I’m like most ambitious political bloggers…I have a strong point of view and I not only want my readers to know it, but I want to reach the broadest possible audience. And in my case I want to do this not only here, but in Israel and really anywhere in the world that the conflict is major political currency. I relish my opportunities to commune with a larger audience. Until a year ago or so, I had a semi-regular gig doing that at Comment is Free. When that ended, I had a short-lived gig at Al Jazeera English until Firas Atrachi left his editor’s job there. For some time after those outlets stopped being interested in my work, I was not only frustrated and upset, I aggressively sought out other opportunities. I even got as far as a kill fee (but only after I asked for it upon rejection) for a piece commissioned by the London Review of Books!
And don’t get me wrong, I would go a long way for such gigs. But I’ve developed a grudging acceptance that my place may not be in the more MSM (and within this I unfortunately include the progressive media outlets which also uniformly have rejected my work). At least not as a bylined author. There may be many reasons for this. Maybe they’re important and worth cogitating about and maybe not.
In at least two recent instances, editors asked me to write pieces on spec for them without making any commitment that it would be published. I turned them down. I think those days are over. Gee, it would be nice to be published in a certain progressive national Jewish journal, but not if it first requires a crapshoot, not knowing if what I slave over will end up in print or in someone’s Deleted Items folder. Either it’s because I’m somehow beyond that or now I have the bully pulpit of this blog in a way I didn’t have until recently (more on this in the following paragraph).
Just because something I want like publication in the mainstream doesn’t happen doesn’t leave me by the wayside. In some sense, since the Anat Kamm story, I have found a focus for my work that I did not have previously. Now I understand that one of my most important contributions (thanks to an important collaborator) will be in tracking the vicissitudes of Israeli democracy through the particular lens of national security and its intelligence services. Who watches the spooks? In Israel, not terribly many.
But let’s return to how this post originated: I spend more time promoting this blog on Facebook than on Twitter since it seems to generate more traffic and more readers appear to be on Facebook and interact with the blog from it. So last night, I did something I do very rarely. I reviewed those 475 Twitter followers I have. And I was struck by something interesting. Quite a number of them were journalists. Yes, some were NGO staffers, one even a retired CEO of a major medical technology company, another a Jewish federation executive, and pretty dubiously the SecyClintonBlog (NOTE: sincere apologies to Stacy Beam, who created this blog, which has no affiliation with the State Dept., and who does not approve of Clinton’s approach to the I-P conflict).
But the journalists were what interested me since I’d already noticed a number of journalists who subscribed to this blog. One of most unlikely ones would appear to be the Israel correspondent for a certain American cable news company that is extremely fair and balanced. Not sure what she expects to find here unless perhaps stories that she can tell her New York bosses she would never cover.
Well, perhaps that subscriber is a bit more likely than the assistant coach for a certain NBA team that recently deserted Seattle (no fault of his, I might add) for greener pastures. I was also tickled that during my coverage of the Uri Blau-Anat Kamm story, Haaretz editor Dov Alfon started following my Tweets. I have no way of knowing whether this is true (though someone I respect who is quite cautious about these matters affirmed his conviction that it is true), but Alfon may possibly also have posted a critical comment on my coverage here using the rather elegant nom de plume of Schockentchick (as in “apparatchik”), which I at first glance misread as “Schocken chick,” leading me to wonder why a female Haaretz reporter would refer to herself in such an odd way.
Others that are more standard and follow this blog in some fashion include reporters for the BBC, The Independent, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post (and even a very senior editor, sha-shtill!), Time Magazine, Maan News, 7th Eye, PRI’s The World, and Think Progress.
While I was looking over this list I thought to myself: instead of following me, why don’t you actually incorporate more of my point of view into your reporting? When you look at some of the most prominent correspondents for the more reputable publications and look at who their informants are it makes one’s eyes glaze over. Yesterday, I linked to a piece by Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy on the settlement freeze extension negotiation. Who was his main informant? Robert Wexler. I kid you not. Wexler was Obama’s Florida’s Jewish errand boy for the last election campaign and left Congress nearly two years ago and for some reason is still a valued commentator. Not that I would begrudge Wexler if he had anything in the least illuminating to say. But it was the same standard, boring, soft-core drivel that you hear over and over from Administration hacks (or was that “flacks?”) who are spinning for one master or another.
Ethan Bronner too has been a pet peeve of mine in these pages as someone who drones on and often producing neither heat nor light. Why are these people afraid of introducing into the mix viewpoints less often heard? Of course, part of the reason is that the reporters themselves have a very limited range of vision for their subject and therefore naturally wouldn’t even think that a more challenging voice should be incorporated into the mix.
I should take a modest step back here to acknowledge that since I’ve begun reporting more intensively on Israeli intelligence matters my blog has been picked up more widely in sources like the N.Y. Times and all the major Israeli publications with the exception of the erstwhile liberal one, Haaretz (go figure). I’ve been interviewed and/or profiled by media in Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, and Israel. In a sense I even owe that hated emblem of Iraq-era reporting, Judith Miller, a major shout out. She discovered my reporting on Anat Kamm and featured it in The Daily Beast. Yes, I’m sorry to say that at times in this day and age it requires a celebrity journalist to really break a story. And sometimes you even learn to trust a reporter whose politics you may disagree with to do the right thing on this particular story. Had she not taken this up, the Israeli press wouldn’t have reached a critical mass of publicly-expressed ridicule that led to the Shabak relenting on Kamm’s gag order. Had they not done so, who knows whether Kamm might still be under secret detention facing a life sentence.
