From ABC News, Fake RNC, DNC websites rake in the money.  I stumbled across this as I was watching the Romney "Believe in 1/2 of America" video on the DNC page and really didn't think it was real (guess it is?).  The video on the DNC site is in response to Romney's video in response to the 47% comment where he voices concern for all Americans and their welfare.  Another video that uses audio from Romney's 47% speech seems quite effective.  I'm not sure what think about all of these videos but the 47% issue is not going away.

Real RNC

Real DNC

Per the ABC news article there are the real sites.  Who really knows.

Loving it in Ohio...well...

Interesting article on Ohio and the undecided voters in the NYTimes.  The comments are worth reading, seeing what others in the country are going through during the election:

"At Romney's next rally, Jack will be telling an empty golf cart how he always mowed the fairways at every course he played and personally assembled each club in his bag......

I am in awe of the Republican worldview that holds individual achievement as the result of that same individual's efforts, without any thought to luck, circumstance of birth or helping hand from friends, neighbors or the community at large. How much simpler life must be without guilt, compassion or empathy."

"I live in the swingiest part of the swing state. Every four years we become the center of the universe. We really look at the whole thing rather condescendingly; a candidate visiting a pie shop in Sidney or the a factory in Dayton isn't going to sway our vote. We realize this is just a dog and pony show, and the day after the election we are forgotten. Case in point: if Ohio is so vaunted and cared for, why didn't we get one of the retired space shuttles? We are home to the USAF museum after all."

More on the state of print newspapers

This article wonders why more papers have not gone under as it shows that inflation adjusted newspaper advertising revenue today is equal to what it was in 1950.  One person commenting states that "Advertising revenue includes classified ads -- Craigslist takes away a huge chunk of this newspaper profit center."  I can't imagine this would be a huge chunk of profits.  Thoughts?  From someone who had a bad incident advertising on Craigslist recently, I'm going back to advertising in the newspaper.  Guess there could be freaks out there as well who read the paper but this was just ridiculous!  The article by Mathew Ingram on The Atlantic states that digital ad revenue has increased 50% this year alone.  I doubt many will be with me in reverting to using print advertising.

Redistribution of Wealth

I found this article very interesting as it outlines what occurred regarding the redistribution of wealth during the Obama, Bush, Reagan (surfacing a lot these days), and Clinton administrations.  It also outlines what Romney proposes. "When Mr. Romney criticized Mr. Obama for wanting to redistribute income, he was channeling Ronald Reagan, who quipped back in 1964: we “can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one.”

I agree with the last line of the article below:
“It seems that a larger share of our economic resources will be redistributed.” That’s regardless of who occupies the White House.

Fact-checking the Fact-checkers!

I was wondering this myself and ran across this article: Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?

Another site is PolitiFact Bias...Exposing bias, mistakes, and flimflammery at the PolitiFact fact check website

Personally, I think that all of these sites just confuse people as most seem to be biased.  You can pick one and follow it but who really knows what the facts are?  They are all a bit overwhelming to me!

Obama pushes back on the 47% statement

In a speech in Virginia, President Obama speaks to an enthusiastic crowd regarding Romney's 47% comments.

"We don’t believe the government should be helping people who refuse to help themselves but we do believe in something called opportunity.  We believe in a country where hard work pays off, where responsibility is rewarded, where everybody gets a fair shot and everybody is doing their fair share, and everybody plays by the same rules.  That’s the country we believe in, that’s what I believe in, that’s why I’m running for a second term as president."

Sticking Up For Mitt!

Just realizing how lucky I am...thanks to Ann Romney!

“It is time for all Americans to realize,” Ann Romney added, “how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience” running for president.

"It is a new world for all of us."

An interesting article from the New York Times, answering a reader's question about posting articles online prior to their appearance in hardcopy.

"The habits of how people consume news, on which platforms, at what times and at what pace are not fixed in time. And this evolution spiral accelerates with new digital devices, new software, new social networks and even new circulation routes."

There's an App for that!

