Wagons East

I have thrilling, and sad, news to share today. Thrilling, later this month I’ll begin working for the Knight Foundation, in August I’ll move to Washington, DC. I’ve come to learn that there is no better place for someone interested in the Internet  and society than DC– many of the most innovative NGOs, start-ups–nonprofits and for-profit, media organizations and, of course, government folks are there. And, if you have followed the Internet much you know that Knight is the field leader and that I’m going to be joining a great team– and stepping into large shoes. I can’t wait.

The sad part is that I’ll be leaving Chicago and a job that I love at the MacArthur Foundation. The last 6 years have been some of the most eventful of my life: I got married, had a baby, spent a magical November evening in Grant Park, became meat eater. All this while having a job that I would pay to do, working with smart people in an array of fields. Macfound’s a special place and I’ll miss it.

Expect a trail of #thingsIllmissaboutchicago lamentations on Twitter as well as pleadings for #nuevodad assistance in DC. (How do I raise a Bears fan in Redskin territory?)

On David Remnick’s Obama and Chicago

In The Bridge, David Remnick’s central concern is the Obama story as part of the African American experience. Though a fan of his stewardship of the New Yorker, I’ve never cared much for his writing. Happily, The Bridge is not only the best book I’ve read on Obama et al, but also the most detailed look at post-Daley Chicago politics I’ve seen since Gary Rivlin’s 1992 Fire on the Prairie.

Remnick emphasizes how Obama extended the legacy of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first (and only elected) Black mayor. “The first African-American President could only have come from Chicago,” says Timuel Black. Remnick South Side politico Al Kindle saying that Obama’s model for political leadership  ”was the flip side of what Harold Washington couldn’t be because the city back then was too divided racially. At this point in history, the city was less overtly racist and we didn’t have the same lightning-rod politicians like Eddie Vrdolyak who organized on the basis of race. Obama became the next generation.”

Obama experience the racial and political drama of 1980s Chicago. He arrived in town more than a year into Washington’s tenure and was present when it ended. Remnick says that Obama was among the protesters at City Hall that chaotic November night when Aldermen Dick Mell and Eddie Burke orchestrated Eugene Sawyer’s appointment as the late-Washington’s successor.

Remnick also has nuggets from 1990s and early 00s Chitown politics. He spends time with Obama’s Springfield mentor Emil Jones–”an old-sytle appartchik…gruff, earthy, and a chain smoker;” son of a 34^th ward precinct captain and his bete noire in the State Senate, Rickey Hendon.  Hendon reflects on an argument between the two Senators that almost turned violent. “It probably would have been the end of my career if I’d lost…I couldn’t go back to the west side getting beat up by a guy from Harvard. Or from the South Side.”

Despite these vignettes, The Bridge has more than its share of errors. Here’s some of what the fact-checker missed:

• George Ryan was elected Governor in 1998, not 1999.
• In trying to show how Richard M. Daley had worked to cultivate a broad political base, Remnick credits him with be the first Chicago mayor to march in the Gay Pride Parade. In its tribute to Harold Washington, the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame notes that Washington spoke at post-parade rallies each year of his tenure beginning in 1984. (I recall photos of him marching, but can’t find a link.)
• In discussing Obama’s 2003 build up to run for the Senate, Remnick describes his efforts “play ball” with Daley, who “had transformed the Loop, building projects like Millennium Park.” The much-delayed and over-budget Millennium Park was not finished until the summer of 2004, 10 days before Obama’s national political career was launched at the Democratic Convention.
• Perhaps most egregious of all, Remnick refers to “Manny’s, a deli on the near North Side.” (on the near South Side. mmmm.)
• In referring to a possible “Fishtown Effect,” Remnick calls the Philadelphia neighborhood, located just north of Center City a “suburb. (Isaiah Thompson explored the Effect for the Philadelphia City Paper.)

The Bridge was also the first non-fiction book I read on my iPad– I managed the 672 pages more quickly that I would have the hard-back. (In fact, I’d no idea the book was that long until I heard Brian Lehrer chide Remnick for his verbosity last week.)

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Internet

The Internet is pretty neat, but this week I’ve been thinking about its dark side. I’m fairly sure that my negative thoughts have nothing to do with the iPad. (Like Steven Johnson and Dan Sinker, I’m more excited by what it portends than I am worried by the lack of generativity.)

None of the phenomena described below are news to anyone who has been paying attention. Often we get so excited about technology’s potential that we fail to think critically about what it can and cannot do and we do not fully account for its seamier sides. (Or maybe I’m just not getting enough sleep.”

