"The Most Dangerous Man in America"

Ithaca College and the Park Center for Independent Media were honored to have been in the presence of Daniel Ellsberg Wednesday, the man who Henry Kissinger deemed “the most dangerous man in America.”

Ellsberg’s apprehension about the Vietnam War led to his leak of the 7,000 page Pentagon Papers to the press, a decision that would ultimately change the course of history.

As shown in the powerful documentary, when he was asked by a reporter whether or not he was concerned with the possibility of going to prison for his actions he replied, “wouldn’t you go to prison to help end this war?”

Sad thing is, it seems like very little have that mentality anymore.

What I found interesting during the Q&A with Ellsberg was just how many people contain top-secret documents, and how little action people take towards them. Ellsberg commented on this and explained the risks people would have to take in order to be involved in a leak.

Ellsberg said, “There always were people that had information, but we don’t hear it when there’s a chance to say it.” Why is that? Because people’s careers, income and marriages are at stake. The cost is “too great.”

Ellsberg didn’t play it safe. He risked everything for the public’s right to know, and his loyalty to truth in a time of lies. It was the actions of one man sticking up to authority that had the power to change history. Where are the Ellsbergs of today?

Well, it was ironic for Ellsberg to be at Ithaca College on the eve of when whistle blowing website WikiLeaks would leak more Iraq war logs. However, there are differences between the role Ellsberg played, and the role of WikiLeaks today.

WikiLeaks has changed the role of whistle blowers by use of the Internet, being able to reach a vast audience. But the question is will Julian Assange, the founder of the site, be paralleled to what Ellsberg did in 1971? 

I guess only time will tell.

Mark Finkelstein: Strengths of Blogging

Our Independent Media class had the opportunity to learn from Mark Finkelstein, a nationally acclaimed conservative blogger for Newsbusters. He highlighted his strengths and weaknesses in being a blogger and what it takes for a blog to thrive, and sometimes well, fail.

But lets just focus on the strengths:

What he made evident was the importance of creating an Internet footprint, which is something our professors always entrench in our heads as well. Get your stuff out there, if you’re proud of it, put it on the Internet. You are your own brand and it is important to advertise your work where others will notice.

What makes his blog so strong is his use of short, concise blog posts that are up usually a couple hours after the event he is analyzing happened. It is important to enhance the speed at which you are working as a blogger because it brings more traffic to your site from your readers and from others who have linked to your work.

It was interesting how he noted the difference between newspapers and blogs. Blogging has started a movement in a way. When you are the first to blog on a current issue, other bloggers will link to you, making your perspective on the issue prevalent in order to further the cause. This is virtually unheard of in the newspaper world, where friendly competition is non-existent.

One other point I found interesting is that he doesn’t exhaust the subject he is writing about. This causes readers to become more passionate about it and allows them to engage themselves in it more by commenting and providing feedback. It creates a bond between your readers, which helps heighten your appeal.

And lastly, accuracy, accuracy, accuracy! You don’t want to be lampooning someone on something and have spelling errors or wrong information. This will only undermine your point and turn the lampooning around on you!

I think Finkelstein gave us some crucial information that will help make us better bloggers, and I will keep that in mind for the next five weeks.

"Breaking Through the Information Blockade"

Gene Hyde’s article “Breaking Through the Information Blockade,” provides profound insight into the development and growth of the Independent Media Center and it’s domino effect on other independent media outlets.

With its birth in Seattle, the Independent Media Center was set up in order to employ passionate grassroots reporting geared to “break through the information blockade” that is currently enforced by the corporate control of news reporting.

The Independent Media Center’s website is great for other dissident voices to become heard globally. I thought it was interesting how they developed their website in regards to dealing with stories that were published.

At first they had an “open posting” policy, meaning anyone could publish a report with little editorial restrictions. However, after noting the attention and popularity the site gained and amount of stories, they decided to rank them, allowing the most newsworthy stories to appear first.

The Independent Media Center’s impact has been vast, covering many perspectives and using the Web as a platform in order to gain an immense following.

It is evident just by looking at their website just how far their impact reaches. Their website allows for the translation of numerous languages and for the option of even adding a translation. The Independent Media Center is just one example of an outlet trying to work towards a better world.

As stated in the article, after seeing the Indy center newsroom during the Seattle protests, Stephanie Greenwood from The Nation noted it was “full of committed people doing really good documentary work and reporting… something is starting.”

And that “something” has sparked a flame for dissident reporting outlets on the Web and has been burning ever since.