South mountain

Gun-Barrel Justice

Art mimicks life. In Reform Era I — late 1800s and early 1900s — many works of art helped trigger the revolt of the ordinary people against the Robber Barons and their Gilded Age. We’ve come full circle to a new Gilded Age, to the need for Reform Era II. Will art play its role? At least one crew of film-makers thinks so.

New ideas, new media

Haven’t heard from the other panelists concerning a proposal I made at Tuesday night’s Loyola journalism forum, so I guess the idea’s a thumbs down. That’s a shame. It would have been a fun one.

After sharing a lively discussion with four other area bloggers before a crowd of 200 plus at the request of WTTW host Phil Ponce, in concluding thoughts your IR Editor proposed the five of us panelists — CapitolFax’s Rich Miller, DailyKos’ Georgia Logothetis, RealClearPolitic’s Blake Dvorak, Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn and I — should consider collaborating our radically different perspectives online. Such an effort would put Illinois out in front nationally in the new media. (Photo by Michael Burns — from left to right — Ponce, IR Editor, Dvorak, Zorn, Logothetis and Miller)

Tuesday evening’s discussion was sharp and lively as we plundered through the ethics of blogging, the challenges of dealing with unruly commenters and gaining credibility with a community. We took little jabs at each other’s work and patted each other on the back at other times.

Although the five of us are incredibly diverse in our journalism background and experience, radically different in political viewpoint and personality, we all stood together in defense of blogging when the venue was attacked by on audience member, Professor Paul Green, a Chicago political veteran.

Professor Green sat at the center front row throughout the discussion, shaking his head and rolling his eyes in response to many of our comments. Once or twice he mouthed words at me I couldn’t understand. Green clearly doesn’t approve of the blogging movement and our leading edge in the new media. After making an emotional appeal to the audience against what we do and for the way things were, as only Rich Miller could, he quipped with hand outstretched towards Green, “From one who defends the status quo!”

After the forum, Professor Green told me that conservatives of my ilk were the blame for dissolving the Republican Party in Illinois. He said we were endangering the existence of the party. “I’ll bet you would have even opposed Jim Edgar or Jim Thompson!” he scowled.

Well, I know he’ll probably not like the fact that I’m writing about his trash talk, but I’m still enough of a traditionalist to respect my elders, of which Mr. Green is. I’ve thought for two days about the professor’s criticisms of our blogging and of our political views. I’ve come to the conclusion that while his opinion is valuable to consider, he’s simply not in touch with new ideas and a change going on in Illinois. It’s happening all around him, just as the blogging phenomenon is happening around outdated and irrelevant journalism gatekeepers.

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Blogging could determine the heights and the depths of the 2008 election cycle. As Georgia pointed out, dinosaur media gatekeepers are now irrelevant, as bloggers grab up information and run with it around those who would want to determine what the public should and should not know.

While Georgia’s Daily Kos has been directly involved in depths of spreading vicious rumors about Sarah Palin, on the other hand I pointed out that blogs pushed the national media to begin vetting Barack Obama. Either the Chicago media is lazy or they purposely tried to protect their favorite son up until those outside of the Chicago media elite were forced to begin covering questions outsiders raised about Obama.

What’s been most fascinating through this process is to discover is the world outside Lincolnland borders thinks a lot like we scorned conservatives think.

We found out that people outside Illinois, like us, didn’t accept Dr. Jeremiah Wright’s unspeakable distaste for America. They, like us, distrust Obama’s terrorist friend Bill Ayers. They, like us, are uneasy with unchallenged liberalism running rampant in the halls of our legislature. They, like us, understand that smooth talking and ear tickling is not the answer to America’s problems.

Illinois Review will begin its fourth year of existence within the next few weeks. Our audience will never know how many times I’ve thrown in the towel on this effort, only to be pulle …

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