Things I saw this week that put me in this state of mind:

• As reported by John Markoff in the NYT, the Information Warfare Monitor and the Shadowserver Foundation uncovered a “Shadow Network” that “systematically hacked into personal computers in government offices on several continents.” The Shadows in the Cloud report “illustrates the increasingly dangerous ecosystem of crime and espionage and its embeddedness in the fabric of global cyberspace.”
• North Korea reportedly has developed Red Star,  an operating system “aimed at monitoring user activity.”
• Hundreds of WordPress users have been victimized by the Networkads malware attack.
• A copy of Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace by the Open Net Initiative arrived in my inbox. “As the Internet has grown in political significance, an architecture of control– through technology, regulation, norms and political calculs– has emerged to shape a new geopolitical information landscape,” write Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski in their introduction.  ”First-generation filtering techniques may be gradually superseded by a variety of second-generation controls that are more subtle and fluid and deeply integrated into social relations…”
• Jenny C. Aker and Isaac M. Mbiti  look at the impact of mobile phones in Africa. They found “some good reasons to believe that mobile phones could be the gateway to better lives and livelihoods for poor people.” However, they also point to the ”larger problem of infrastructure and governance…problems that investment in telecommunications alone cannot solve. Mobile phones…cannot replace crucial public goods such as roads, power, and water.
• The announced iPhone ad network is more than a way for Apple to “help our developers make money so they can survive and keep the prices of their apps reasonable.” Kim-Mai Cutler notes that location-sensitive iAds could target you based on years and years of your location history…I could push you a coupon to a Starbucks if you’re standing near one now. Or I could push you coupons at certain times of the day, knowing your habitual route to work or your occasional penchant for dropping into a Starbucks at 3 p.m. on Wednesdays.”
• During a panel discussion at Columbia College, Dan Sinker reminded me of a study (“Home Computer Use and the Development of Human Capital” by Ofer Malamud and Cristian Pop-Eleches) that found a correlation between computer use and lower grades in math and science.

On Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget

The first time I remember hearing about the internet was in a Wall Street Journal article about Jaron Lanier circa 1990.  So my ears perked up when Benjamen Walker interviewed him in in his Too Much Information episode on Anonymous.  I finally picked up his new book, You Are Not a Gadget, last week, its the most interesting tech-related I’ve book I’ve read this year. (n=3 or 4, I’d guess.)  Some takeaways:

• “People have often respected bits too much, resulting in a creeping degradation of their own qualities as human beings.”
• Lanier loves the Internet, the Web, not so much.
• Social networks are stressful. “Young people…must manage their online reputations constantly, avoiding the ever-roaming evil eye of the hive mind, which can turn on an individual at any moment.”
• He a “list of suggestions” of ways we can use the Internet in more healthy and deeper ways.  Can’t say I’ve done any of them.
  • “Don’t post anonymously unless you really might be in danger.”
  • Rather than merely contributing to Wikipedia, use your own voice to share your expertise.
  • Create a site that doesn’t build off  social networking template.
  • Post a video “that took you one hundred more times to create than it takes to view.”
  • “Write a blog post that took weeks of reflection…”
  • On Twitter, “find a way to describe your internal state instead of trivial external events.”
• He’s worried about more than Tea Parties and Krygyzstan here:  ”[W]ith millions of people connected through a medium that sometimes brings out their worst tendencies, massive, fascist-style mobs could rise up suddenly. I worry about the next generation of young people around the world growing up with internet-based technology that emphasizes crowd aggregation, as is the current fad.

Yes, there’s some goofiness and hyperbole in Gadget, but its a thoughtful set of reflections from a technologist who cares more about people than he does machines.

Beyond bookmarks

Every now and then, a friend asks me which sites I read regularly. That’s an increasingly difficult question to answer, as my news consumption is driven by what others highlight in Google Reader, Twitter and Facebook and via IM and email. (At least that’s my impression, only my browser knows the true Internet me.) The only media bookmarks in my toolbar are Andrew Sullivan and, recently, Media Gazer; the only one I use on my phone is the New York Times. So how to respond to the latest query, from a friend who’s recently entered the journalism world and is looking to add key industry sites to her online diet? I don’t know where to direct her,  other than to social networks and obvious field leaders like Romenesko and TechCrunch? (Maybe when my 3g iPad arrives I’ll go back to visiting web sites– at least until Google Reader for the iPad works.)

On distributed trust, identity, reputation and anonymity

{Updated} ”I think the big deal online will be distributed trust,” opined Craig Newmark recently in an interview with Mathew Ingram. Stowe Boyd expanded on Craig’s thoughts yesterday:

How might a [distributed model of trust] system work? …The open follower model (a la Twitter) is likely to be the dominant social motif of most web apps, … the algorithm for calculating trust should be completely open, or completely closed…I agree with Newmark that it would be useful — and potentially radical — to have a trusted trust framework that is not controlled by a market player — like Google or Yahoo — or any government. Newmark suggests there might be a role for government in such a system, but in a public-private setting, where checks and balances involved non-governmental groups.

