Robert makes a terrific point:

Second, nearly all the people polled answered in socio-political terms. In so doing they made a more important error: they confused freedom with liberty. All liberties are freedoms, but not all freedoms are liberties and confusing the two is serious business.

There’s a guy in Lawrenceville who is gathering postcards from famous people, asking them to define freedom. The responses are posted on a website called The Freedom Project.

Reading through a bunch of the responses, I’m struck by how many of them are either too vague, or too narrow.

Many of the responses remind me of the documentary Why We Fight — the filmmaker, when he asked people why do we fight in wars like what we’re in now, typically got the answer “for our freedom.” But when he asked the respondents to define freedom, or how the war protects our freedom, most of the respondents were unable to offer a clear answer.

Similarly, trying to define freedom on a postcard is clearly no easy task — as demonstrated by the folks who have responded to this Define Freedom project.

What also strikes me is how some of the answers clearly originate more from a partisan ideological background than from a more unifying viewpoint.

Geraldo Rivera, and several others, respond by talking about choices — as though freedom is nothing more than a marketplace of material goods. Several would go no further than expressing freedom as freedom of speech — as though freedom is nothing more than a marketplace of ideas. Others went no further than freedom of religion — but in a creepy sort of way, as though freedom is nothing more than that person’s right to engage in religious or moral crusades.

Then, there were the responses that sounded like the inane musings of a PR executive. Rather than answering the question, they responded with some variant of saying that we are a free nation, or freedom is what we defend.

My favorite response, of the ones I read, was Edward Albee’s. His response is more vague than the ultra-specific answers, and more specific than the vague non-answer answers.

And my second favorite is Jon Stewart’s — which, in a way, is kind of sad.

Should you find yourself near a Creative Loafing distribution point, pick yourself up a copy and turn to page 16. There’s my article!

It turns out the Atlanta Regional Commission, in its infinite wisdom, decided to take out federal funding for the entire western half of the Beltline from the region’s 25-year plan.

You can also read a more detailed account on Fresh Loaf.

Once you’re done being angry about government incompetence, turn to page 31, and read about Freddie Ashley, the new Artistic Director at Actor’s Express. I also interviewed him earlier this week for the Atlanta Performs Podcast. Once you’ve finished reading about Freddie, feel good to know that something good and right is going on in Atlanta.

Why mention these two things in the same post? Take a look at the map for the Northwest section of the Beltline. You’ll notice there’s a trail that is slated to go directly between a Beltline transit station and King Plow Arts Center, the home of Actor’s Express. That’s just one example of many showing how the Beltline will improve connectivity in the city, not to mention our quality of life. But that’s assuming the ARC puts the funds back in for the western half.

Is it just me, or are the media wars heating up? Most recently, an interview with Andrew Keen on NPR, author of “The Cult of the Amatuer: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture.”

How about this jewel in Sunday’s AJC:

Web 2.0, the term applied to a new generation of sites that encourage interaction and collaboration, will degrade us all, warns a former president of the American Library Association. In a provocative essay last week on Britannica Blog called “Web 2.0: The Sleep of Reason,” Michael Gorman foresees a “world in which everyone is an expert in a world devoid of expertise.” He calls 2.0 an “unholy brew made up of the digital utopianism that hailed the Internet as the second coming of Haight-Ashbury — everyone’s tripping, and it’s all free.” One commenter points out that Gorman uses a Web 2.0 platform (a blog) to mount his assault on Web 2.0.

Bloggers will scream that MSM outlets just “don’t get it” (the adolescent argument). MSM outlets scream that bloggers are unprofessional (the strawman).

But what’s the big picture? These media wars are pointless because each side recognizes the fault of the other, but not their own. In the long run, new media may make old media more honest — or not. Or, maybe new media and old media will make one another more honest, but only sometimes.

But as long as there’s going to be a bunch of arguing about experts vs. crowds, for right now, the crowds appear to be winning. And the crowds are winning simply because they’re not going to go away.

So, here’s a topic for discussion:

We are moving from an era where experts are trusted too much and crowds too little, to an era where crowds are trusted too much and experts too little.

