Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

It was impossible to avoid the news of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s arrest this week. Federal prosecutors charged him with blazing a trail of corruption in pay-to-play schemes, culminating with a “show me the money” approach to appointing Barack Obama’s successor as senator.

The 24-hour cable news channels reveled in the scandal. After the feel-good story of Barack Obama’s historic election, which inspired millions of people, I think the media enjoyed the chance to wallow in the mud of political sleaze.

Today the New York Times published an analysis of Illinois’ history of political corruption. It suggests that residents of the state are comfortable with a degree of criminality in their politicians. Being a major cynic and a former Illinois voter (who helped elect Blagojevich to Congress in 1996), I don’t find his behavior at all shocking. While it’s definitely objectionable, it’s the kind of thing I assume goes on all the time in American politics but in most cases is never exposed to public view.

I thought it would be interesting to see how Blagojevich’s woes were playing out in the social networking arena. If you search for the governor’s name on Facebook, the top results include earnest-sounding citizen groups with names like Impeach Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and People for the Removal of Rod Blagojevich as well as satirical groups, including Rod Blagojevich for President, 2016. That group’s page includes a hilarious possible explanation for the governor’s behavior. Under all those results, however, you’ll find what appears to be Blagojevich’s actual Facebook page, which features the photo below.

The official page lists “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” as a favorite quotation and “Getting things done for people” as the governor’s job description. Those statements may have seemed like throwaway platitudes a week ago, but now they’re bursting with ironic double-entendre potential.

The Facebook account boasted 1,780 supporters as of this evening. The group Citizens of Illinois Against Rod Blagojevich, by contrast, has 5,156 members, almost three times as many. Judging by sheer numbers, it seems that Illinoisans may not be so comfortable with corruption after all. Then again, the number of supporters on the governor’s page was 1,769 earlier today. So despite his ethical troubles (or who knows, maybe because of them), he’s still gaining fans.

Opportunity in crisis. This mantra of globalizing free-marketeers has apparently not lost all of its power, even as the architects of a deregulatory system are chastened to admit the reckless deregulation of their heyday has led to a global financial catastrophe. (For the likes of former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, the flaw in the system of market self-regulation has led to a sort of cognitive dissonance.)  

So even as the grim news of the Chicago Tribune’s filing for Chapter 11 came in on Monday, while more than 15,000 newspaper jobs were cut in 2008 according to the web site Papercuts, members of a new generation were not as entirely shaken as their professional elders.

Here at the journalism school, among next week’s graduates, the mood is far from uniform.  The crisis of the old guard and the industry more generally is seen as an opportunity for the digitally armed, who might just find themselves in the right place at the right time. The death of the newspaper merely clears the way for the bright digital future. Carl Winfield of the class of 08 was was ready to embrace the promise of that future.

Hear an interview with Carl.

But not so for all his cohort. For some the crisis in newspapers is just that–a crisis. So while Damian Ghigliotty doesn’t fear that he will  not find work, he sees the crisis largely as limiting rather than expanding his options. For him, a failing company’s preference for new recruits to replace senior staffer is hardly a draw, he said.

Hear an interview with Damian.

By Maya Pope-Chappell

Photo by Macdiarmid/Getty/Getty Images

Outrage, noun: an act that violates accepted standards of behavior; taste or the anger and resentment aroused by injury or insult

Disturbed, adj.: showing symptoms of emotional illness; interfere with the normal arrangement or functioning of

New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress shot himself with an illegal gun.  And now Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants him to be prosecuted to the “full extent of the law.”  But the mayor’s outrage over the self inflicted wound and his critical statements against the Giant’s and the hospital that treated Burress, seems a bit too much, too late.  Where was his “outrage” two years ago when the police shot Sean Bell 50 times?

Following the barrage of 50 bullets that resulted in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell, Bloomberg said in a statement, “I can tell you that it is to me unacceptable or inexplicable how you can have 50-odd shots fired, but that’s up to the investigation to find out what really happened.”

Bloomberg also said that he was “deeply disturbed” by the incident.

Now contrast that with statements made following the “how stupid can you be” shooting.

“I don’t think that anybody should be exempt from that,” Bloomberg said of the state gun law that comes with a mandatory sentence of three-and-a-half years for carrying an illegal weapon.  “And I think it’ll be an outrage if we didn’t prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”

Bloomberg went on to call Burgess a role model and therefore should know better.  “If we don’t prosecute to the fullest extent of the law them, I don’t know who on earth we would.  It makes a shame, a mockery of the law.”