Another of my Must Follow Blogs writes about apps that help individuals with their health care.  At first, I was sceptical, but after reading their slant, I remembered that I have a number of friends who use apps like these.   There will be a segment of the population that will refuse to use anything like this as they do not want to put any sort of health data online, but another segment that will get into this as they may have friends to connect with who use the apps.  Having a group involved for something like weight loss has proven to be successful. 

Another interesting statement is that "companies are also pushing to implement a lot of wellness-related moves to try and reduce their insurance costs — according to one recent estimate, she said, Starbucks spends more on health care than it spends on coffee beans."  We see this at Trinity with the various options available to employees such as Weight Watchers.  It all makes sense.

"As consumers take more and more of their health-care needs into their own hands, developers can profit by helping them take control of their health and wellness through apps and mobile services."

Another book on my reading list

From one of my Must Follow blogs

Jeff Jarvis highlights a book that is now on my reading list:

Deadlines and Disruptions by Steve Shepard editor-in-chief of Business Week.  I'm especially interested in the realistic view of where journalism can go next.

"`It is a deeply personal story as Steve tells of his anxiety over selecting this career. It is also an important story of what journalism can be at its best, as Business Week under his leadership was a great magazine, one I admired immensely (reading it got me interested in something I hadn’t thought I’d ever find interesting: business). And it is a hopeful but realistic view of where journalism can go next."

Who is "deserving" and who is a "moocher"?

I am definitely NOT in the 47%...

Craig T Nelson's comment was, well, typical of many. 

"I've been on food stamps and welfare, anyone help me out, no!"

REALLY? 

I guess when he needed help he was "deserving" and when others need help they are "moochers". 

Credit to Jon Stewart in what was one of the best segments I've ever seen.  Love it when Jon gets mad!`

Who are the 47%?

Mitt Romney was here in Los Angeles yesterday to address the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.  The same day a video from a Romney fundraiser was released by the magazine Mother Jones.  Romney is attending a fundraiser where he states: "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax."

""[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Juliet Lapidos from the New York Times defines the 47%.  Interesting.

Editor David Frum states "More than one-fifth of Romney's moocher 47% are elderly: people who pay no income taxes because their income takes the form of Social Security - many of those people are Republican voters (even if they don't understand "dependency" to apply to them)."

My favorite quote from the Frum article:
"So when a politician or a broadcaster talks about 47% in "dependency," the image that swims into many white voters' minds is not their mother in Florida, her Social Security untaxed, receiving Medicare benefits vastly greater than her lifetime tax contributions; it is not their uncle, laid off after 30 years and now too old to start over. No, the image that comes into mind is minorities on welfare."

David Brooks from the New York Times talks about Thurston Howell Romney.

In 2010 Howard Gleckman, Brookings Institute, addressed the 47% number in his blog About Those 47 Percent Who Pay “No Taxes

From the article "However, this class warfare-like rhetoric plays to a perception that the income tax is a chump tax: Only hard-working folks like us pay it. The welfare queens don’t. The super-rich don’t. It is a powerful emotional argument. It is also flat wrong.
So who are these folks who pay no federal income taxes? Mostly, they are people who don’t make very much money. Many are elderly: Think a widow living only on Social Security benefits. Others are parents earning less than $20,000. Only about 5 percent are non-elderly households making more than $20,000."

Pew State of the Media Report, Items #4 and #5

Item #4
From the Pew Report "More news outlets will move to digital subscriptions in 2012 — as a matter of survival." This is inevitable, and the paywall issue will be one to watch here.  Still, I cannot see myself on a Saturday or Sunday morning without my newspaper.  We pass the sections back and forth, discuss the articles and issues, laugh over Zits comic strip (having two teenage boys this one is on target), and the discussions continue with the boys at dinner.  I read the paper in no uncertain order, Pete reads in a definite order, and there are a few sections we each opt out of reading all together.  I like having the paper in my hands!


Item #5
Privacy Issues: From the Pew Report "As of early 2012, roughly two-thirds of the Internet population is uneasy with targeted advertising and search engines tracking their behavior."  This will be a very interesting issue as people want free access to technology and social media but gathering consumer data and targeted advertising must come into play somehow.

