Speaking For All Mankind

“Breitbart is, in short, expert in making the journalism industry his bitch. ‘The market has forced me to come up with techniques to be noticed,’ Breitbart says. ‘And now that I have them, I’m like, wow, this is actually great. This is fun.’”

How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media – Wired, April 2010.

By now, you have probably heard of how Shirley Sherrod, a former(?) Federal official, was forced to resign after a heavily-edited video of a recent speech she gave at an NAACP event was used as evidence of reverse-racism in Obama’s administration.  After the tape was released by Mr. Breitbart to FOX News, both the NAACP and White House called for Ms. Sherrod’s resignation.

Then, the unedited video was released (you can view it here).  Basically, the videotape shows that Ms. Sherrod’s statements were the exact opposite of what FOX News reported.  The NAACP apologized last night for being “snookered“  and called for her case to be reconsidered.  The farm family that Sherrod referred to even defended her while, just a few hours ago, the White House apologized.

Of course, all of this could have been avoided if the White House and the USDA remembered one basic fact – FOX News is not an actual news station.  Also, once they realized that Mr. Breitbart was behind the videotape, they should have remembered how an earlier, heavily-edited videotape falsely accused ACORN (and let to that organization’s demise).  At the very least, someone should have asked to see the complete unedited tape.  Even Mr. Breitbart admits that viewing the entire tape demonstrates that Ms. Sherrod is not a racist.

Mr. Breitbart and others like him are taking advantage of the decline of journalism.  Newsrooms are cutting back on staff and especially investigate reporters.  At the same time, they have to fill the 24-hour news hole and compete with other cable stations and local news.  Ratings are more essential now than ever.  Media manipulators know these weaknesses and use them to their partisan advantage.  As the Sherrod case shows, reputations can be damaged in just a few hours.  What is unusual about the Sherrod case is that the true picture came just as quickly.  In cases such as ACORN or Climategate, it was several months before the truth came out but was of little help in averting the damage.

It is imperative that the audience become more skeptical and reserve judgment before all of the facts are in.  More and more media manipulators are taking advantage of the decline of traditional journalism to spread their falsehoods.  Unfortunately, I don’t hold much hope as when obviously fictional news events (such as this from the Onion) are viewed as investigative journalism.

You have a strange idea of “fun,” Mr. Breitbart.

I’m still pondering its uses in project management – from Net-Map ToolBox.

Even though Will Thalheimer’s post is directed to learning professionals, his observation that unleashing too much information on the public can be overwhelming and confusing is a great warning for open government advocates.  So, when discussing opening up government data to the public, there also needs to be a complementary effort to help citizens understand and manage the massive data flow.  Maybe it should be Open-and-EngagedGov rather than just OpenGov.

Along the same lines of my own research – simulation of cultural change.  Computational social science is going to revolutionize the social sciences as simulation revolutionized the hard sciences.

Great interactive demonstration of the Space Communication Network.  Good example of creative of citizen engagement.

Amazing video!  Now, speaking as a public administration and public policy scholar, I am fascinated to see how this will change government in the next decade.

According to Forrester Research (thanks for the link from Read Write Web).  If you are responsible for government agency communications, you will want to look at Figure 1.  How is your agency’s social media strategy serving the various groups on that ladder?

I was talking to a friend about my January 14th posting where I wrote about being “unfollowed” on Twitter after an exchange over the validity of informal learning.  He laughed about it and told me that I shouldn’t be so sensitive.  “It happens all the time.” he said.

“Well, then social networking has achieved a communication first,” I replied.  “Remember the constant quote from our professors in the communication program?  That you cannot not communicate.”

“Yes.”

“Well, it appears that social networking technologies can create new and more immediate ways of communicating.  And it also appears that social networking technologies can now make it possible to fully not communicate.”

That is a powerful unintended effect with major societal ramifications.

I like this book!  Scott Berkum has written a book that I wish I had when I was teaching the communication practices because this is the kind of real world advice students need to be successful public speakers.  Scott’s confessions about his speaking career bridges the gap between the basics of speech communication and the secrets of highly-successful speakers (although Scott is a highly-successful speaker).  No, what is good about Scott’s advice is that he shares his lessons from the mistakes he made starting out.

My favorite chapters?  “The science of not boring people;”  “How to make a point;” and “What to do if your talk sucks.”  An especially motivational chapter is “You can’t do worse than this” in which Scott shares stories of famous speakers and their worst speaking moment.  There is nothing really new here but the advice of rehearse your speech, come early and check out your speaking arrangements, and don’t read your slides needs repeating (over and over in some cases).

I think where this book will be most helpful is in training federal government speakers.  I’ve seen some good briefings but your average speech by public officials can be a painful event.  Granted, most topics are of a highly technical nature and dense with policy points and regulatory language but the presenter can at least work to engage the audience.  With Scott’s advice, the presenter can successfully engage the audience.