Bloomberg’s reaction went from “disturbed” over a black man being murdered by police on his wedding day to “outraged” over a black man shooting himself with an illegal gun.

Where do you think the outrage should lie?

Get your maps… and your color pencils! This past year, Europe was rocked by the births of three new semi-recognized states: Kosovo, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. While the first one enjoys widespread support among western states, the latter two are recognized only by Russia and Nicaragua. None of these new mini-states have UN membership. So where will Europe’s next new nation appear?

(more…)

Former vice president Al Gore implored us to invest sustainably when he spoke recently at the CUNY Graduate Center. Organizations and individuals should buy stock in companies that have viable long-term strategies (both financially and for our planet), Gore said during a November conference on sustainable investing. He gave examples of companies that build clean energy infrastructure, hybrid vehicles, specialize in ecosystem remediation, etc. In his trademark cowboy boots, he also plugged his sustainable investment management company Generation.

Photo: Courtesy of The Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Some residents in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood have already chosen their president: Daniel Dory, a local 23-year-old who previously served as unofficial “mayor” of their street.

Danny, as everyone calls him, has trisomy 21 Down Syndrome, where each gene has an extra chromosome.  But his outgoing and independent personality, combined with a love of life and all the people in it, make him a natural friend and leader.  They also challenge commonly held public preconceptions about what someone with this most common of genetic conditions is capable of achieving in life.

Sarah Palin’s nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate promised to broaden that awareness.  As Americans met  the Alaska Governor and her family, including her newborn son Trig, who has Down Syndrome, Gov. Palin declared that if she and John McCain were elected, families of special needs children would have “a friend in the White House.”  In that large and tight-knit community whose voices often go unheeded, such promises have sparked contrasting feelings of hope and circumspection.

“As a mother, your heart goes out to her because even in this day and age, it’s hard,” said Mary Dory, Danny’s mother and a nurse for almost 30 years at Beth Israel Medical Center in Brooklyn.

In the 1980s and 90s, Ms. Dory and her husband’s efforts to find strong school services for their son were helped by doctor’s referral and the word-of-mouth among supportive parents in Brooklyn’s Catholic school network.  Last year, Danny graduated from Bishop Ford High School in Park Slope and is now at the nonprofit Guild for Exceptional Children in Bay Ridge, where he has occupational therapy and works at businesses throughout Brooklyn, earning a small stipend.

But in the public school system, it is more difficult to find similar programs. Mei Fung Zhang knows this from personal experience. She spent the last 10 years helping her brother and sister-in-law find programs in their Sheepshead Bay neighborhood to challenge and educate their now 17-year-old daughter, Lily Zhu, who also has trisomy 21 Down Syndrome.

“She started special education classes when she was two [and] she learned a lot in elementary school, especially when she had [a bilingual] paraprofessional” said Mrs. Zhang, referring to the teaching aides for children with special needs. But now Lily is enrolled in a program where students of different grade levels learn the same material together. “ She’s learning things she already knows, like third grade level math,” said her aunt.

“The summer-only training does nothing and she’s going to graduate high school soon.  We are looking for programs [that provide] job training and social benefits,” said Mrs. Zhang.

When it comes to the presidential election, Mrs. Zhang says her family has been pretty apathetic, but she wonders how the country could afford any additional services for students.

“I hope the government or the education department can do more for hoever wins the election,

“I think it’s great that [Trig Palin is] in the public eye,” said Mary Dory.  “It’s going to make people more aware, more educated and less judgmental.  I don’t really know if it’ll do anything for education programs, though.”

Others are even less optimistic. In a September column in the Phoenix New Times, editor Amy Silverman, the mother of a 5-year old girl with Down Syndrome, writes that Gov. Palin’s promises are not realistic for many reasons.

“There’s never enough funding … but worse, the whole system is so poorly managed you practically need a Ph.D. in public policy (or another parent who’s already been though this, or a lawyer, or all three) to help you get services,” Mrs. Silverman wrote.

“All you need to do is drive to the center of any large city in America and watch homeless schizophrenics push shopping carts to see the effects another social conservative — Ronald Reagan — had on another disenfranchised group, the country’s mentally ill.”

