Press releases: Stenographers

Published in the Portland Phoenix

"Stenographers" is an inflammatory word to use to describe journalists, but it's the only accurate way to respond to news coverage of Paul LePage's inauguration as governor.

Not five minutes into his term, LePage uttered a verifiable untruth. And all three of the state's major daily newspapers quoted him without noting that it was false. It wasn't some throwaway line, but rather a description of the Maine Constitution, which was central to LePage's campaign (along with the US Constitution), and which he has promised will be a touchstone of his governorship.

Here's what LePage said: "The word 'people' appears in the Maine Constitution 49 times. You cannot find a single mention of the words, 'politics,' 'Republican,' 'Democrat,' 'Green,' or 'independent' in 37 pages of preambles, articles, and sections of our state constitution."

The Portland Press Herald, the Lewiston Sun Journal, and the Bangor Daily News quoted that line completely (and accurately) in their reports about the inauguration. And to read those articles, you would believe LePage is right. He's not.

Fact-checking that claim was as easy as it gets, even for lazy journalists who are (or feel) chained to their desks. As I watched the live online stream (from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network), all it took was a quick Google search; the full text of the Maine Constitution appeared on my screen, a PDF from the state's own Web site.

And yes, LePage was right about the number of times the word "people" appears, and about the first four items on his list of absent words: "politics," "Republican," "Democrat," and "Green" are not in the Maine Constitution.

But "independent" is, three times: in the Preamble ("We the people of Maine . . . do agree to form ourselves into a free and independent State"); in Article I, Section 1 ("All people are born equally free and independent"); and in Article IV, Section 1 ("the people reserve to themselves power to propose laws and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the Legislature").

LePage's context was about political affiliation, but of course someone who is politically "independent" is by definition unaffiliated. If LePage were being careful with his words, he might have chosen "unenrolled," the technical term for someone who is a registered voter in Maine but who is not listed as a member of any political party. That word indeed does not appear in the Maine Constitution.

Instead, Maine's new governor chose to claim that a very important word, which appears in three very important places in the Maine Constitution, was not there at all. And the state's three major newspapers didn't even bother to determine whether his claim was accurate — despite the complete ease and simplicity of doing so.

I've warned the Maine media before about laziness when it comes to government scrutiny (most recently in "Brave The New World," November 19, 2010). LePage will be making more complex statements over the next four years, and many of those claims will be far harder to assess for veracity than a simple statement in an inaugural address. While LePage's inauguration may have set the tone for his administration, let's hope that the media's coverage of that event is not the harbinger of its performance as his term continues.

• One other note: the PORTLAND PRESS HERALD'S ADVERTISING DONATION TO THE PRO-MAYOR CAMPAIGN THROUGH THE PORTLAND REGIONAL CHAMBER was explained to me by chamber CEO Godfrey Wood in very simple terms. "We have a sponsorship agreement" with the Press Herald, in which the paper donates advertising space to the chamber, he said. "They asked if we wanted additional ad space for this (the pro-mayoral campaign) and we said, 'Yes.'" Whether that places the Press Herald in violation of Maine campaign-finance disclosure laws or not is presently in question, but the mechanism by which the Press Herald indicated its support for an elected mayor in Portland is not.

Starting points: A critical reading of LePage’s inaugural address

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Governor Paul LePage's inaugural address was fairly short, and was filled with rhetoric much like that from his campaign. On our blog (thePhoenix.com/AboutTown) we broke the news about his first misleading statement told while in office (see how the media handled that here). He said some other interesting stuff too.

WHAT HE SAID "Our programs have to be focused on Maine residents." WHAT WE LEARN New arrivals to Maine (whether US citizens, refugees, or immigrants documented or otherwise) may not have access to public programs that can help them get a good start in their new lives.

WHAT HE SAID In holding up a single mother and nursing student as an example of how Mainers can use social programs to better their lives, he described the woman as having, "like me, Jennifer has escaped some very tough times." WHAT WE LEARN His prepared remarks worded that as "like me, Jennifer has escaped domestic violence." While that is a key part of his campaign's homeless-to-governor story, he chose to sidestep a politically charged term.

WHAT HE SAID "I do not care about editorials, opinion polls, or the next election." WHAT WE LEARN While he may be declaring his independence from the political and journalistic whirlwind, it will be fascinating to see whether he cites supportive editorials and polls in promoting his programs, simply dismissing opinions he does not like, or whether he indeed operates independent of all outside opinions — even those supporting him.

WHAT HE SAID "At the end of my term, I will be ready to stand accountable for the jobs that we create, for the prosperity that we bring to our state." WHAT WE LEARN Given that his influence in job creation is based on the indirect results of policy decisions (and only directly by hiring more people into state government), LePage is really hoping the global recession ends soon. On that, we can all agree.

Private eyes are watching you: The year in tech

Published in the Portland Phoenix; co-written with Nicholas Schroeder

This year saw some tech wins (public information), some losses (privacy), and many more questions for the future of an increasingly wired world. (Example: Is anything secret anymore?) And there was the appearance of yet another grassroots David, and, as if a warning to future Davids, the epic collapse of a bloated Goliath.

