returning. again.

After two years of absence from my most beloved place on earth, I will be returning to Paarl, South Africa tomorrow for two weeks!

What I'm most looking forward to:

• Holding precious Yonda, the daughter of my dear friend Andiswe (both picture here), and speaking to her in English for the first time
• Sunday mornings (and afternoons) at Harvest Church
  
• Relearning Xhosa with Luba
• Orange sunsets in the township
• Hearing Kathleen's "baaei lekker" when I surprise her with me visit
• Lots and lots of Rooibos tea!

• Attempting to cook an American Thanksgiving with South Africa ingredients 
• Causing a ruckus with Joey, Sammy & Luba 
• Hiking Table Mountain in Cape Town

Hope for an education

After spending time teaching in South Africa schools, I can say this NY Times article paints a beautiful and genuine picture of South Africa's schoolchildren. And after five months of working in education policy, I'm forever convinced that our systems of education need to be fundamentally restructured before we can tout the promise of the education.

Subsidized media: a plausible option?

Five, ten, twenty years from now, I anticipate my morning routine to parallel that of today’s: finally jumping in the shower after 30 minutes of snooze, rummaging through my closet for anything to wear that doesn’t require ironing, bolting downstairs to grab my keys, purse, coat and whatever extra baggage I deem necessary for the day, & running out the door to the bus, hoping someone behind me will set the alarm. All seems normal, but in this future life, instead of enjoying my morning Express on the metro, I’m suddenly frantically fact-checking every story on my Blackberry.  Instead of reading one or two news sources each morning, I spend my first hour at work trying to determine which stories I read were indeed true.

Why the extra hassle? Because the newsrooms were never able to pull themselves out of the crisis they face today. Because newsrooms now are lacking in resources necessary to present the news. Because now it’s become a game of who can be the loudest, not the truest.  

The thought of a nation without balanced (albeit “balanced” is likely not the right adjective for our current media, but it’s close) and accurate news coverage is beyond a nightmare. It will usher in the decay of any healthy democracy—as demonstrated in many countries around the world.

SaveTheNews.org is a pivotal campaign striving to develop a public policy focus on the journalism crisis. The organization has managed to capture my attention (and my Twitter feed) time and time again. They suggest five policy priorities for lifting journalism out of its current crisis: new ownership structures, new incentives, journalism jobs program, research and development, & new public media. 

After assisting in the production of my boss’ upcoming book, Education Unbound, (ASCD, February 2010—be on the lookout!) I think I can buy in to SaveTheNews’ suggestions with a few cautions. While my boss’ book focuses strictly on the education sector, the same intuitions apply. Markets left to their own will often fail. The key in a market-based approach to problem solving is to create constructive guidelines. As stated in SaveTheNews’ report, “A true Fourth Estate should be neither dependent on the whims of the market nor subject to shifting political landscapes.” While the comparison of the newsroom to the classroom isn’t completely parallel, I think it can make the point. Like the newsroom, the classroom is a longstanding institution, which serves the public good. Like the newsroom, the classroom has been unable to adapt to meet the needs of a changing world.  The solution here, I believe, is to lift the barriers to innovation and make room for those able to problem solve.

SaveTheNews’ suggestions are brilliant examples of appropriate government involvement. New ownership structures  (i.e. the creation of nonprofit and low-profit newsrooms) and new tax incentives would allow news organizations to realistically thrive. R&D can foster new ideas and show us what works (or more likely what doesn’t work). The importance of research and development is consistently undervalued in just about every field but science. The opportunities for R&D in the realm of media are endless.

The only policy suggestions I take issue with are those that involve heavy government funding in either the training of journalists or operations of a newsroom. When government money is so directly involved in non-government functions, you risk bias. However, ironically, the news source I trust most—the BBC—is funded by government. The SaveTheNews’ report challenges fears of government sponsorship by providing compelling research which shows that subsidized media is just as critical of government action as private media. Further research of my own (after all, I am a journalist at heart) may convince me that subsidies aren’t as problematic if we can indeed build safeguards that buffer newsrooms from the political pendulum.  Stay tuned.

22.

I was so grateful to have had my dear friend Kimi come ring in my 22nd birthday with me. We've now celebrated 19 birthdays together. Here's to being a twenty-something!

social media is here to stay

"Social media isn't a fad, it's a fundamental shift in the way we communicate."
 


A good friend of mine, and fellow media nerd, passed along this video to me. Quite compelling. I was grabbed by the quote, "We no longer search for news, the news finds us..." Often, I find myself using Twitter as my own search engine. Twitter is my personal news feed. One click and I have a constant access to the worlds dearest to me.