Neither presidential candidate stood out for Danny Dory although he did vote, exercising a right that the National Disability Rights Network has been actively promoting “I don’t like what I’m seeing on TV,” Danny said. “It is going to be a battle between them, but I don’t care who wins or who is president.  I just want a president.”

CUNY students rallied at Baruch College today against proposed state budget class. Governor David Paterson announced last month $5.2 billion in spending cuts across all aspects of the budget. Of those proposed cuts, $3.2 billion are in education and health care programs.

Organizers handed out placards and led the crowd with bullhorns

If you live in a neighborhood with too many “for sale” signs, boarded up homes, and unkempt lawns, you would likely also see ads nailed to telephone poles and lampposts promising to rescue troubled homeowners from foreclosure. Not only are the ads illegal, but the companies behind them may also be bogus.

One local elected official is aware of the problem…

…As are community organizations. The Chhaya Community Development Corporation (Chhaya CDC) helps homeowners understand the housing scams:

When asked for details on the business practices of 1-888-HELP-161, a representative refused to explain the extent to which the company evaluates the credit history of potential clients. I was asked to provide my email if I wanted further information. The representative provided his company’s name as the “Save My Home Program.” A search on the Better Business Bureau site for the Hempstead-based Save My Home Corp. revealed a phone number that was no longer in service.

What kind of people would be likely to respond ot an illegal pole ad? South Jamaica activist and 2009 City Council candidate Joseph Marthone (D), believes that in certain situations, people may not know where to turn. “Some people might not be thinking in a moment of desperation,” said Marthone.

A couple weeks back I was working on an article for Lives in Focus, a web site that deals with how the criminal justice affects the family members of the most imprisoned population in the world. It was just after the election and I was assigned to write about how the first democratic majority in the NY State senate in more than four decades might affect mandatory minimum sentencing law in New York.

Under Governor Rockefeller laws were enacted in 1973 that created mandatory sentences for drug offenses. While the crime rate has drastically declined in New York City over the last fifteen years–a fact some attributed to these laws, which in fact far preceded the decline–many have criticized the state’s tough laws as blunt and expensive.

Prof. Peter Moskos at John Jay College well sums up what many see as the failing of the laws:

“The problem with the drug laws is that they don’t draw any distinction between major and minor players. If the laws are repealed it’s not that we’re decriminalizing drugs.  We’re just returning discretion to judges in their sentencing.“

I heard over and over that the laws had had their day and would be shortly scrapped. But more than the political climate, criminal justice experts and prison reform advocates alike pointed to the state’s fiscal crisis as the impetus for a radical change in drug offense sentencing. Money talks. Change it seemed was on the way.

On what many see as the verge of a break with these laws, I wanted to look back at some of the small time players who were affected by the laws.

Anthony Papa is one such small timer. More than twenty years ago, a small businessman with money trouble, he took a chance and decided to courier an envelope of cocaine from the Bronx to Westchester. His first time would be his last.  He was caught in a police sting and sentenced to 15 years in Sing Sing.

When I met him, he had been free more than ten years, after having been granted clemency by Gov. Pataki after he began painting in prison and his work was shown at the Whitney. I talked with him about his efforts to reform the drug laws and his work as an artist.

Activist parents often make a lot of noise, but they don’t always achieve their goal. That’s not the case with Jackson Heights Green, a group of young, well-connected parents who have organized to expand the neighborhood’s only public park. They first created a “play street,” the closure of an adjacent road on every Sunday. Now, they are lobbying politicians to turn that street into a park and to take an adjacent parcel with eminent domain.

In their first victory, parents of Jackson Heights Green organized the 78th Street Play Street

The owners of the parcel, which is occupied by a Toyota dealership, are unwilling to sell to make way for a larger park. JH Green estimates that the land is worth about $4 million, said Ed Westley, a member who met with local politicians.   State Senator Hiram Monserrate has pledged $2 million, Westley said, and Councilwoman Helen Sears may commit funds if the group is successful.

Barbed wire separates Travers Park from a Toyota dealership. Parents have targeted the dealership for eminent domain.

In the meantime, the city is planning to convert a nearby schoolyard into a playground, part of May Bloomberg’s planNYC. This should also relieve some of the tension in this park-deprived community.

Jackson Heights, Queens, ranks second to last among New York City neighborhoods for the number of parks per resident.  It has recently seen an influx of young families, creating tension on the neighborhood’s one public park.