This week’s Creative Loafing cover story is a list of (allegedly) the best bloggers in Atlanta. Naturally, one corner of the local blogosphere is unhappy with the story. You can read about it in the comments. GriftDrift’s post sparked a whole thread between several bloggers and Andisheh.

A few comments there are worth highlighting. Amber:

Don’t get too excited about the CL story. Andisheh took great pains to point out that most of the Atlanta blogosphere sucks. Not sure why that was necessary. It’s all very high school esque.

Andisheh:

What’s “bullshit” about pointing out that most local blogs are lousy?

How many local blogs tell you anything of significance that you couldn’t read somewhere else sooner and better? Most of them? Or just some of them?

How many “personal” blogs transcend Dear Diary-ness to offer thoughtful introspection? Most, or just some?

How many news-themed blogs offer information (news or commentary) that didn’t appear somewhere else first? Most or some?

I’m not anti-blogging. I’ve been blogging since 1999 (hence my silly domain name, andy2000.org). I had an Atlanta-themed podcast (My’Lanta) in 2005. I understand, appreciate, and am enthusiastic about the possibilities of Internet media.

Nevertheless, there’s good blogs and there’s bad blogs. There are blogs I like and there are blogs I don’t like. Is it “high school” of me to write that? Perhaps. But not quite as “high school” as pretending that new media is great simply because it’s new.

Grayson:

Making lists is not journalism Andy. It’s just pretty bullshit, and it has nothing to do with the state of social media community in Atlanta.

(The rest of Grayson’s comments are not worth repeating. But if you really want to know why not, I’ll just say there’s a difference between “That’s a stupid idea,” and “You’re a stupid idiot.”)

There’s much more meat in the conversation there, and if you’re interested in all this old media/new media stuff, it’s worth reading all the way through. Amber’s also been compiling a list of relevant posts on other blogs.

I remember when I was young, there was an occasional news story about the impending “information superhighway,” where you might have a whopping 100 channels or more available on your television set. Back then, that seemed exciting. Quickly, the standard joke became, “100 channels, and still there’s nothing good on television.” If I look around, I might still have an old copy of Time, with the cover story about hundreds of television channels streaming straight into your eye. I think I was about 14 years-old at the time.

Anyway. I’m overwhelmed sometimes by all of what’s out there. Right now, there are 82 items sitting in my RSS feed reader (and that’s a low count). I’ve also realized once again that I’ve subscribed to more podcasts than I can keep up with (even if I delete episodes I don’t have a particular interest in). But I don’t really want to unsubscribe from any of it. There’s a lot of really high-quality writing, podcasting and vidcasting out there. But there isn’t really. So I’ve crossed it out.

Quality is too subjective a word. And it’s not really a matter of whether quality can be determined by some borderline old media/new media writer. It’s a quation of whether quality is real. I mean, authenticity isn’t really real when you think about it. Quality is subjective because it’s context-driven. The point of that is that there’s an overwhelming amount of blogs, podcasts and vidcasts that are relevant to me and my interests — and what I pay attention to is actually really great stuff as far as I’m concerned.

Here’s where Andisheh’s mistake lies. It’s not in creating the list. It’s in an inadequate setting of context, which is not a terrible crime — it’s certainly not worth Grayson’s outburst of name calling. In his comment on GriftDrift, Andisheh said, “There are blogs I like and there are blogs I don’t like. Is it ‘high school’ of me to write that?” But in the CL story, every blog listed is introduced with a passage, “Why we love it…”

“I” vs. “We”

There’s an obvious question here of whether Andisheh meant “I” or “we.” Had Andisheh’s story clearly indicated that the blogs listed were his personal favorites, the story probably would have still been skewered by the local bloggers. After all, what makes Andisheh’s opinion worth what he’s getting paid? What makes his opinion worth printing in the local AAN paper, especially on a subject like “bright lights in the blogosphere”? It’s not worth anything, really.

What matters to me, not just as a blogger, or a blog reader, or even as a CL reader, is what I think is relevant to me. I hadn’t heard of most of the blogs listed in the story. And after checking out the other blogs listed in the story, I still don’t really care to add any of their feeds to my reader — they’re not relevant to me.