Another post that spurred some of my thinking on this was Phil Weiss’ report of a talk given by the estimable Israeli blogger and freelance journalist, Noam Sheizaf of Promised Land. Noam seems to really be feeling to power of his own blog to impact the public political and media discourse, which led him to say (I’m including some of Phil’s set-up):
He [Noam] told us of his own success. Reporters at the New York Times and Politico follow him on twitter; this would have been incomprehensible to him as a young journalist, that he would ever have that type of influence inside the Beltway:
“And this is what I wanted, to have a political impact. Blogging is not just reporting, it is engaged reporting. We are engaged in an internal battle in Israel. I’m using these tools of facebook and twitter to push something…
“I live-blogged [the flotilla] for four days from the Hebrew media. Traffic to my site went up ten times. [It took the IDF five hours to get out its version of the story.] And those five hours framed much of how the story was handled and Israel has done damage control since then. And I understand why Hamas has said, the flotilla is better than 10,000 rockets.”
Sheizaf’s pieces have been linked by the The Washington Post and The New York Times, but those links are chopped liver next to Glenn Greenwald. “When Glenn Greenwald said, go to this guy on Twitter– Glenn Greenwald is like a mega important person on the net, who is hardly known in the mainstream… Social media changes everything in the game.”
I should make clear that while I’m very sympathetic to Noam’s narrative and believed it at one time myself (and in fact, wrote a chapter, The Blogging Wars, for the Independent Jewish Voices book, A Time to Speak Out, on precisely this subject making almost precisely this claim), I’m no longer so sure he’s right. Or at least, not so sure he’s right in the way he thinks he is.
Yes, as bloggers we are earning a larger share of the “pie” of public attention for our reporting. This is happening, in my estimation, because of the desperation of current political circumstances which are turning both the MSM and their normal readers to new and different alternative sources. It’s also happening because more and more the mainstream reporters don’t have the goods and we do. We’re breaking stories that either they used to break, or that they can’t break, or that their editors have no interest in letting them break.
But I’m not sure that we’re really impacting the MSM in any real or serious way. That we’re impacting the overall discourse, of that I am sure. But really how much does having a NY Times or Politico reporter follow you on Twitter indicate in terms of whether you’re penetrating the Beltway political haze? And yes, Glenn Greenwald, when he does report on the conflict does excellent work, but he hardly seems engaged in any serious way with the work of those of us who are on the firing line doing this sort of original reporting. That Greenwald plugged Noam’s Twitter feed is terrific. But how much does it all mean?
So, my main question to all of you is what do we as bloggers with distinctive, important political voices rarely heard in the mainstream want from them? What do we have the right to expect? And how should we go about getting it? My conviction is that there is now a critical mass of progressive blog reporting on the Israeli-Arab conflict that deserves wider circulation and prominence. Some of us like Ali Abunimah seem to make their own breaks and turn their operations into spectacularly successful platforms to disseminate their perspective. Others of us seem to fight and struggle for every scrap of recognition that comes our way. My question is how do we do more of the former and less of the latter? How do we make those breaks for ourselves? Or will those breaks come to those of us who, to parapharse Milton, serve by standing and waiting, all the while doing the hard slog of reporting those stories that no one else can, or knows how to report?
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- Blogger Sheizaf would rather write about cinema, but he has been called to witness a great crime (mondoweiss.net)
“what do we as bloggers … want from them? What do we have the right to expect? And how should we go about getting it? ”
Well, I think there’s a problem here because for your main audience you fit the criteria of The Enemy – You’re a Jew and an American. So, to reach the main media, you should use an Arab pen name and translate your blog to Arabic.
You have no idea what is my “main audience.” It’s not Arabs or Muslims in case that was your assumption. My main audience is human beings. Am I the ‘Enemy’ of human beings?? And even tose who are Muslim do not see me as “the Enemy.” I’m afraid these ‘problems’ are all in YOUR head & NOT my audience’s.
I’m speaking marketing wise. Audience has a double meaning. I’m not talking about the people YOU are addressing, but about the potential “clients” to your blog.
Segmenting your potential clients I think there are:
“The Richard-s”: “the progressives”. Left thinking, probably Jews (so they’re interested in Israel), possibly other left wing intellectuals.
“The Avi-s”: People opposing your views. Again (and for the same reasons but even more so) Jews. Possibly some Israelis.
“The Others”
Now, who are the others? By definition they’re not Jews (because those were covered above). They are interested enough in Israel to read a blog that’s very Israel centered. They sympathize with the message of the blog which, according to what I’ve read, is criticizing Israel.
Ask any marketing man who those others are.
Get a Muslim Arab friend as a “front” and publicize your posts translated to Arabic. You might be a hit.
