Personal Democracy Forum (cont'd)

Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post gave a typically candid and sassy talk. I’ll summarize her pointed jab at the mainstream media:

• The old media has given up truth behind the cloak of “neutrality.”
• Mainstream journalists haven given up on the truth by insisting on giving equal time to two sides of an argument that don’t exist. So, for instance, the climate debate doesn’t have two equal sides although the media pretended that it did for years.
• Transparency, accountability, and community are the keys to new media.
• It’s not enough to break a new story, we have to stay on a story, we need the obsessive compulsive behavior of the new media. We can never sell our independence for access, because that’s what’s happened in the old media. We are not partisan so we don’t protect those we are reporting on (eg. Mayhill Fowler reporting on Obama’s “bitterness” comment).

Clay Shirky is the author of the terrific book Here Comes Everybody. Clay gave an overview of an essay that he wrote for an anthology called Rebooting America (OK, I admit it, I am one of the editors of the anthology!) that was released in concert with this Forum.

Clay discussed the gap between social density and connections (in other words, social capital) and social media tools that don’t always bring people together locally or over time. He believes there is latent power within communities of smart people who want to contribute to community efforts — but they are often hamstrung by laws and distance that hamper their efforts. Clay would like to see new kinds of incorporation models, like in virtual companies such as Do Tank and “Community Interest Companies” that combine the best of formal organizations and the power of social change.