Rise of Kickstarter
The arts just don't pay like they used to. What to do, then, when the ideas keep coming? In 2010, the people turned to Kickstarter, a user-friendly, low-risk database of not-for-profit projects seeking financial backing. The trick is simple: grant-hungry innovators provide a clear mission statement, project outline, and timeline for their projects. Like a virtual gallery of ideas, Kickstarter organizes projects and tallies pledges, freeing the project organizer to promote the fundraising effort.
Locally, it's been a minor revelation. In 2010, private pledgers funded Didn't Die Young Yet, a book of fiction by Jacob Cholak (who wrote one short story for each $1-and-up pledge received), the mastering of Theodore Treehouse's much-lauded debut album, and a $1500 steamroller rental for public printmaking demonstration by local art collective Pickwick Independent Press during September's Block Party.

Death of MySpace
Where Kickstarter represented the virtual vox populi, the web still produced its share of audible groans. Once a teeming online metropolis, Rupert Murdoch's MySpace is now a truly disgusting city, reduced to a collection of flashy billboards pasted onto blocks of empty housing units. 2010 witnessed a public resignation (some say firing) of Owen Van Natta, the company's CEO, and by July, operating losses for the year had passed $575 million. MySpace is still most convenient way to sample low-quality selections of fledgling rock bands, but individual accounts — the lungs of a social network — are inert.
Say what you will about Facebook, but they did get one thing right. Like the majority of humans (and most primates), it can differentiate between a person and a thing. According to Facebook's logic, both have presence, but only people have agency. Things — and this includes Malaysian sexbots — do not.

WikiLeaks
A free press, and the associated power of the Internet, to disrupt governments and expose secrets is trumpeted by the US in its policy toward China. Not so in its ongoing investigation — and threatened prosecution — of WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. In addition to its April release of classified video footage of a US Army helicopter crew shooting and killing a group of men (including two journalists) in Baghdad in 2007, WikiLeaks struck fear into the hearts of American policymakers when it began releasing as many as 250,000 State Department documents in November. The real significance, however, was the populist rise of the computer-hacking community to defend Assange by attacking sites that caved to government pressure and ended business dealings with WikiLeaks (Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal). This response showed that there are many more people willing to defy the US government than officials would like — and that the feds can't catch them.

Privacy kickback

While studies show that younger people are less worried about loss of online privacy (in part because they're better at self-editing and using privacy tools that are available), Facebook and Google both spent big chunks of time under government microscopes this year. Facebook drew negative press and congressional concern for its ever-changing privacy policy and continued tweaks to both refine self-protection ability and encourage people to release just — a — little — more to those advertisers who keep FB in the black. Google faces increasing inquiries worldwide, particularly for its Google Street View service, which often ends up showing private citizens going about their daily lives — it shows a baby being born on a German street, for example — and has also been found to have collected data on private wi-fi networks in the areas its cars have mapped, leading to concerns about not just one-time privacy violation, but ongoing e-surveillance.

E-readers
The Kindle, the Nook, the Sony Reader — books really began to go mobile in 2010. The biggest boost, though, was from Apple's iPad, the small tablet computer that is effectively a large, powerful iPhone, without the ability to make calls or send texts. While many of the commercial e-book readers can access data in several e-book formats, only the iPad's system allows a private company complete control over software and the content that software delivers. If the iPad proves as dominant in its niche as the iPhone in its, this could give Apple a serious stranglehold on the marketplace of ideas.

Press Releases: Pay what?

Published in the Portland Phoenix

How much would you pay to watch TV programs you can already get for free?

This month, WMTW (the Hearst-owned ABC affiliate on Channel 8) and WGME (the Sinclair-owned CBS affiliate on Channel 13) are asking you, their viewers, to call your pay-TV provider and declare your willingness to do just that.

Both stations pay big bucks to the federal government for permission to broadcast over the public airwaves, using the new digital-TV signals that can be detected by up-to-date televisions and antennas. The stations are also carried on several pay-TV networks, including TimeWarner Cable and DirecTV. Most TVs these days can handle doing both — it's really easy to switch between your cable box, your DVD player, and your video-game console.

But the bulk carriers don't want you to do that — they want to keep you locked in to their systems. So they pay the local stations (or their corporate parents, at least) for the privilege of providing local shows to viewers in the station's geographic coverage area. The bulk carriers, naturally, pass on those costs to their audiences — charging viewers for the privilege of watching TV they could have at no cost, if only they were willing to press a button on their remotes.

WMTW's deal with DirecTV and WGME's with TimeWarner both expire December 31, and both stations have issued notices to viewers saying their bulk-carrier channels may go dark if the behemoths don't pony up, often to the tune of millions of dollars.

