Jay Rosen has posted his cogent take on “semi-pro journalism” on TechPresident. Provocative metaphor about the news tribe and its survival drama.

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At this week’s Personal Democracy Forum, a sponsor distributed a low-tech, but highly effective stress toy to attendees willing to listen to their pitch: a rubber ball on an elastic string that connects to a velcro band. Strap the band to your finger and you can play catch with yourself. Which is what I came to PdF to do. To my surprise, I also liked the pitch. The sponsor, a division of Washington-based public affairs consultants, uses the Internet, software and analytical brainpower to track story lines and news coverage to measure influence. Which, in a way, is what I do, too.

I discovered that a lot of folks came to PdF for the same reasons. They played catch with familiar ideas. And they used the event to measure influence, familiar and emerging. PdF soared with both activities. An impressive roster of speakers from the converging worlds of political action, civic technologies and individual empowerment stimulated, and occasionally stirred, a network of Web buddies and budding online politicos.

Missing an Aha! moment that changes the world, PdF is more noteworthy for its momentum. At this moment, you can feel democracy shifting amid civic engagement enabled by technology. PdF is a forum where you can almost get your head around that big idea. Organizers Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifrey deserve as much praise for their impeccable timing as their star-studded roster of speakers. In two days of dense programming, content frequently rose to the level of the venue, the stunning Frederick Rose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center overlooking New York’s Central Park.

Playing catch on an elastic string, a few highlights and insights:

– FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, high-profile tech execs and industry advocates launch an initiative to make broadband access a national priority in the U.S.

– Lawrence Lessig touts the Change Congress movement by using every distracting feature in Keynote.

– Arianna Huffington declares that she knows The Truth that others don’t. About 50 people in the audience who blog at Huffington Post say they agree with her.

– Jay Rosen likens professional journalists to a migrating tribe in the midst of a survival drama.

– Mayhill Fowler demonstrates why she’d be irrelevant without a tape recorder. Did anyone actually read her story (lead buried somewhere in the 7th graph)?

– Virtual Reality pioneer Mark Pesce forecasts that the future looks nothing like democracy “because democracy, which sought to empower the individual, is being obsolesced by a social order which hyperempowers him.” The brilliant-but-huh? text here.

– Obama Girl, because she was there.

– Elizabeth Edwards charms the conference via Skype from her living room because her flight is canceled. Husband, John, the former presidential candidate, wanders into the room and is surprised to find his wife talking into a computer.

– Mark Soohoo, the deputy internet director of John McCain’s campaign, defends his boss for not personally understanding how to use a computer. Tracy Russo, Soohoo’s counterpart on Edwards’ former campaign, takes issue. Then fireworks. The video:

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Jordan’s Queen Rania is answering questions about stereotypes of the Arab World on YouTube. She says “I want people to know the real Arab world, to see it unedited, unscripted and unfiltered, to see the personal side of my region, to know the places and faces and rituals and cultures that shape the part of the world that I call home.”

Here’s one response: A pleasant photo-video montage, set to a Natalie Merchant song, Carnival.

Analysis: If she’s going to be taken seriously, and have any impact, the beautiful queen, sans burka, is going to need to respond directly, rather than dismiss, the more challenging questions she fields about violence and rage in the Arab world - directed against women, the West, Jews and anyone who insults Islam, as seen here:
(WARNING: This has some disturbing images that are inappropriate for children)

Technorati Tags: softpower

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Here’s a chance for members of the We Media Community to get involved in something new, practical and ambitious. Bread for the City, a food bank, health clinic and social services provider for the poor in Washington, DC, wants to use the tools of media creation and distribution to help its clients and community members tell their stories. You can help.

Adrienne Ammerman, the organization’s media and communications organizer, attended We Media Miami 08 - and she came home inspired to take action. She’d like to launch a Bread for the City blog “to create dialogue and action around the issues we address every day: hunger & poverty, food & nutrition, access to legal services, medical care, and affordable housing… to name a few.”
Read more

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This panel, The Power to Change the World - so far I am engaged (at least more so than in the last two) because of Darya Shaikh of OneVoice Movement discussing how so many benefit from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (choice quote: “if you’re not pissing people off, you’re not doing your job”) and the idea of an anti-movement using technology.

Moving on to Katrine Verclas of MobileActive (did you know that half the world is connected by mobile phone?) - a global tool for mobilizing activists using mobile technology. She mentions using mobile tech to remind HIV/AIDS patients to take meds, and on the site - again, the idea of using Twitter for emergency notifications (full disclosure: I am embarrassed to admit that I just signed up for Twitter today - I was trying to be all refusenik about it - clearly I can no longer avoid trends).

Jean Marc Coicaud of United Nations University (will someone remind me to talk to him later?) - “how do you go from information to knowledge?” A poignant question when you think about how much you tab back and forth in your browser, clicking and reading 10-12 pages at once, filtering what you can (come on, you know you do it too) into your brain, trying to weed out the crap…Anyway, from the UNU website:

UNU studies human activities and the way in which they are altering the world, with a particular emphasis on the concerns and needs of developing countries.

Very cool.

Hip Hop Caucus! Now that piques my interest (ask me why) Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. (”Media has the ability to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent”; “The revolution may not be televised, but it will be uploaded”)

Asked to talk about hip hop as a motivator (my favorite hip hop-related subject), he says:

In this process, what we’re dealing with with the media again, is the power to tell a story…We’ve been very vocal against Katrina…The mainstream media had to pick the story up [after the bloggers let it out]. Even when I leave here today, it’s so infuriating - because the media got behind that story when I go back to Washington D.C. I’ll be arrested for using a mic [because he was arrested before].

He’s discussing the idea of creating your own media within your community (in this case the hip hop community) - stressing the point that the media is not the bad guy - but that the bad thing is only portraying one side of the story.  “It’s critical for others to tell the other side of the story.”   And touching upon the elections - 1.3 million people registered to vote through Hip Hop Caucus (WOW!) and how the story of young voters is ignored (I agree), particularly those without college degrees.  Young people are voting but their stories aren’t being told. (He also mentions how Katrina occurred nearly exactly 50 years following Emmitt Till.

Final quote: “The pen stops, the life stops.”

The panel is not over yet, but I’m going to post this now while it’s still relevant.

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