Neda's Revolution, as Seen on Twitter

What a fascinating day... welcome to a brand-new CNN, completely powered by citizen journalism.

What does a network do when a foreign government forbids news coverage? You look to people on the ground to provide a view into what's happening – and the video, photos and tweets from Iran have been incredible to watch – inspiring, stunning, horrifying. CNN reporters seem to be more than a little freaked out – it's certainly not their style to report unsubstantiated news obtained through non-fact-checked channels – but they're rolling with it as best they can. Updates come from Mousavi's Facebook page, from Flickr, YouTube and Twitter updates collected on Hashtags.org. CNN just broadcast a camera-phone video of the death of Neda Soltani, reportedly (from the street, obviously) a 27-year-old philosophy student, watching the protests with her father. Her emergence as a galvanizing symbol of the protests in Tehran was instantaneous and global – a user-generated version of the news footage of the lone man before a tank in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Yes, technology has revolutionized politics in the U.S. The next great frontier: how it revolutionizes... revolution. Truly, for the first time, the whole world is watching.

13 Million Friends Can't Be Wrong

You know how marketers are always looking to collect email addresses from their loyal customers, in order to communicate with them in some more personal, relevant way – and get them to buy more stuff? I was recently reading a post-mortem on the digital aspects of President Obama's presidential campaign, and was dumbfounded to discover that there are over 13 million people on his email list. (Additionally, he collected over 5 million "friends" across 15 social networking sites – including 3 million on Facebook alone – and more than 3 million mobile phone numbers in response to the campaign's text messaging program.)

13 million email addresses.

What do you do with all that connectivity? How do you harness those digital masses that, having sworn their allegiance, await the activation bat-signal?

The group Organizing for America, which is overseen by the Democratic National Committee, put that email list to work last week. David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager and the man credited with its brilliant use of digital channels, wrote in a March 13 message to The List: "In the next few weeks we'll be asking you to do some of the same things we asked of you during the campaign." Namely, to mobilize within their communities on behalf of the president's agenda.

We saw what that fan club did to power Obama to the presidency. It will be fascinating to see what they can do when pointed at such complex and polarizing policy issues as the budget, the bailout or the deficit. Are we a nation who responds better to paternalistic distribution of our national policy – or to peer pressure? Another example of participatory government at its most interesting. (Note: I had to edit this, like, a hundred times to get most the words starting with "p" out of the last paragraph. Another example of alliteration at its most coincidental.)

Stewart v. Cramer: That's Entertainment!

A friend recently forwarded the 8-minute clip of Jon Stewart's "interview" with CNBC's Jim Cramer on The Daily Show. Although Viacom has since yanked the clip from YouTube distribution, you can view it in its entirety on The Huffington Post. Stewart assumed the role of the outraged American public, while Cramer sat as surrogate for the shamed financial industry.

Stewart's rage is absolutely justified, obviously. We The People continue to bear the brunt of Wall Street misdeeds. But the part I found interesting (beyond the question of why Jim Cramer rolls his shirt sleeves up... so... high) is Stewart's attack on the journalistic integrity of CNBC, and specifically, Jim Cramer himself. The implication was that the financial news network was "in bed" with Wall Street, and therefore its views were tainted and self-serving. That Cramer was an insider, expressing opinions that – while perhaps not benefiting him personally – demonstrated a vested interest in protecting the status quo of Wall Street.

Stewart seemed to take particular umbrage at Cramer's style of delivery on his show, "Mad Money": "I know you want to be entertaining. But it's not a fucking game."

There's an amusing irony here. Consider the following observation on the Stewart-Cramer bout, posted by Daniel Sinker, Journalism faculty member at Columbia College in Chicago on March 13, 2009 on The Huffington Post:
"You see, Stewart's real critique wasn't about Cramer, it was also only marginally about CNBC. Instead, Stewart's real rage comes from the role the modern media has created for itself: the role of cheerleader instead of watchdog, of favoring surface over depth, of respecting authority instead of questioning it."

Rightly so. And thinking back to the days before the election, and the considerable role entertainers and pundits (and sometimes comedians posing as journalists) had in shaping public opinion on candidates and issues, one might also note that political parody in the name of entertainment is no game, either. I know they want to "be entertaining" and all, but...

Those who live in glass houses may reconsider their own role in the collapse of trust in "modern media" before casting the first stone.

Read the Small Print

After kvetching about the deafening silence of citizen journalists on the stimulus plan, I was forwarded an interesting link, under the subject line "Hooray for our first Digital President" (thanks, Ruby).

Recovery.gov offers a "totally transparent" view into the distribution of tax dollars toward economic growth. The data purports to allow the taxpayer to track our government's progress every step of the way, and invites feedback on what is, and isn't, working in terms of how the Recovery Act is affecting we-the-people.

There's an amusing chart that shows the breakdown (in billions) of the distributed funds. The general categories of investment are Tax Relief ($228B), State and Local Fiscal Relief ($144B), Infrastructure and Science ($111B), Protecting the Vulnerable ($81B), Health Care ($59B), Education and Training ($53B) and Energy ($43B). And there's a rounding error of $8B dedicated toward something called "Other."

Funny thing is the footnote. I'll paste it here, resisting the urge to make it reallllly tiny:
* Tax Relief - includes $15 B for Infrastructure and Science, $61 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $25 B for Education and Training and $22 B for Energy, so total funds are $126 B for Infrastructure and Science, $142 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $78 B for Education and Training, and $65 B for Energy.

So technically, that's only $105B in Tax Relief, which seems mainly to be a category loaded with funds better categorized in other categories.

At least the footnotes are transparent, if not the headlines.

Oh, and issues with clarity aside, Recovery.com a pretty amazing tool for citizens to observe the working of their government. Just be careful what you wish for.

Government "By the People"

It took a while to recover from the election. And then there was that pregnant period between election and inauguration. All the focus on fashion, exhausting.

So here we are back in real life. The economy has tanked, thanks to a perfect storm of greed, irresponsibility, and well... because shit happens. Our new government has prepared and is in the midst of approving a recovery and reinvestment plan designed to stimulate the economy, ostensibly loaded with projects designed to create millions of jobs and loads o' commerce.

But because no opportunity to move a personal agenda forward can go unseized, we have instead a bill loaded with programs and projects which will have no immediate (and possibly no ever) effect on the economy. What causes stimulation? Adrenaline. A shock to the system. Yes, you can invest in grammar school education, and yes, it may improve the quality of the workforce in twenty years. But does it cause the market to reverse its slide? Companies to begin investing in growth and hiring? Consumers to begin consuming again?

This past election cycle brought a revolution in participatory government. Candidates were dissected, platforms compared point-by-point. The People asked questions of the government-to-be in thousands of digital forums – and the government had no choice but to answer. We saw a true "election by the people" – WE decided on the issues that politicians needed to talk about. WE created cultural movements to which they were compelled to respond. WE finally had a platform through which every one of us could engage in the process of shaping our future.

Now here we are, in government as usual. And the voices that shaped the election are silent.

Digital America, where did you go?