(P.S. – If you have any demographics of your blog that contradict what I’ve written above – I’d be delighted to read them).
Regardless of what I think about your proposed idea, your logic is flawed. You think the blog does not currently reach its potential “mainstream audience” because it is not written in Arabic. And then you say you’d be delighted to read the blog’s statistics and find out they contradict your notion that a large chunk of the audience is fluent in Arabic. Wouldn’t you need to have the blog translated first?
I don’t much go in for “fronts.” I don’t know whether you understand the highly negative connotation of the word in English, but fronts don’t work well whether they’re exploited by the MFA, Mossad or anyone else. As for Arab audience, I think I prob. have a pretty substantial Arab-Muslim audience (not maybe compared to an Arab or Muslim blog, but compared to a non-Arab, non-Muslim blog). I can tell I have readers in a number of Muslim countries. Haven’t checked my Alexa country rankings but I imagine they would confirm this.
@Richard: My English isn’t the best but I was aware of the Woody Allen’s movie “the front” where the hero served as a front to blacklisted authors – a positive connotation.
@Shai: Richard’s current readers are (I believe) Jews, Israelis and (as confirmed by Richard) Arab-Muslims. What I’m saying is that because of Anti-American Anti-Jewish sentiments in the Arab-Muslims segment, the segment could explode (pun intended) if the blog’s message was from a non-American, non-Jewish source.
Ah well, in the context in which you used the term relating to having an Arab or Muslim “front”, & as it would relate to me or my reputation it would be quite negative. But I understand that you associated it with a film in which Woody Allen being a “front” was actually a good thing in the context of a very bad situation.
But generally, intelligence agencies like Mossad & CIA use “fronts” all the time. A pretty negative term generally in English.
“They sympathize with the message of the blog which, according to what I’ve read, is criticizing Israel.
Ask any marketing man who those others are.”
Are you saying that any non-Jewish person interested in criticism of Israel is likely to be an Arab or did you have anti-semites in mind? Now both of those groups would be interested in criticism of Israel, but there are also others–for instance (and this is just one example of several I could think of), Americans who don’t like it when our country supports large-scale human rights violations. I’d personally be less interested in Israel’s violations if we weren’t so tightly linked to what they do.
Richard,
These are some great reflections. Without a doubt, the images that control the minds no longer come only from large, regulated cash cow enterprises known as News Corp. or whatnot or on the pages of the Old Grey Lady, but rather, from the uncontrollable, vastly unlimited, but globally interconnected real-time Internet. Indeed, this new medium has changed the definition of what it means to be a journalist forever. With a computer and an internet connection, anyone can break the latest video, pictures, stories, sounds and images from major world events in real time. Literally, rather than hear the recollection of the story from a reporter in front of a camera with a slideshow and voice over, one can actually empathize with someone RIGHT IN THE THICK of an uprising for freedom in Iran and see their videos as they upload them from their mobile phones.
So, as it turns out, you are the next iteration of the mainstream media. Without your blog and those of others, there would be only one narrative. God knows what the IDF or Knesset would do if humanity didn’t have heroes like you to hold them accountable for it. If they didn’t think the Mavi Marmara was an evil act, they surely won’t do it again anyway thanks to the fact that you and others held them accountable on these blogs (even for their cover up in the aftermath) and forced them to concentrate on hiring amateur public relations people to cover up instead of taking responsibility for their mistake and not shattering their global image further (by acting defiant, even in the face of evidenced guilt).
I’m surprised you’ve not had more success with some of the progressive press. You do good work and the Nation, at least, supports Phil Weiss to some extent (unless I’m mistaken).
As for the MSM, they are the “enemy”, so to speak. I’m pleasantly shocked to see anyone or anything decent published in their pages on human rights issues when the US or one of its close allies (like Israel) are involved. It happens, of course, but more often one sees the story diluted or reported in some whitewashed fashion. You or people with your views will get regular access to (for example) the NYT opinion pages when or if enough mainstream political figures begin saying openly that Israel’s behavior is harmful to our national interest (a phrase I hate, but that’s how those people talk).
Actually, Phil’s blog is part of the Nation Institute family & he’s written at least one cover story for The Nation. Haven’t had any success with the Nation. They ran one piece of mine online but only after accepting it then not running it, w. me all along hectoring them about when it would run. It finally did, but my pride was wounded & I won’t do that again. I should add that they’ve also rejected many queries.
Yeah, that’s what I don’t get. Phil is good, but so are you. Maybe they think they just need one person in that niche, but I ‘m just guessing. In your shoes I’d feel the way you do.
Um, that said, I hope you don’t let it get to you too much. Take some comfort in the fact that a fair number of people interested in the subject recognize the worth of your blog.
I do, of course I do & thanks for yr encouragement.
Phil has been a professional journalist in NY for decades. So he’s got that territory covered. I’m essentially an outsider.
Here’s an article that will ruin your day. If you want to get in good with the MSM better switch over to the Tea Party, and the more out of touch you can be with reality, the bigger your pool of advertisers:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/29/what-rush-wants-now-and-in-2012.html