by Tyree Harris

When people think of giving back to the community, they think sandwich lines, clean-up service, and financial charity.

Though all of these are great and important, there is no better way to give back to your community than with the very talents you are practicing for [...]]]> Giving back through journalism

by Tyree Harris

When people think of giving back to the community, they think sandwich lines, clean-up service, and financial charity.

Though all of these are great and important, there is no better way to give back to your community than with the very talents you are practicing for your career.

Give back with what you do best.

I spent my first week of summer at the Oregon State University campus being journalistically revived by 24 bright-eyed, teenaged writers. For the past three years, I’ve dedicated June 19th through the 27th to the High School Journalism Institute, a joint effort between the Oregonian and Oregon State to promote newsroom diversity. It is, without question, the most cultural journalistic experience possible in Oregon — students in the program are all from underrepresented backgrounds.

It’s an amazing thing to witness; Lars Larson hated on it — so we must be doing something right out there. In just eight days, these amateur journalists are required to produce a 40-page, professional-grade paper. Each student is required to write a profile about another camper, a news story, a blog post, and several are even required to write columns. The kids work in pairs on the stories and are placed under the wing of a professional as an editor.

Yeah, this definitely ain’t outdoor school — no singing and taking hikes at this camp.

I participated as a writer in 2008, and I loved it so much, that I came back the next two years to RA for it. Though my job description only required me to make sure the kids get from the newsroom to their meals and back to the dorms in which they reside in, I offer my talents as much as I can — editing pieces, working with columns and even writing blogs for the online site.

That paper, and the campers’ motive, mean the world to me. In a nation where one-third of the population is a minority, newsrooms are just 13.26 percent minority. Because the media is only effective and relevant if it adequately represents its community, this is a waving red flag.

In a Hispanic Link News Service article titled, “Non-white Journalists Affected Most by Newspaper Cutbacks,” Rosalba Ruiz points out that though “personnel employed by the daily press declined by about 11 percent, from 46,700 to 41,500; among non whites, it dropped 12.6%, from 6,300 to 5,500, down more than 25 percent from its peak of 7,400 in 2006.”

We are losing our journalistic diversity, and our ability to adequately represent the nation in which we reside in is at risk.

This is an issue I take very seriously; as a minority journalist, I needed to find some way to give hope to the future and inspire more journalists from underrepresented backgrounds to acquire the skills they need to succeed in the newsroom. This camp is my way to do just that. A lot of those kids in that institute continue to pursue careers in journalism, and next year, three students I’ve watched in that newsroom will be incoming freshmen at our school.

Knowing that I was a part of the camp that helped them realize what they wanted to do is very enriching.

It reminds me why I want to be a journalist — even though my odds of getting a job right now are about the same as Steve Nash’s chances of winning a slam dunk contest.

Being there and giving so much of my energy made me realize how college students should think about community service: Our career talents, and objectives, ought to be practiced and shared when we do acts of charity.

If you learned that you are fascinated with something and talented at it, what better way to express that passion than to display that experience with people and give back using it?

Are you a pre-med student? Volunteer at a hospital or work with the Red Cross.

Are you an environmental science major? There are probably a billion things you can do in the Eugene area that can help the environment.

Pre-education? Ask around about ways in which you can help out local school districts.

Don’t be afraid to try something new or start your own cause because great things have to start somewhere.

Both the community and we as students would benefit most from us finding causes that relate to our passions and future. Don’t do things just because they “look good”; do them because they feel good and they are good for your development as a person and a professional.

For me, knowing that I have the honor of spending every summer making a difference in something I take very seriously keeps me energized and motivated to keep making strides in my own career.

You don’t have to give out a million dollars, clean up every street corner, or suck your veins dry of blood to be a charitable person. All you have to do is showcase your love for your career and the community while guiding others on the right path to success.