Since moving to DC, I've been constantly intrigued by the intertwining of media, politics, and civic life. Social media, I believe, is ushering in a new era of just about everything--shopping, learning, relationships, citizenship, career, politics, activism, faith. And undoubtedly, this is no fad. Social media is here to stay, and to revolutionize our world. The possibilities are thrilling.

They haven't gotten it right in the past, either.

In light of Friday's events, I've done a bit of research in regards to the Nobel Peace Prize. Stalin and Hitler were nominated, as was Gandhi. Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela have received the prize, as has Yasser Arafat. So maybe the seemingly haphazard decision to award Obama shouldn't be such a surprise.

Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were both nominated for the award. (Although the nomination for Hitler was later withdrawn.) Gandhi--one of the most poignant symbols of peace in the 20th century--was nominated five times, and was never awarded the prize. And

in 1948, the Nobel committee decided not to give an award because there was "no suitable living candidate." This year, there were 205 nominees for the award--a record in the history of the prize. And while, we don't know officially who those nominated were (the names of the nominees will not be released for another 50 year, in compliance with Nobel policy), the rumored list is quite impressive, ranging from Afghan women's rights activists to American philanthropies to Chinese revolutionaries. So clearly, this isn't the first time well-deserving individuals have been passed up. (See previous post)

However, it would've been noble to see President Obama join a much smaller number within the Nobel Peace world--the number of people to decline the prize. The only person to ever decline was Vietnamese politician Le Doc Tho was was awarded the prize in 1973 along with US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. They were both awarded the prize for their negotiation of the Vietnam peace accord. However, Le Doc Tho did not accept because he felt that because of the current situation in Vietnam, he was not yet deserving of such a prize. A very honorable gesture. And one that would've likely been very politically favorable for President Obama, had he done the same.

And while it is still quite disturbing that he was nominated for such a prize just eleven or so days into the job, my research has revealed that the committee of given Norwegian elected officials haven't always got it right in the last 109 years. So, it's yet another mishap in this crazy world.

And I'll end with another interesting research tidbit: a poll on the Nobel Peace Prize website that asks "Did you know about Barack Obama's efforts for a nuclear weapon free world? 54% answered no.

Huh?

This morning, I was running late as always. I set the alarm, locked the front door, then the security gate, and I was off. With my purse & heels in one hand, dry cleaning & breakfast in the other, I sprinted the two blocks to the bus stop--all while trying to wrestle my coat over both arms. I spent the rest of my commute trying to jam my shoes and dry cleaning in my purse, and thus, forwent my morning paper.

When I arrived at my desk, the first headline in my morning news search caught me off guard. In a panic, I browsed the other headlines. Clearly, I had missed something in the between the end of yesterday's 13 hour work today and this morning's sprint to work. I looked to CNN for some sort of answer: Did we wipe out Al Qaeda? Did we find a way to provide clean water to millions in Africa & Asia? Did our 10% unemployment rate drop to 4%? Are American 3rd graders now reading?

There was no answer to be found. And I as logged into Twitter, I was relieved. I was not the only one confused as to why our president, Barack Obama, was the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In an attempt to make sense of this all, like any good journalist, I wanted to check out the other nominees. Unfortunately, a quick perusal of the rumored nominees left me with only more questions. Here's a sample of those nominated for the prestigious international aware:

Morgan Tsvangirai is an influential opposition leader in Zimbabwe. Last year he ran for president against Zimbabwe's president since 1980, Robert Mugabe. In the midst of the campaign, Tsvangirai was imprisoned and beaten by Mugabe's government. Since then, as the first elected prime minister he has successfully transitioned Zimbabwe from a violent dictatorship via democratic reform.

Several Chinese activists were also over looked, including Hu Jia, who was imprisoned for campaigning for human rights in the PRC, and Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China's communist system.

American mountain climber Greg Mortenson is the founder of the Central Asia Institute has built nearly 80 schools, especially for girls, in remote areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past 15 years. (I highly recommend his book, Three Cups of Tea)

Also passed up was Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Jordan who risks his life by advocating interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims.

Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar currently leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and serves as the U.N. special envoy to Darfur. Again, deserving, but no luck.

So what does it take to win a Nobel? I'm not quite sure. Yes, our president has become a symbol of hope to many Americans and to those around the world. But does being an icon warrant such an honor? I'm not sure it does.

In his last will and testament, Alfred Nobel created the award, which was to be given to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

As violence continues to rise in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as Secretary Clinton continues a schoolgirl exchange of unpleasantries with North Korea and as Jews and Muslims continue to assault each other, I find myself lacking any examples of increased peace in the last nine month.

To quote the lyrics of Gary Jules, "It's a very, very mad world."