I’m excited to be part of an advisory group to new effort to look at the way the evolving landscape of media channels and content impacts the contemporary democratic experience in the U.S. Its something I’ve thought alot about since carrying out a research project for the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation about 5 years ago – we were looking at the ways democratic deliberation can better inform news coverage of urgent local, regional, national and international issues (think about it perhaps as if the media relied on how informed people talk about issues in representative groups at least as much as they do on opinion polls). In particular the way these stories are framed and the way public values are ascribed to trade-offs and policy alternatives.

Anyway, AP recently distributed an article on the public face of the effort:

Local News Loss Focus of New Commission

By JENNIFER C. KERRWASHINGTON (AP) — As people turn increasingly to the Internet for their news, there is concern whether they are learning enough about what goes on in their communities.

With “the thinning down of newspapers and local television in America, there is measurably less local, civic information available,” said Alberto Ibarguen, president and chief executive of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. “So what are the consequences of that?”

The foundation and the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, hope to find out.

They are setting up a commission, funded by the foundation, to analyze whether people are getting the local news they need to make decisions in their communities. The panel will make recommendations that might include actions by the Federal Communications Commission or tax policies aimed at helping communities better meet their information needs, said Ibarguen, former publisher of The Miami Herald.

The commission will be led by Theodore Olson, former solicitor general who represented George W. Bush before the Supreme Court in the contested 2000 presidential election, and Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google. The foundation said Olson was selected for his expertise in First Amendment issues and Mayer for her experience with new media and technologies.

About a dozen other members, including those with a journalism background, will be chosen.

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April, T.S. Elliot famously wrote, is the cruelest month. Like an inconstant lover perhaps, at least in the northern climes, it teases with hints of warm days to come, then retreats to separate quarters, letting the cold slip back again. Even without the early Crocus and Skunk Cabbage, the sweet smell of burning wood and steaming Maple vats mingles with the sour earth’s decay that begins its thaw.

So with that lovely imagery, perhaps its good to write about some of the goings on – it feels like years since I’ve sat to gather my thoughts. But reading through the regular musing of my high school classmate Ben Byerly, I was inspired to sit and muse a while this early day, and so here I offer April’s “downdate.”

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One of the fun pieces of work for the last couple of years is participating in the Green Mountain Film Festival – as an Operations Committee Member, a film viewer and as a participating artist. This year, working with two friends/colleagues who are both gifted – one is a clothing maker/costume designer and the other a wood worker and set designer – we are creating a large window installation for the festival that is a play on one of the early scenes from, “The Seventh Seal.”

In our scene adaptation, Death will play the festival’s mascot this year – a nubian goat that graces our poster, program and other advertisements – in a game of chess. Supposedly for the unlucky chevre’s soul, unless he proves the trickier master.

At the moment, my task is to create a likeness of the goat. Have developed a wireframe form that I sheathed in screen, and am now applying a layer of impressively-fast-drying plaster gauze. Once this is completed, I will tear up about a dozen pages of New York Times movie review add into strips which I’ll curl and apply as goaty tufts of fur. Its really fun!

Mine is the bottom right. The “cloud” text says,

Children of the earth
moulders of clay, movers of rock.

In making the tile, I was struck by how well the lighting worked between the girl and the cloudy background I’d painted. That was a pleasing result. The concept continues my interest in the representation of “fundamental” materials: stone, mud and clay, metal, wood, fibers, etc. Materials as archetypes of both process and meaning.

These days I am occupied – nearly obsessed – with an idea for a new social venture start-up in Vermont – a state that thrives on individual pluck within an awareness of the whole.  With luck, you would join a very small, very accomplished group of advisors to this new venture, all of whom have a track record of success starting businesses based on creativity and social value.

Here is a little background:

Rewind: Johannesburg 2004. After a carooming ride from Botswana  to South Africa with a group called Pioneers of Change (http://www.pioneersofchange.net) I met with young entrepreneurs in the city over the course of several days and was introduced the idea of “The Hub,” (http://www.the-hub.net) – a place for young people with ideas for the next generation of businesses to incubate their start-up in a relaxed environment, connected to a global network of individuals concerned with leaving the planet better off than we got it.

Okay, fast forward: Two things collide in my imagination over the last week. The first is my recent involvement in the Onion River Exchange, an exciting start-up that aims to connect people with talent and skills to share with people in need through volunteering. The second was an article in the do-gooder magazine ODE that profiled the nascent success of the The Hub idea and its plans for growth.

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