[cross-posted from Activist Land and Blue Mass Group]

I co-lead a local group of Obama supporters preparing to canvass in New Hampshire, the swing state closest to us. (For those unfamiliar with the term, "canvassing" means going door-to-door for a candidate, putting yourself in touch with voters and the canvass on your sneakers in contact with the sidewalk.) One member sent me this question:

How does one prepare for canvassing? My support for Obama is largely subjective based on his handling of various situations. I don't think that will help me to be an effective canvasser - suggestions?

I'd like to point her to a nice succinct "elevator pitch," and any links or suggestions would be welcome. But I also want to use this as an opening to hold forth on what canvassing is about, how to enjoy it, and why (to paraphrase Woody Allen) ninety percent of success in canvassing is just showing up.

[cross-posted from Activist Land and Truth & Progress]

Yesterday, I read an arousing diary, HOW TO BE A CLIMATE HERO (which had been crossposted from Truth and Progress). The author, Audrey Schulman, described breaking through her fellow passengers' paralysis in order to bring help to a woman who was undergoing a seizure aboard a train. She found the scene strikingly evocative of her attempts to counter the inertia she has encountered regarding the issue of climate disruption.

[to be crossposted to Washblog]

Gotta love this groan-worthy statement (in PDF format) from the Democratic FCC commissioners, Copps and Adelstein, regarding the upcoming FCC hearing in Seattle this Friday, which Republican Chairman only announced a mere five business days ago. It reads, in its entirety (emphasis mine):

JOINT STATEMENT BY COMMISSIONERS COPPS AND ADELSTEIN ON SEATTLE MEDIA OWNERSHIP HEARING
A hearing with only five days notice is no nirvana for Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. This smells like mean spirit. Clearly, the rush is on to push media consolidation to a quick and ill-considered vote. It shows there is a preordained outcome. Pressure from the public and their elected representatives is ignored. With such short notice, many people will be shut out. We received notice of the hearing just moments before it was announced. This is outrageous and not how important media policy should be made.

Yup, that's on the official FCC site.

For those of you who haven't been tuned in, Clear Channel is threatening to add San Diego's KLSD (K + Liberal San Diego) to the long list of radio stations to lose progressive talk. The company's modus operandi seems to be:

(1) Buy up as many stations as the FCC will allow one company to own (which is a lot).
(2) Stick progressive talk on the weakest signal in town and...
(3) Hope no one notices.
(4) If, despite a dearth of promotion or local staff, ratings soar and a loyal audience gathers, then flip the station to another format and...
(5) Hope no one notices.

A concerted effort thwarted this plan in Madison, however, and will hopefully throw sand in the gears in San Diego as well. A big crowd turned out for an August 27 rally, and the hope is to get even more people to show up at a rally this Friday morning (link to more details near end of diary).

Before the August rally, I interviewed Jon Elliott, one of KLSD's hosts, who has joined the struggle to save progressive talk. In honor of Friday's rally, I've interviewed another Jon involved in the battle, fellow Kos community member Jon Monday.

On Saturday I blogged here and on Calitics about how we need to save KLSD, the lone progressive talk radio station in San Diego, which may be flipped to sports unless enough listeners make themselves known. I mentioned the rally that will be taking place this morning (Monday) at 7:30 a.m. Pacific time outside the Clear Channel office (9660 Granite Ridge Drive). See details on the SaveKLSD.com website.

I live near Boston myself, but every progressive talk radio station is crucial. In the words of noted radio expert Ben Franklin, we who are trying to defend progressive talk "must, indeed, hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Yesterday I spoke with Jon Elliott, a talk show host on the station, and followed up with Kate Reifers, his director of research. His show is syndicated across the country, but his residence and his heart are in San Diego. Below the fold I'll tell you about my conversation with Jon.

[cross-posted at Calitics -- any suggestions regarding other CA/San Diego blogs would be welcome]

I've been posting on progressive talk radio a fair amount this year, focusing on the efforts of our Boston group to buy a station as a solid home for progressive talk. Relying on the kindness of Clear Channel and similar media behemoths, as we have discovered, doesn't work.

While we're making good progress (hey, we're progressives, after all), many stations across the country are still dependent on the whims of these media giants.

Now San Diego's KLSD (yup, that's the real name) is in trouble. This is a call to action, not an extensive analysis, so much of the content comes from the SaveKLSD.com website. If I have a chance, I'll update it later. Thanks to NonStopRadio.com and user rougegorge for alerting me.

See also the Yahoo! group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/...

Withdrawal symptoms are brutal, especially when they last for decades. And we've been jonesing for something approaching journalism on the evening news for a long, long time.

What would you say if I told you that there's a network bursting onto the scene that's going to present you with real journalism untainted by corporate or governmental money -- because it refuses to accept any? That's staffed with "unbought and unbossed" journalists from around the world -- Pakistan, Brazil, Canada, India, as well as the United States? That could have told you in real time that Colin Powell was making things up before a war broke out? I hope you'd respond as I did...

TELL... ME... MORE!

(crossposted from my blog, Activist Land)

Last Thursday, a group of members of the Save Boston's Progressive Talk coalition drove to Portland, Maine to testify at an FCC hearing. Little did we know that, like the desperate family in the movie Little Miss Sunshine, we'd end up having to push our car to get there. Nor did we realize the degree to which the hearing itself would resemble the pageant depicted in the film. But, in the best Hollywood tradition, we learned a lot from our little road trip.

In my May 13 diary, "What does Daily Kos accomplish?", I began with these questions:

• "What purposes does DK achieve?"
• "How well does it succeed in them?"
• "How can we quantify that?"
• "Which purposes are in tension with each other?"
• "Which ones are most important?"

saving all but the first and third questions for later. As luck would have it, on the same day, another diarist simply declared "DailyKos sucks". Well, that's straightforward, but a bit unscientific.