PR Week publishes monthly editions in addition to its other news services and the July issue is devoted to “The most powerful people in PR.” All industries have their major players, so there is nothing surprising that public relations would also have its heavy hitters, but [...]]]> Public Relations and the World

By Alan Caruba

PR Week publishes monthly editions in addition to its other news services and the July issue is devoted to “The most powerful people in PR.” All industries have their major players, so there is nothing surprising that public relations would also have its heavy hitters, but there are some interesting insights to be gleaned from the list of the twenty-five chosen.

I have plied the magic arts and crafts of public relations since the 1970s when I gave up the notion of ever making a decent living as a journalist. Journalism offers tons of ego satisfaction, but the pay was bad back then and, by comparison with other professions, not much better today.

The major players are, not surprisingly, the ones in charge of projecting and protecting a corporate “image”, otherwise known as perception. Number one on the list is Katie Cotton, the VP of worldwide corporate communications for Apple. She is teamed with Steve Jobs its cofounder and CEO because, together, they are the dynamic due of PR for a company that is testimony to American innovation and enterprise. It’s a very good choice.

Corporate PR folk on the list include Leslie Dach, VP for Wal-Mart; Jon Iwata, VP for IBM; Ed Skyler, Executive VP for Citigroup; Sally Susman, Senior VP for Pfizer; Chris Hassell fpr Procter & Gamble; Gary Sheffer, VP for GE; Bill Margaritis, VP for FedEx; Rachel Whetstone, VP for Google, Julie Hamp, Senior VP for PepsiCo; and Teri Everett, SVP of News Corporation.

One thing should particularly be obvious and which continues throughout the list is the role of women at very high levels, even if men continue to dominate these positions. Of particular interest is the inclusion of Stephanie Cutter among the “most powerful” as an Assistant to the President for Special Projects. That is president as in President of the United States of America. While Robert Gibbs is in the spotlight as Obama’s spokesperson, Cutter played an essential role in his campaign and now in his administration.

Of the top twenty-five named, nine were women. That’s progress.

Among the other “power principals”, there are the expected CEOs of major agencies such as Richard Edelman of Edelman; Harris Diamond, CEO of Shandwick Worldwide; Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Paul Taaffe, CEO of Hill & Knowlton; and Margery Kraus, CEO of APCO Worldwide. It is worth noting that these public relations firms operate on a global basis.

In a recent public television documentary on George P. Schultz who served in many top posts, including Secretary of State for Ronald Reagan, he noted that while people think cabinet members have a lot of power, their primary power is the ability to persuade people to support their policies. I cite this because the U.S. government employs a small army of “communications” people whose job is to marshal support. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. probably has more PR agencies per square mile than any other city in the nation.

Persuasion is the cash crop of public relations and perhaps the most interesting new trend is the creation of a whole new breed of PR folk whose expertise is in “social media” which is to say PR focused on using websites like Facebook, My Space, and Twitter to spread the message. There’s a lot of outreach to influential bloggers as well. The emergence of the Internet has been one of the major changes affecting the profession.

Time was if a PR guy or gal “placed” a story with the wire services or a major newspaper such as The New York Times, Washington Post or Los Angeles Times, or a news magazine like Newsweek or Time that was sufficient to affect events. The loss of numerous daily newspapers and the shriveling of others have altered that dynamic. The news magazines are in their death throes.

A major contributor to this is the loss of credibility these news dynamos have brought upon themselves by pushing hoaxes such as global warming or in giving unexamined support to political agendas depending on who was in office. Investigative reporting is virtually a thing of the past as news organizations trim their staffs to the bare minimum.

The recent virtual black-out on news about the New Black Panthers and the failure of the Department of Justice to pursue voter tampering charges is yet another reason fewer and fewer television viewers turn to the network news shows for, well, news.

The rise of conservative talk radio speaks to the fact that a majority of Americans self-identify as politically conservative. The popularity of leading news and opinion websites that serve this audience is testimony to the power of public opinion.

Meanwhile the PR power players, in corporations, trade associations, special interest organizations, and in agencies, are hard at work seeking to influence public opinion.

Ultimately, however, it comes down to the quality of products and services, the actions taken by government, and the state of the economy that determines what the public thinks and does.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

I felt like this back in the days when the Watergate scandal slowly, painfully unraveled, revealing the most appalling stupidity and criminality emanating from the Oval Office. From the night when the burglars were arrested in the Democrat Committee headquarters on June 17, 1972 to the [...]]]> NASA’s Mission to the Muslims

By Alan Caruba

I felt like this back in the days when the Watergate scandal slowly, painfully unraveled, revealing the most appalling stupidity and criminality emanating from the Oval Office. From the night when the burglars were arrested in the Democrat Committee headquarters on June 17, 1972 to the day Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, Americans were forced to witness and endure something unthinkable.

The news that NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, had been dispatched to the Middle East to fulfill what he said was its “foremost” mission, “to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science…and math and engineering” was so appallingly stupid that it defied any legitimate reason for NASA to exist.

The other mission objectives Barack Obama charged Bolden with were to “re-inspire children to want to get into science and math” and to “expand our international relationships.”

You need a bit of history to lend some clarity to this. NASA was the direct result of the Cold War scare when the Russians put Sputnik into orbit over the Earth in October 1957, thereby demonstrating they had missiles powerful enough to launch a nuclear attack on the nation. It galvanized the U.S. government into passing the National Defense Education Act in order to get more young Americans to go into the fields of science and math, and it prompted the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the purpose of demonstrating American scientists and engineers could create bigger and better missiles.

Muslims had nothing to do with it then and nothing to do with it now.

In February, President Obama proposed that NASA abandon its Constellation program. As the New York Times reported at the time, it would involve abandoning “the rockets and spacecraft that NASA has been working on for the past four years to replace space shuttles.” It would impose a mandate “that any future exploration program will be an international collaboration”, not an American one.

NASA made news again in mid-June when it was announced that Obama’s amended budget request would slash $100 million from its operating funds in order to “spur economic growth and job creation along Florida’s Space Coast and other affected regions.” According to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, this somehow “revitalizes NASA and transitions to new opportunities in the space industry and beyond.” How many NASA engineers and scientists will now transition to jobs at Disneyworld?

Islam has not been “hijacked” by the likes of Osama bin Laden. Islam has always been about the conquest of the world and its greatest “scientific” breakthroughs since the 1980s have been the development of truck bombs and suicide bombers who have attacked targets from Bali to London, Madrid to Manhattan.

Obama’s Cairo speech on June 4, 2009 was filled with the kind of lies that portray Islam as a peaceful religion and one responsible for all manner of scientific breakthroughs from the invention of the magnetic compass to the printing of books.

Neither is true. What is true is that the Chinese had developed the compass and Islam had resisted printing books for a thousand years following its rise after 632AD.

Those under the oppression of Islam did not contribute to or experience the rise of science and the arts as both were rejected as un-Islamic. Many forms of music, for example, were banned in Islam. While the West was producing Galileo, Isaac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus, Aristotle, Rene Descartes and Albert Einstein, not one single scholar of comparable stature was produced in the Islamic world.

Contrary to Obama’s mission to reach out to Muslims, they “reached out” to the West and, in America on September 11, 2001, destroyed the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon, killing some 3,000 victims.

Typical of the arrogance of Islam is the proposal to build a mosque within a block of ground zero in New York City!

Building mosques over sites held sacred to non-Muslims is an long tradition of Islam, from the mosque built over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to the countless other mosques in converted Christian churches, Buddhist and Hindu temples, as a demonstration of their intention to replace Western and Asian religions.

Permitting the building of the proposed New York mosque would signal submission to Islam.

Perverting and defunding NASA’s mission is evidence of Obama’s commitment to Islam.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Much has happened in the dense and shifting political landscape of the past 18 months—the quick breakdown along partisan lines in Congress; continuing arguments over spending, the economy and immigration; the big Republican wins in Virginia, New [...]]]> The Town Hall Revolt, One Year Later

Democrats didn’t get the message. Will Republicans do better?

Much has happened in the dense and shifting political landscape of the past 18 months—the quick breakdown along partisan lines in Congress; continuing arguments over spending, the economy and immigration; the big Republican wins in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts; the Gulf oil spill; falling poll numbers for the president and his party.

