcast spectrum that television stations use to spew their drivel can be used to communicate via the Internet without interference. Of course, the TV networks and stations are all against that and are using their political muscle to keep us little guys down again.

Don’t expect the Bush Regime to come to the aid of regular American citizens. The FCC under Kevin Martin has produced ignorant and unconstitutional rulings like the Super Bowl breast-flashing fiasco (overturned) and attempts to allow even more wealthy conglomerates to buy broadcast stations, preventing minorities and local groups from owning their own local media.

The Olympics’ popularity will only accelerate Big Media’s migration to the Internet causing increased slowdowns and bandwidth hogging already slowing upload and download speeds and forcing gatekeepers like Comcast to allocate bandwidth and regulate selected users. Those of us who do business on the Web need to protect ourselves now before Big Media takes over yet again with the blessing of a complicit federal authority.

A great new collection of essays “A Passion for this Earth” advances many new, optimistic approaches to getting the emerging pro-Earth movement out of its anti-media, politically-anchored, isolationist doldrums and into the mass market and consciousness. Scientist Carl Sarfina argues that environmentalists’ efforts failed in the 1970s, despite the same evidence of human excess and damage we have now, because they failed to make environmentalism a VALUE.

To really motivate most Americans to do anything, they need to be INSPIRED he says, not just presented with a lot of irrefutable evidence in a dull and often judgmental and combative package. That’s why the radical Christian right-wing took over the ideologically-adrift Republicans and hijacked America’s sense of what is true and good. “Getting anywhere requires both a destination and navigational equipment” Sarfina writes. “Factual findings can suggest the destination. Values are the moral compass.” What is the compass? Sarfina suggests media- getting the word out, prosletyzing, just like the Christian Right: a blueprint environmentalists have ignored or avoided because of their own petty prejudices and ignorance.

In his essay “Fools’ Paradise,” Ronald Wright reprises Jared Diamond’s analysis of the Easter Island eco-disaster in “Collapse” by invoking the anthropological concept of “ideological pathology.” That’s essentially a society committing suicide by eating itself to death instead of going on a diet to live healthier and longer. Wright like Sarfina, believes media, communication and, in Wright’s case history, are the keys to understanding our dilemma and what we must do to avoid Easter Island’s fate.

“Archaeology is perhaps the best tool we have for looking ahead. Unlike written history, which is often highly edited, archaeology uncovers the deeds we have forgotten or have chose to forget. It also offers a much longer reading of the direction and momentum of the human course through time.”

Media and communication are essential to the re-emerging Earth movement to not repeat the mistakes of the 1970s. Self-righteousness, confrontation, and politicizing environmental consciousness fail to make stewardship a MORAL VALUE and INSPIRE PEOPLE to do it because it’s the right thing. All the evidence, facts and political wrangling over the past 30 years failed to prevent the crisis we now find ourselves in.

Persuading the American people of the urgency and need for Earth-consciousness and action will require, as Sarfina wrote, a mass media attack along the lines of what’s happening on this blog and all over the Internet: video, art, music, writing, theater, education. That, in a nutshell, is where I’m coming from. And as Sarfina’s “compass” would indicate, it’s where we’re all going. We just need to be able to read a compass and have the motivation to pick it up.

Pandora and other Internet radio operations are on the verge of collapse. NBC and other corporate media cause delays, slow response and crashes on the Internet by streaming live event video. What do these two have in common? They are indicative of the bandwidth wars that have just begun. Unfortunately, as proved by Internet radio, they don’t have the political clout or the cash to survive against the formidable lobby power and endless cash of Hollywood, Washington and Madison Avenue. And it bodes ill for independent video and other media sites who will find their efforts crushed as more non-web-based corporate media- like NBC- move more of their operations and bandwidth sucking programs to the Internet.

Raser Technologies of Provo, Utah is one of America’s leading geothermal energy companies. They’re about to make a big splash: providing clean, renewable energy to Anaheim, California nearly three years ahead of schedule. If you want to know more about how geothermal energy works, click on my video about Iceland and its system that I shot in 2007.

The “Viewer Video” network is not a new idea. We did it back in 1986 at KCNC in Denver when the first affordable consumer VHS cameras hit the market. It worked for accidents, fires and the stuff local TV news likes but died out when contributors didn’t find it worth their time, newsroom employees tired of Amateur Hour and accompanying supervision of the system, and viewers didn’t notice the difference between the pro stuff and Jimmy’s from down the street. But now a Tampa TV station is doing essentially the same thing and everybody in journalism is going to scream that it’s the end of the world as we know it. Maybe it is this time. And is that such a bad thing?

The industry is calling them “citizen journalists” to separate them from the professional ones. After all, most people in “journalism” (whatever relevance that term holds anymore) went to college and paid a lot of money for the right to call themselves “journalists.” Personally, I never cared for the term, never called myself a journalist and thought people who did mistook it for something people respected. Still, giving away the title to folks with a tiny camera and lots of time on their hands doesn’t seem right.

But citizens are what the “journalism” process is all about and they’ve been left out of it and sadly exploited by professional journalists, corporate executives and consultants for decades. Perhaps this is payback for the years of sensationalism, trivia and exploitation citizens feel at the hands of corporate news media. Or perhaps, this is corporate media’s payback to the citizenry- oops, audience- for abandoning local TV news when the stations need them most. “Don’t want to watch us anymore, you peons? Well, if you don’t like us, here’s a camera. Do it yourself.”

Thanks. We will.

I’m proud to be one of Emeryville, California web video producer TurnHere’s “Top Filmmakers.” Heck, they even asked me to send them a picture to put on their wall. In a right-back-atcha moment, here’s the link to their write-up in the latest issue of Fortune Magazine about how they keep employee turnover low.

I’d say from my post several hundred miles away that they do it by not being a bunch of a**holes and getting the checks to you in a reasonable amount of time. But read the article and you’ll see what the person who wrote the article thinks. And they’ve done a lot more research than I have.

There’s not much doubt that ethanol is a disastrous economic, energy and political policy. No wonder Bush embraced it like a sick baby raccoon. Sad though that McCain was against ethanol for years though for competitive reasons linked to the oil industry, not environmental, independence or the other reasonable reasons. Then he abruptly changed his position in 2006 to con Iowa voters into choosing him during the caucuses. It worked. Now Iowa may be the only state he wins.

McCain’s stuck as an ethanol supporter (though Obama is too). Another missed opportunity. But I wasn’t going to vote for him anyway.

If you want to see where the future of video is, look online. At least, that’s where more people are looking. This new study shows the number of people who watch video online went up last year and, even more significantly, they’re spending more time watching online video. This is not only good news for advertisers, who want more and more eyeballs for the web ads, and for people like me who make those ads. This is good news for Hollywood, the networks, cable and the entire video industry because it’s forcing television and the traditional video outlets to open themselves up to new ideas, styles, production and programs- not just because it’s what the audience wants but because, for the long-economically and artistically suffering corporate media, it’s become a matter of adaptation or extinction.