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.