For example, executives at WGME parent Sinclair minimize their rate increase by describing it as "less than a penny a day per subscriber." But do the math: both WGME and TimeWarner estimate that 250,000 to 300,000 TimeWarner subscribers could be affected in Maine alone — that's right around a million dollars of increase (neither party will disclose the present payment amount). Of course, this is really one behemoth pushing another to get money from you: the Sinclair deal covers 32 other TV stations around the country, and whatever TimeWarner ends up paying will ultimately be covered by TimeWarner customers in their monthly cable bills.

And let's put that extra "penny a day per subscriber" into individual terms. Sinclair is asking TimeWarner to approve charging you an extra $3.65 a year to get access to TV signals Sinclair already distributes at no charge over the airwaves.

Is that a big boost to Sinclair? Yep. Does TimeWarner skim off a percentage for its own coffers? Bet on it. And what do you get? Nothing more or less than what is already being broadcast to your home. (Satellite, cable, and over-the-air providers bicker about relative "reliability" during thunderstorms and the like, but you're generally more likely to lose TV access because of a power outage than anything specifically related to how video gets to your home.)

Of course the other thing it gets for the local TV station is a whole pile of additional prospective viewers, which boosts advertising prices. WMTW president and general manager David Abel says 20 percent of his station's audience watch using DirecTV. Losing access to those viewers would require him to slash his advertising rates, which are higher for stations reaching more people.

Throwing that into the mix makes this financial equation even more fascinating: WMTW and WGME want you to pay DirecTV and TimeWarner more, to allow those carriers to pay the stations more, to give the stations more viewers, for which they can then charge advertisers more, a cost covered by the advertisers raising their own prices. You're paying for the privilege of watching television ads that make everything in your life more expensive. How does that feel?

Fighting censorship: SPACE to screen video banned from Smithsonian

Published in the Portland Phoenix

A video banned from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery last week in the wake of threats from conservative politicians will be on view in the front window of SPACE Gallery (538 Congress St., Portland) this week and next, as part of a nationwide show of solidarity between art galleries and the organizers of the Smithsonian's show.

The show, "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture," includes works by a large number of renowned American artists, including photographers Walker Evans, Berenice Abbott, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Annie Leibovitz; and painters Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jasper Johns, Thomas Eakins, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Marsden Hartley (a Mainer of whom a photographic portrait by George Platt Lynes is also included).

On November 28, nearly a month after the exhibit's October 30 opening date, the conservative Web site CNSNews.com reported that it had asked incoming Speaker of the House John Boehner (an Ohio Republican) and incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (a Virginia Republican) to comment on one element of the show, an excerpt from David Wojnarowicz's A Fire In My Belly (A Work In Progress), which includes a scene of ants crawling on a crucifix.

Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith told CNSNews.com, "While the amount of money involved may be small, it's symbolic of the arrogance Washington routinely applies to thousands of spending decisions involving Americans' hard-earned money at a time when one in every 10 Americans is out of work and our children's future is being threatened by debt."

Cantor, who is Jewish, denounced the exhibit as "an outrageous use of taxpayer money and an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season," according to CNSnews.com. "When a museum receives taxpayer money, the taxpayers have a right to expect that the museum will uphold common standards of decency. The museum should pull the exhibit and be prepared for serious questions come budget time," he said.

Both politicians seem unclear on how federal funds are used by the Smithsonian. The organization reports that public funds do not pay for specific exhibits, which are instead funded by private donations. Federal funds cover the costs of building maintenance, care of the artworks in the museums' custody, and staff, including exhibit curators.

Nevertheless, the Smithsonian removed the video from its exhibit, without consulting the show's curator, Jonathan Katz. (Katz registered a powerful objection, decrying the decision as a capitulation to bullying: "appeasing tyranny has never worked and can never work, for tyranny wants only obedience, and blind obedience is antithetical to what this nation stands for; we were, as a people, born in protest to tyranny," he wrote in a formal statement.)

"When a work of art is censored because of a minority opinion about the work, it's cause for alarm," says Nat May, executive director of SPACE Gallery. The ants, according to the artist's own statement of purpose, are his metaphor for society, particularly during the AIDS crisis, which claimed Wojnarowicz's own life in 1992.

May's own opinion of the video is that "it's pretty harmless. I think we see more challenging and much more disturbing work every day on TV."

When he learned that other galleries around the country were showing the video as a sign of support for the censored artwork, May called the gallery representing Wojnarowicz's estate to ask if SPACE could show the film as well. "They got back to me immediately — within minutes" asking for his address and saying they would send the DVD.

The video will show in the front window of SPACE, along with printouts of various opinions about the work, including several objecting to it.

"I'd really like this to be an opportunity to discuss censorship," May says. "The biggest concern is that you have a couple of loud voices critical of something and before a conversation happens, the piece is removed. That's not how the rest of the world works. Because it's art and because it's in a public place" the standards should not change, he says, though apparently they do.

The SPACE exhibit will include the full statement by Katz, which ends with a quote from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself:" "Unscrew the locks from the doors!/Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!/Whoever degrades another degrades me,/And whatever is done or said returns at last to me. . . . Through me forbidden voices,/Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,/Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd."