Something we didn't discuss yet

We haven't spent a lot of time discussing the role of wikis as a new media tool, other than looking at Wikileaks briefly. Candidates for office seem to be largely reactive, making sure false information doesn't appear on their bios. Once in office, however, some of them are bending the rules - staffers changing information to make their bosses look better.

The new new media

Obama and the others will have to deal with it.

Seems like everyone is doing it

Creating a wiki, that is. The gold standard of new media productions is becoming popularized - how often do you hear people say "I'll wiki it"? Well, that may usually mean Wikipedia, but the concept of a wiki is more widespread, as we saw with Wikileaks.

Take the new site Wikicountability (quite a mouthful). The Times reports today about it. The site was created by American Crossroads, the organization run by Karl Rove, to put the spotlight on what they see as the Obama administration's failures. This could be a powerful new tool.

Does NBC have a corporate bias problem?

Posted without comment. You decide.

Pawlenty on cap-and-trade

Yesterday we discussed the power and danger of new media tools for presidential candidates, specifically former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. Today there's a story out that Pawlenty is continuing to apologize for his past stand on the issue of capping carbon emissions. I guess he realizes he's got some work to do. The most interesting part of this, to my mind, is who he's speaking to - Laura Ingraham, conservative radio talk show host. Here's a bit of "old media".

The power of images, part 3

Rolling Stone today has published a story following up on the reports of American soldiers in Afghanistan murdering civilians for sport. There are more graphic pictures and videos attached to the story, partly because any photographs of this sort, whether caused by normal casualties or otherwise, are prohibited by the military's rules - so that in and of itself is newsworthy.

The more this stuff trickles out, the more likely it is that our presence in Afghanistan will be undermined.

The power of images, revisited

The German newspaper Der Spiegel is reporting on a series of gruesome photographs taken by US Army soldiers. The soldiers apparently killed Afghani civilians and then took photos of the dead bodies in contorted positions, being held up by their hair or twisted and battered. You can read the story and look at the images here (warning: graphic content).

This only further underscores the power of images to shape our understanding of political events. If these images get published in the Muslim world, there could be a backlash like the one that happened after the Abu Ghraib revelations.