Being a crazy guy like I am, I’m not afraid to throw in a quick “here’s why this is a good idea in concept.” It’s my simple — well, maybe simple — suggestion. There are blogs out there in the local blogosphere that are meant to reach an audience wide enough to (maybe) appeal to your average CL reader. (CL readers will probably disagree that there is such a thing as the average CL reader — they are, after all, different just like everybody else) Among those select few blogs, there are still only a few beyond that worth putting in print in CL. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong about that.

(And yes, the point is taken that my suggestion is not how the CL story was presented. But I can’t do anything about that. Sorry.)

The discussion revolving around the question, “What was (were) the most notable PR/marketing social media trend(s) or event(s) in 2006 and why?” is worth a comment, though I know I’m several weeks late in giving my non-answer. I don’t have much in the way of PR-speak to say. But in terms of media, trends are long-term.

Dan Greenfield’s comment — that GM’s little spat with Thomas Friedman is the most notable development — was kind of interesting. Greenfield explained it as significant because:

1) It elevates the importance of corporate blogs as a communications platform for PR departments.
2) It demonstrates that corporations are no longer beholden to mainstream media to convey their message.
3) Subsequently, it redefines the power relationship between the media and corporate communications departments.

For quite some time now, journalist organizations committed to journalism have warned the MSM (mainstream media) about the credibility problem. Most notable was the publication of The Elements of Journalism back in 2001. The book came out of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, whose Statement of Shared Purpose may seem idealistic to many practitioners, but is worth pursuing for the sake of credibility.

After all, without credibility an MSM organization does not have much of a future. And that runs at the heart of the value of both New Media and MSM. They both need credibility if they’re going to survive as mediums.

Between GM and Friedman, who won the argument? The New York Times carries a fair amount of credibility, just speaking in a general sense of the term. While their internal fact-checking system isn’t perfect, it’s certainly more trustworthy than a PR machine. At the New York Times, every article (including the op-eds) must go through a rigorous fact-checking process. At a typical PR firm, the process is optimized toward creating a message that’s advantageous to the messenger.

GM’s tactic in this particular case was to neutralize Tom Friedman’s argument by playing a little dirty politics: make a seemingly private email exchange public.

James Wolcott pointed out in his appearance on Outfoxed:

See, one of the things that Fox does and conservatives do is they don’t have to win every argument. But if they can muddy the argument enough — if they can turn it into a draw — that, to them, is a victory. Because it denies the other side a victory.

It’s always up to viewers to be discerning, and viewers don’t have 24 hours a day to be discerning. But those who get paid to muddy the arguments have all the time in the world they need. This gets to where current trends are going: where they’ve always gone, and where they’ll always go.

Truthiness may now outweigh hard fact (if you believe it didn’t before), but the sophistication of the general public should not be underestimated. An Emory University study last year showed that partisans tend to ignore hard, incontrivertable fact. They don’t just “feel the truth” at you — they “feel the truth” at themselves, too. It’s nothing new that people (including me and you) will believe what they want to believe.

But it’s also nothing new that bullshit gets smelly after a while (if you’ve gotten this far, your monitor should certainly smell like it by now). The pendulumns of politics, public opinions, and economies tend to swing for a reason. Any philosophy taken to its logical conclusion will ultimately fail — and civilizations tend to hold on to philosophies because they’ve worked in the past, even when there’s ample evidence that they won’t work in the future.

As far as PR or marketing trends go, the most significant news item is simply the continued rise of the Internet. There’s nothing particularly flashy about that, of course. It just takes a good PR spinmeister to turn individual developments into “trends,” or signs of them. The technology makes it easier for people to communicate with one another without meeting face-to-face, or even knowing one another. It makes it easier for both radicals like me and radical PR professionals to have an audience they’ve never had before.

The GM/Friedman story is, therefore, hardly a major breakthrough by any stretch of the imagination. What else is not new is that no matter the medium, the communicator will always have the challenge of keeping credibility on his or her side. Going around and neutralizing unwinnable arguments, meanwhile, has a limited shelf life. And ideologies can only live as long as D * M * P is too low for a society to do anything about it.