But the biggest political moment, the one that carried the deepest implications, came exactly one year ago, in July and August of 2009, in the town hall rebellion. Looking back, that was a turning point in both parties’ fortunes. That is when the first resistance to Washington’s plans on health care became manifest, and it’s when a more generalized resistance rose and spread.

President Obama and his party in Congress had, during their first months in power, done the one thing they could not afford to do politically, and that was arouse and unite their opposition. The conservative movement and Republican Party had been left fractured and broken by the end of the Bush years. Now, suddenly, they had something to fight against together. Social conservatives hated the social provisions, liberty-minded conservatives the state control, economic conservatives the spending. Health care brought them together. The center, which had gone for Mr. Obama in 2008, joined them.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats saw it coming. But it was a seminal moment, and whatever is coming in November, it started there.

It was a largely self-generated uprising, and it was marked, wherever it happened, in San Diego or St. Louis, by certain common elements. The visiting senator or representative, gone home to visit the voters, always seemed shocked at the size of the audience and the depth of his constituents’ anger. There was usually a voter making a videotape in the back of the hall. There were almost always spirited speeches from voters. There was never, or not once that I saw, a strong and informed response from the congressman. In one way it was like the Iranian revolution: Most people got the earliest and fullest reports of what was happening on the Internet, through YouTube. Voters would take shaky videos on their cellphones and post them when they got home. Suddenly, over a matter of weeks, you could type in “town hall” and you’d get hundreds, and finally thousands, of choices.

The politicians, every one of them, seemed taken aback—shaken and unprepared. They tried various strategies—mollify the crowd, or try to explain to them how complex governing is. Sen. Arlen Specter tried that in early August 2009, in an appearance with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Faced with fierce criticism of the health-care bill as it then stood, Mr. Specter explained that see here, it’s a thousand-page bill and sometimes Congress must make judgements “very fast.” The crowd exploded in jeers.

When Rep. Russ Carnahan held a town hall meeting at a community college in Missouri on July 20, he tried patiently to explain that ObamaCare not only would be deficit-neutral, it would save money. They didn’t shout him down, they laughed. When Sen. Claire McCaskill appeared before a town hall meeting in Jefferson County, Mo., on Aug. 11, she responded to the crowd with words that sum up the moment: “I don’t get it. . . . I honestly don’t get it. . . . You don’t trust me?” “No!” the crowd roared.

When Rep. Brian Baird went before his constituents in Clark County, Wash., on Aug. 18, he was met by this speech from a young man in the audience: “I heard you say that you are going to let us keep our health insurance. Well thank you! It’s not your right to decide whether I keep my current plan or not, that’s my decision.” The constituent got cheers.

It was a real pushback, and it was fueled by indignation. The attitude was: “We have terrible worries—unemployment, the cost of government, its demands, our ability to compete and win in the world. You are focused on your thing, but we are focused on these things.”

The videos, still on YouTube, can be pretty stirring. There’s a real “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” feel about them. It was not only Democrats but Republicans too who felt the heat, and were surprised by it.

The president, of course, got his victory on health care. But a funny thing is, normally the press and the public judge a president’s effectiveness in large part by legislative victories—whether he has “the ability to get his program through Congress.” Winning brings winning, which increases popularity. Mr. Obama won on more than health care; he won on the stimulus package and the Detroit bailout. And yet his poll numbers continue to float downward. He is not more loved with victory. To an unusual and maybe unprecedented degree his victories seem like victories for him, and for his party, and for his agenda, but they haven’t settled in as broad triumphs that illustrate power and competence.

In the past an LBJ showed his mastery by taming and controlling Congress. Mr. Obama’s ability to work closely with the Democrats does not seem like evidence of mastery. The biggest single phrase you hear about him now, and it isn’t coming from pundits and being repeated, it is bubbling up from normal people and being seized by pundits, is the idea that he is in over his head, and out of his depth. And this while he keeps winning.