What would you say if a bill that had attracted a majority of House members as cosponsors was prevented from reaching the floor? Doesn't sound very democratic, does it? But that's just what happened to the election integrity bill (H.R. 550 in the 109th Congress, successor to H.R. 2239 in the 108th Congress) proposed by Rep. Rush Holt (D, NJ-12). Both 550 and 2239 were bottled up in the Committee on House Administration by the Republican chairs, Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio (now in jail for conspiracy as a result of the Abramoff scandal), and then Rep. Vernon Ehlers of Michigan. However, as Barbara Boxer said, "elections have consequences" and Holt's H.R. 811-110 finally hit the floor last week. In a comment, Nathaniel Ament Stone said here yesterday that the bill has been scheduled for debate today soon. This is very big news.

Yup, this is meta. But it's meta that's trying to go someplace new.

I believe it could be helpful to develop a toolbox for exploring such questions as:

• "What purposes does DK achieve?"
• "How well does it succeed in them?"
• "How can we quantify that?"
• "Which purposes are in tension with each other?"
• "Which ones are most important?"

and also to extend such questions to the "micro" level: "What purposes does diary X achieve, and how well does it succeed?"

I think that Hunter was aiming in that direction in his Daily Kos 4.0 Suggestions Thread, but since he is in a position to actually implement changes for DK4.0, the discussion turned mostly to discussion of the functionality and layout of the site. Since I have no such power, perhaps the discussion I'm starting here will take a different turn.

[cross-posted at Blue Mass Group]

This week, Air America "pre-founders" Sheldon and Anita Drobny came to Boston to meet with Save Boston's Progressive Talk Radio, which is working to put progressive talk back on the airwaves.  The Drobnys spent most of that time meeting with politicians and potential investors, but also spent an evening with the group at progressive comedian Jimmy Tingle's theater in Somerville.  Many people from our group who couldn't attend have been begging for a description of the event, and I thought I'd post it here for the enjoyment and edification of Bostonians and non-Bostonians alike.

Yesterday, in Invisible Airwaves Crackle with Life, I told you about hopeful signs in the struggle to get progressive talk radio back on the airwaves, particularly in Boston. I also mentioned that the next day, I'd post the editorial, "Who Killed Progressive Talk Radio?" that I had published in a local paper (though they insisted on renaming it "Corporations Killed the Liberal Radio Star"). You will find it humbly submitted for your perusal below the fold.

... and no, I'm not talking about Imus's departure from radio.

As some of you are aware (how many? take the poll!), liberals were roundly punished for winning the 2006 elections by having progressive talk formats purged from radio stations across the country. The major culprit was the megaadveradiobehemocorporopoly known as Clear Channel, run by Bush associates from San Antonio. Their strategy, it seems, was to quietly place progressive talk on weak signals starting in 2004, keep the stations secret, and eventually cancel them, citing lack of business. (I described this strategy in more detail in an editorial called "Who Killed Progressive Talk Radio?" in a local newspaper. I'll post it tomorrow.) [UPDATE: You can see it here.] Progressive radioheads are hard to keep down, though, and I want to tell you about some of the positive developments in this story.

Yup, I've heard too much about Imus, too. Too many dire warnings that his being taken off the air will blow back in our faces when the censors go after all the progressive commentators. Too many laments that we've lost our one and only chance to have a profound discussion about race.

So in what I hope will serve as garbage disposal for the present and time capsule for the future, I will list every reason I've heard that we shouldn't be glad that Imus in the Morning is history.

I saw Julie Hirschfeld Davis's AP puff piece on Plame, commented on it on an open thread, found the address to which I could send a complaint, and did so. That address is info@ap.org.

After I sent it, I saw that a diary by theyrereal on that article has hit the recommended list, so it has gotten some attention. I considered attaching my letter in a comment to that diary, but figured it would be too long. So I'm treating this an action diary whose purpose is not to bring attention to the article (as theyrereal has already done), but on how to respond to it, and to report on any responses from the AP that we might get.

I included my letter below the fold. Feel free to use it for inspiration for a letter of your own, but please don't follow it too closely, as that would diminish the impact.

As others have mentioned in comments in that diary, Yahoo is carrying a better story from Reuters that is also more highly rated. Please uprate this story and downrate the other one.

In my first installment, "Go big or go home": Interview with Paul Jay, IWT/The Real News, Part 1, I took us back to the prehistory of IWT/TRN, the courageous TV network that will search out the truth and bring it to a worldwide audience, uncompromised by money from corporations, advertisers, or governments.

In Part 2, "Oh, you mean the REAL news!": Interview with Paul Jay, IWT/The Real News, Part 2, Paul puts the REAL in The Real News.

In Episode III, "We'll go where the facts take us": Interview with Paul Jay, IWT/The Real News, Part 3, I followed Paul on a fact-finding tour.

In Number Four, "Seeking truth, not balance": Interview with Paul Jay, IWT/The Real News, Part 4, I told about how we gave IWT so much publicity in 2005 that the network had to hide from us for a year and a half.

In this final section, Paul tells us how he needs every single one of us.

In my first installment, "Go big or go home": Interview with Paul Jay, IWT/The Real News, Part 1, I took us back to the first murmurs about Independent World Television/The Real News. IWT/TRN is the intrepid TV network that will search out the truth and bring it to a worldwide audience, uncompromised by money from corporations, advertisers, or governments.

In Part 2, "Oh, you mean the REAL news!": Interview with Paul Jay, IWT/The Real News, Part 2, Paul brought us feedback from cab drivers.

In Episode III, "We'll go where the facts take us": Interview with Paul Jay, IWT/The Real News, Part 3, I followed Paul where the facts took us.

Welcome to Number Four.