Blogher Women still don’t GET it. Broadband and Media Issues off their list
So I get an email from Blogher this morning telling me about a survey they want me to take. It is to narrow down the issues they want to focus on in the coming Presidential Election. There are questions that ask me to choose from this list which issues I think they should focus on first, second, and not at all.
- Adoption/Foster Care: Finding homes for children worldwide
- Darfur
- Economic Freedom: Encouraging financial independence for women worldwide
- Education and Literacy: For women worldwide
- Election Access and Reforms: The right to vote in open and fair elections.
- Global Warming
- Health Care: Access and quality care worldwide
- Nuclear Waste
- Poverty: Including world hunger and homelessness
- Rape, Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Against Women
- Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Children
- Supporting Environmentally- and Eco-conscious Practices
- Women’s Rights: Promoting civil and physical liberties for women, including voluntary marriage and divorce, access to birth control.
- World Peace
So, what do you do if YOUR first and second choice (and third and fourth) aren’t even on the dang list? Though all of these are issues that should get attention the intent of the question is to determine the most important issue, and four of my big five aren’t EVEN ON THE DAMN LIST. Instead I see Darfur. Darfur? Come ON, people, we need to get our own house in order.
I also see a lot of amorphous stuff on there that’s too damn general, and way off the radar where I’m concerned. World Peace? That’s a really good example. Getting us out of Iraq would be a start, and quite frankly I think our meddling in other places has done more to disturb World Peace than promote it. So why is this listed as a choice for a top issue above things we actually have a chance of handling?
So, what are my top five?
- Getting us OUT of Iraq.
- Broadband Policy.
- Media Reform
- Earmarks/Lobbying/Campaign Finance/Corruption
- Global Warming (wow, this one made it on Blogher’s list.)
Two, three and four go hand in hand, and an argument could be made that the first and fifth were a direct result of the problems resulting from three and four. There is a huge control of the flow of information in this country. That flow is controlled by the Big Media Companies, who find it more cost effective to disseminate infomercial-type information from other big corporations, and policy statements from the politicians than to actually find and report real and substantive news. The internet has been the only mechanism by which real issues are getting covered, and the media companies have a huge stake in changing that, and turning the internet into another “push” media, with them choosing our content, instead of the “pull” media it is now. Especially since grassroots activism has toppled some pretty big and enormously expensive lobbying initiatives, such as last fall’s Telecommunications Bill. Nothing that the PEOPLE want will get done, none of those things on the Blogher list, unless Broadband policy is intelligently created and we tackle Media Reform to rein in corporate interests and protect our best democratic voice– the internet.
So I’m sorry, Blogher Women, but in all fairness I couldn’t complete your survey, since it in no way represents what I feel to be the HIGHEST PRIORITY issues in this upcoming Presidential election. And I’m sure there are at least a few other people out there who agree with me.
Technorati Tags: Election Issues, Blogher, Broadband Policy, Media Reform, Iraq, Global Warming
06/28/07, 1:42 PM |
I feel I should point out there are two different lists of issues that people are being asked to vote on.
The first issue group is the one you publish here, which is about finding a single *global* (i.e. non-U.S.-centric) issue that the BlogHer community can rally around for the next year.
If you look at question #13, however, that is where we ask what issues we want the U.S. presidential candidates and the media to focus on for the 2008 presidential election. On that list is Iraq, Media reform, Internet Neutrality, Access and Freedom, and yes, Global Warming.
So, I think perhaps our survey wording didn’t make it clear there were two different sections to the survey, but if you had read a little further in the survey you would have found nearly all your issues listed.
Hope maybe you’ll give it another try?
06/28/07, 4:32 PM |
I’m aware of the fact that there are two different lists. I was given a choice of choosing one of the above as the TOP issue and one as the SECOND next most important issue. If I don’t see any of those issues that I was given a choice of as being more important than Broadband and Media Policy, and Broadband and Media Policy aren’t even on that initial list, then there’s noplace else for me to go. I understood the wording just fine.
Re an issue being *global* I’d say that having the freedom to communicate with the rest of the globe and knowing what’s going on in the rest of the world is about as global as you can get.
06/28/07, 4:57 PM |
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19389299/site/newsweek/page/0/
I might also point out that the OECD study came out almost three months ago, and only after the blogosphere blasted it from one corner of the globe to the other did US Big Media finally pick up on (the surface of) it, though little has been said about the upcoming Once In A LifeTime Spectrum Auction that could, if it’s run by rules that don’t favor the incumbents as past auctions did, break the back of the broadband duopoly.