Nor is the left happy with him. In The Nation this week, Eric Alterman writes that most progressives agree “the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment.” No public option on health care, and labor unions, “among his most fervent and dedicated foot soldiers,” see card check as “deader than Jimmy Hoffa.” Is it possible the president “fooled gullible progressives during the election into believing he was a left-liberal partisan when in fact he is much closer to a conservative corporate shill”? Progressives, including two Mr. Alterman knows “who sport Nobel Prizes on their shelves” now feel this way.

Meanwhile some Republicans are feeling triumphalist, but it may be premature. At the moment they are beating up Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele for his comments on Afghanistan. What was wrong with what Mr. Steele said was obvious: Afghanistan was not Mr. Obama’s war of choice but a nine-year-old war the president has so far continued. But Afghanistan, like Iraq, is the meal he was served, not the meal he chose.

Far worse than Mr. Steele’s muddling of the facts is that he spoke in a way that suggested the war could be used as a political tool against the administration. He was approaching a grave matter—war—in a merely partisan and political manner. How cheap and hackish.

The Republicans still need to show that they are worthy of the electoral bounty that is likely to come their way. Are they ready to govern, or only to win? Part of being worthy is showing yourself capable of having serious and truly open debate. What, in the post-9/11 world, should be our overarching foreign policy? What is it we’re trying to accomplish? How should we try to get it done? What is the way out of our economic disaster? What must we do, how must we do it?

It’s hard for those who do politics as a profession not to get lost in the day-to-day, but if they don’t start thinking big and encouraging debate, they’re going to blow it, too. And they’ll find out at a town hall meeting in 2013. Or earlier.

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Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s greatest contribution to the war in Afghanistan may turn out to be forcing everyone to focus on it. The real news there this week was not Gen. McChrystal’s epic faux pas and dismissal but [...]]]> McChrystal Forces Us to Focus

Now Petraeus owes us a candid assessment of the Afghan effort.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s greatest contribution to the war in Afghanistan may turn out to be forcing everyone to focus on it. The real news there this week was not Gen. McChrystal’s epic faux pas and dismissal but that 12 soldiers were killed on June 7-8, including five Americans by a roadside bomb, making that “the deadliest 24 hour period this year,” as The Economist noted. Insurgency-related violence was up by 87% in the six months prior to March. Agence France-Presse reported Thursday that NATO forces are experiencing their deadliest month ever.

There have been signal moments in this war since its inception, and we are in the middle of one now.

It has gone on almost nine years. It began rightly, legitimately. On 9/11 we had been attacked, essentially, from Afghanistan, harborer of terrorists. We invaded and toppled the Taliban with dispatch, courage and even, for all our woundedness, brio. We all have unforgettable pictures in our minds. One of mine is the grainy footage of a U.S. cavalry charge, with local tribesman, against a Taliban stronghold. It left me cheering. You too, I bet.

But Washington soon took its eye off the ball, turning its focus and fervor to invading Iraq. Over the years, the problems in Afghanistan mounted. In 2009, amid a growing air of crisis, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates sacked the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan—institutional Army, maybe a little old-style. He was replaced by Gen. McChrystal—special forces background, black ops, an agile and resourceful snake eater. “Politicians love the mystique of these guys,” said a general this week. Snake eaters know it, and wind up being even more colorful, reveling in their ethos of bucking the system.

Last August, Gen. McChrystal produced, and someone leaked, a 66-page report warning of “mission failure.” More troops and new strategy were needed. The strategy, counterinsurgency, was adopted. That was a signal moment within a signal moment, for at the same time the president committed 30,000 more troops and set a deadline for departure, July 2011. The mission on the ground was expanded—counterinsurgency, also known as COIN, is nation building, and nation building is time- and troop-intensive—but the timeline for success was truncated.

COIN is a humane strategy not lacking in shrewdness: Don’t treat the people of a sovereign nation as if they just wandered across your battlefield. Instead, befriend them, consult them, build schools, give them an investment in peace. Only America, and God bless it, would try to take the hell out of war. But the new strategy involved lawyering up, requiring troops to receive permission before they hit targets. Some now-famous cases make clear this has endangered soldiers and damaged morale.

