Review on Jerold Starr's "Happy Birthday, Public Broadcasting!" (TomPaine.com, 12/2/01)

It's a shame after 34 years of broadcasting, the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, commercialized when they were originally created "not to sell products," but to "enhance citizenship and public service." Jerold Starr thinks programming has come up short on PBS; now "how-to" shows reign over the channel, taking away from more educational shows which could teach "how to dissect propaganda, evaluate policies, share their opinions with each other, and defend the public interest." 

While those type of shows are great for some, I think PBS had to do what they had to do to make money, which is just what it comes down to these days. Now, 12 years later, I'm not quite sure how PBS stands, but I feel like they could (if they haven't already) bring those kinds of shows back, and cut down on certain advertisements (like ones for fast food). So, sure, PBS isn't what it used to be, but neither are a lot of things nowadays. Except for the BBC, I suppose...

Starr has a lot of good arguments and proposals on how to bring PBS back to life, and I'm not sure what he believes now, but hopefully PBS is back from the dead.

Review on Will Bunch's "A Landmark for Bloggers -- and the Future of Journalism" (AlterNet, 2/20/08)

Josh Marshall's Polk Award win was monumental for bloggers.

Marshall's win was thanks to his model of Talking Points Memo, and tells us why blogging is important for the following reasons:

1.) The idea of cooperation rather than competition and how important that has been for indy media bloggers for the past few years. For example, there was a Washington Post story about veteran mistreatment after returning home from war, but it wasn't mentioned in other big outlets for more than a week.

2.) Crowd-sourcing, distributive reporting. For Marshall and Talking Points Memo, "coverage of the U.S. attorney firings on TPM was propelled by tips from readers, some of them emailed to the bloggers and some posted as comments on TPM sites."

3.) Incremental blogging- when blogs dig up new tidbits they can report it, but bigger outlets don't utilize these as easily. The "nuggets are ideal for a blog, which is the perfect format for a steady flow of information 24/7, so to speak."

This win shows us how and why (in some cases) blogging is still solid journalism, and how sometimes, it's even better than what mainstream news is producing.