Pew State of the Media Report Item #3

Key Findings (News Investment, Newspapers)

I found this section interesting and, logically, it sounds as if those with digital experience are the future of the news.  The article mentions upper management resigning or retiring and the trend to turn to someone with  a digital background.  The same seems to be true for editors and reporters.

"The contemporary newsroom has fewer articles to produce after trims in the physical size of paper and reduction of the space devoted to news.  But the remaining editors and reporters are also being stretched further by the need to generate content suitable for smart phones and tablets as well as establishing a social media presence."

MEDIA DECODER; USA Today Hires a New Editor With a Digital Background

Traveling this week

Land of Reagan (possibly a visit to the Reagan Library?), Schwarzenegger (will likely NOT read Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story- just not that interested), and Tupac...West Coast!

I will try and deliver the LA take on the election, wading through all of the celebrity issues and sports information that dominate the news here.  Don't get me wrong, I love sports and Los Angeles it is a great sports town, but it can be overwhelming.

Mideast upheaval stirs pot in presidential race, from the Los Angeles Times

An interesting article about Gray Davis/Bill Simon's run for Governor of California.  A California playbook helps shape Romney-Obama race.  "The parallels between the 2002 governor's race and the current presidential contest are unmistakable and meaningful, not least because one of the architects of Davis' victory, Larry Grisolano, is now a senior strategist for the Obama campaign."

  Ouch!

Worth the traffic!


 

Pew State of the Media Report Item #2

I have learned yet another term: Paywall.

Per the Pew report, while most newspapers were profitable only by making cuts, many followed the NYT and instituted a pay wall.  There is a hard and a soft paywall. As newspapers move online we are likely to see more of this action.  One report states that 20% of newspapers now have online paywalls. 

Below are a few interesting paywall articles.

The "Hamster Wheel" fallacy: Why Paywalls don't mean better journalism

Why the Washington Post will never have a paywall

The Chairman and CEO of the Washington Post, Don Graham, talks about the growth and opportunities in social media

Paywalls are paying off

Newspaper Paywalls, too little too late?

USA Today Spurns Paywall

Pew State of the Media Report Item #1

Key Findings

AM/FM radios are second only to television as the medium most prevalent in people's lives?  I was surprised at first but when I think about my time, I listen to the radio when in the car, watch a little TV, read the newspaper, and access news via my computer.
I have listened to Pandora but not Spotify (my kids seem to know what this is) but, per the report, 40% of people listen to online-only services like these and that number is expected to double by 2015.

I was also surprised to read in the report that NPR saw its total listenership drop for the first time in years.  Not in the Pew report, but I am not surprised to find that NPR listeners are 27% more likely to own a breadmaker (guilty) and are also 78% more likely to get a massage (guilty again).  Could be the listeners are getting massages and baking bread more for the first time in years.  They seem to go hand in hand.

Go To Sites I will follow

I really had no idea that the term "twitter troll" existed..
Jeff Jarvis discusses the video that incited the violence in Libya and in the latest blog asks the media not to feed the "trolls".  There is an online petition to stop the online bullying of "twitter trolls"  #stopthetrolls.  Review the six types of twitter trolls.

"Wikipedia defines a "troll" as "someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."

The second site I will follow HAS CHANGED!
I've decided to follow Matthew Ingram due to his focus on social media, privacy, and his blog!
http://gigaom.com/author/mathewingram/http://gigaom.com/author/mathewingram/

Voter fraud...you make the call.

PA. Supreme Court hears arguments on voter-ID law

Republican leaders say the law will deter voter fraud, though there have been no documented cases in recent state history of any voter trying to impersonate another.

From the NYTimes: "The state has offered no evidence of voter identity fraud to justify this law. There is no legitimate government interest that justifies the burden the law imposes on voters. If the court does not block the law, it will cause irreparable harm. In Philadelphia, for instance, almost one-fifth of the registered voters may not have an acceptable form of identification to vote on Election Day. Statewide, almost one-tenth may not."