Here’s a question, concerning even small towns like Whitewater, for which the Financial Times publishes an answer: If market-based solutions are superior to cronyism, why are there so many cronies? First, there aren’t that many cronies (or insistent insiders) in Whitewater or elsewhere, but the few there are manipulate or intimidate weak reporters at local papers into representing their numbers as…
New Media
New Media, New Whitewater, Press, University
The Dark, Futile Dream
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
UW-Whitewater is searching for a new chancellor, and so there’s a search committee, and a search consultant to guide that committee’s work. The consultant is Dr. Jessica Kozloff, the former president of a small, undistinguished college in Pennsylvania. (The UW System schools are, each of them, more competitive and developed than the one Dr. Kozloff…
Freedom of Speech, Libertarians, Liberty, New Media, Politics
Message Independence
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Look at Whitewater, and one sees scores of groups with press releases, community announcements, or political viewpoints to publicize. Even much smaller communities have similar conditions: a dozen people are likely to have more than a dozen views. Each day, and especially in an election year, it helps to have the independence to offer views…
New Media, Press
So, “How is Social Media Changing Journalism?”
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
At this year’s Aspen Ideas Festival, we asked a group of media professionals to discuss how new platforms are transforming radio, TV, print, and digital. “I have always been a champion for old media flinging open its doors and allowing citizens to participate,” says radio journalist Jay Allison. Other panelists include Paula Kerger, Jon Steinberg…
New Media
New Theme
by JOHN ADAMS • • 3 Comments
It’s time for some sprucing up around here. Over the weekend, I’ll be updating the FREE WHITEWATER theme to take advantage of new features that my older theme could not manage. There’ll be tweaks over the next two days, and perhaps a bit thereafter. This site started over seven years ago, and the software that…
Corporate Welfare, Economy, Freedom of Speech, Local Government, New Media
Rock Netroots
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Local Government, New Media, Press
Insiders’ Press Choices: Stagnation or Decline
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There is not a single newspaper in our part of Wisconsin that is not stagnant or in decline. Not one. (Stagnation, truly, applies only if one keeps the interval of measurement small; look over any reasonable period and you’ll find ongoing decline.) When town squires and self-declared ‘movers and shakers’ look for a compliant publication,…
New Media, Press
The Newspaper that Touts Chilling Effects
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
One would think that a newspaper – in the business of printed and online speech – would wish to reduce chilling effects, that is, threats of lawsuits or government action that might intimidate citizens into refraining from the exercise of free speech rights. One might think that about some newspapers, but for the Janesville Gazette…
Business, Local Government, New Media, Press
Three Key Insights for Local News
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I grew up reading and loving newspapers. I didn’t aspire to write in that field; like so many others, I wanted to read what others carefully and insightfully wrote. Love doesn’t sustain an industry; sound perspectives and tenacity sustain an industry. The trends for newspapers are inauspicious. See, only the latest in a long string…
New Media, Writing
The Spacing of Words to Come
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. After jumping over the dog, the fox typed into his journal using two spaces between sentences. Over at Caffeinated Politics that there’s a light-hearted post about whether proper punctuation allows two spaces between sentences, or somehow requires only one space. See, Two Spaces After A Period…
Federal Government, Freedom of Speech, Liberty, Local Government, New Media, Open Government, Politics, State Government, Writing
Steps for Blogging on a Policy or Proposal
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
For bloggers who cover politics, policy-making, etc., just as would have been true of essayists and pamphleteers in an earlier time, it helps to have a method to one’s writing. In the paragraphs below, I’ll list steps one should take when approaching a topic. The steps are in a rough order, but in any method,…
New Media, Press
Early Front-Runner: Worst Blog Post of 2014
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The year’s just started, but we’ve an early, strong candidate for the worst blog post of 2014. Over at the Gazette, while working a white-collar job as editorialist and blogger in blue-collar Janesville, Greg Peck has a 1.7.14 entry entitled, My job is “stressful”? Well no kidding. Blogger Peck writes that a study…
City, Freedom of Speech, Liberty, New Media
An Anecdote About an Appeal to (but not of) Authority
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Years ago, around when I first started writing, someone told me about a conversation that person heard about blogging. I’ll share it with you, and explain why it was, initially, hard for me to understand. The person telling me about the conversation was reputed to be especially clever, and that reputation actually made it harder…
New Media, New Whitewater, Politics, Press
What the ‘Shock of Inclusion’ Means Locally
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I posted yesterday on Clay Shirky’s Shock of Inclusion and New Roles for News in the Fabric of Society, published in 2010 and just as relevant today. His essay isn’t about local media especially, but his observations are useful to assess both local news and politics. Shirky writes about the collapse of a pipeline…