The Afghan government, on which COIN’s success hinges, is corrupt and unstable. That is their political context. But are we fully appreciating the political context of the war at home, in America?

The left doesn’t like this war and will only grow more opposed to it. The center sees that it has gone on longer than Vietnam, and “we’ve seen that movie before.” We’re in an economic crisis; can we afford this war? The right is probably going to start to peel off, not Washington policy intellectuals but people on the ground in America. There are many reasons for this. Their sons and nephews have come back from repeat tours full of doubts as to the possibility of victory, “whatever that is,” as we all now say. There is the brute political fact that the war is now President Obama’s. The blindly partisan will be only too happy to let him stew in it.

Republican leaders such as John McCain are stalwart: This war can be won. But there’s a sense when you watch Mr. McCain that he’s very much speaking for Mr. McCain, and McCainism. Republicans respect this attitude: “Never give in.” But people can respect what they choose not to follow. The other day Sen. Lindsey Graham, in ostensibly supportive remarks, said that Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. McChrystal’s replacement, “is our only hope.” If he can’t pull it out, “nobody can.” That’s not all that optimistic a statement.

The U.S. military is overstretched in every way, including emotionally and psychologically. The biggest takeaway from a week at U.S. Army War College in 2008 was the exhaustion of the officers. They are tired from repeat deployments, and their families are stretched to the limit, with children reaching 12 and 13 without a father at home.

The president himself is in a parlous position with regard to support, which means with regard to his ability to persuade, to be believed, to be followed. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows more people disapprove of Mr. Obama’s job performance than approve.

When he ran for president, Mr. Obama blasted Iraq but called Afghanistan the “good war.” This was in line with public opinion, and as a young Democratic progressive who hadn’t served in the military, he had to kick away from the old tie-dyed-hippie-lefty-peacenik hangover that dogs the Democratic Party to this day, even as heartless-warlike-bigot-in-plaid-golf-shorts dogs the Republicans. In 2009 he ordered a top-to-bottom review of Afghanistan. In his valuable and deeply reported book “The Promise,” Jonathan Alter offers new information on the review. A reader gets the sense it is meant to be reassuring—they’re doing a lot of thinking over there!—but for me it was not. The president seems to have thought government experts had answers, or rather reliable and comprehensive information that could be weighed and fully understood. But in Washington, agency analysts and experts don’t have answers, really. They have product. They have factoids. They have free-floating data. They have dots in a pointillist picture, but they’re not artists, they’re dot-makers.

More crucially, the president asked policy makers, in Mr. Alter’s words, “If the Taliban took Kabul and controlled Afghanistan, could it link up with Pakistan’s Taliban and threaten command and control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons?” The answer: Quite possibly yes. Mr. Alter: “Early on, the President eliminated withdrawal (from Afghanistan) as an option, in part because of a new classified study on what would happen to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal if the Islamabad government fell to the Taliban.”

That is always the heart-stopper in any conversation about Afghanistan, terrorists and Pakistan’s nukes. But the ins and outs of this question—what we know, for instance, about the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service, and its connections to terrorists—are not fully discussed. Which means a primary argument in the president’s arsenal is denied him.

It is within the context of all this mess that—well, Gen. Petraeus a week and a half ago, in giving Senate testimony on Afghanistan, appeared to faint. And Gen. McChrystal suicide-bombed his career. One of Gen. McChrystal’s aides, in the Rolling Stone interview, said that if Americans “started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular.”

Maybe we should find out. Gen. Petraeus’s confirmation hearings are set for next week. He is a careful man, but this is no time for discretion. What is needed now is a deep, even startling, even brute candor. The country can take it. It’s taken two wars. So can Gen. Petraeus. He can’t be fired because both his predecessors were, and because he’s Petraeus. In that sense he’s fireproof. Which is not what he’ll care about. He cares about doing what he can to make America safer in the world. That means being frank about a war that can be prosecuted only if the American people support it. They have focused. They’re ready to hear.

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