Howard Owens, along with Ingram, Alex Howard and others picked up the discussion today on Twitter. Unfortunately, they didn’t use a hash tag, so there’s no easy way to point to their discussion (here’s a link to the Owens/Ingram exchanges). Luckily, a vacationing Ingram took time away from shuffleboard and bocci ball to author a 1,000 word summary of  the day’s exchanges with the post Anonymous Comments: Are They Good or Evil?  (I guess neither he nor Howard is a basketball fan.)

In a nutshell, Howard said that anonymous comments were an abomination (I’m paraphrasing somewhat) and were in fact unethical, since commenters on a news site had a “fundamental right” to know the identity of the other people commenting. I tried to make a number of points, including the fact that anonymity is a red herring, and that the more important thing in encouraging a strong and healthy community conversation is standards of behaviour, regardless of anonymity. …It is virtually impossible to actually verify someone’s identity online…I believe that one of the principles of running a media site is that you should open up interaction to as many people as possible….Persistent (and quasi-verified) identity agents like Facebook Connect and OpenID can help with some of the problems that online comments have …

The series of exchanges reminded me of a series of conversations I had last weekend in Austin. Without betraying any confidences,  some awesome people are thinking creatively about ways to help us to understand, share and improve, our online identities and reputation. Hopefully, some news organizations, besides Owens’ Batavian, are thinking along the same lines.

[Update 1] I inadvertently left out the other piece that kicked off these reputation conversations this weekend, Sarah Lacy’s interview with John Temple, the editor of the Pierre Omidyar local news project that everyone’s talking about.

For a site that intends to be very community oriented, there was one big shocker: Peer will not have comments. “(Comments) descend into racism, hate, ugliness and reflect badly on news organizations that have them,” said Temple. Why? Because people do not have to show their faces when they comment so there’s no sense of responsibility, he argued. “We think anonymity is a huge problem when it comes to comments,” he said.

[Update 2] Mathew pointed to this post by Steve Buttry, who wants it both ways.

In Washington, we have lots of government workers or workers for government contractors or nonprofit associations who might be actually barred or strongly inhibited from commenting publicly on some issues. I wonder if we can have it both ways. How would it work to provide an incentive for people submitting to some form of verified identity or registering through Facebook Connect (not verified, but Facebook is a place where most people identify themselves accurately)?

On Ken Auletta’s Googled

I admit it, I was predisposed to hate Ken Auletta’s Googled: The End of the World As We Know It, so I was oddly disappointed when it turned out to be the best book I’ve read on the company.

Auletta’s an excellent journalist, but he’s a tendency towards hero worship and a “great men” view of history. His fascination with media moguls contrasts with Jonathan A. Knee, Bruce C. Greenwald and Ava Seave’s The Curse of the Mogul: The Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong with the World’s Leading Media Companies, which argues that the “peculiarly American paranoia about the media industry’s ability and inclination to mold the national psyche” gives it unwarranted prominence in our culture. Auletta was the Boswell of the “synergistic” media titans of the responsible for “The Information Superhighway.” While the Web was emerging as a mass medium in the late 90s Auletta was focused on Barry Diller and John Malone’s power lunches at Michael’s.  Auletta published a set of his mid-90s New Yorker articles in the 1997 book The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway. (Like its namesake supergroup, The Highwaymen centers on fading stars who failed to stay up with the times.) The book has two references to Netscape—one made in passing by Michael Kinsley and one by Auletta, who describes it as “the software company that developed a product that simplified access to the Internet.” The Web, Marc Andreesen and Tim Berners-Lee do not appear anywhere in the index; “Internet” is mentioned 8 times, 4 times more than “Ice-T.”

I loved Highwaymen when it came out and can’t blame Auletta for not understanding the full impact of the Web. It’s to Auletta’s credit that so much of the book still resonates 13 years later– others are still a bit out of tune:

Changes in the way we communicate will be profound. Elementary-school children will not only read and be told about ancient Egypt, they will experience it by summoning virtual images of pyramids and figuratively floating along the Nile. With electronic tools, more citizens will work at home. Corporations will become less hierarchical as middle managers and others begin to talk directly to CEOs through e-mail. Many layers of management will become superfluous. File cabinets will be discarded, as information will be stored in computer files. In unpredictable ways, computers will alter the importance of geographic proximity—and reshape cities. Work, and play, will be transformed.

The most interesting chapter in Highwaymen , and the most quaint, is Jumping Off a Bridge: Microsoft, and Michael Kinsely, Enter Cyberspace, from  May, 1996.  Auletta explains how to access Slate online: “Those who subscribe… will connect to the Internet and type ‘http://www.slate.com,’ and it will appear….Kinsley and his team planned to have hyperlinks, or highlighted words, accompany certain articles, so that readers could click on them.”

Googled seems to be Auletta’s attempt to make amends for all he missed in the early days of the Internet when he was hanging out in Sun Valley and Manhattan lunch spots. Auletta wasn’t alone in his failure to understand the implications of the Internet. To him “the burgeoning Internet” was merely another platform for  “the entertainment/information business” that was his terra firma. Thirteen years after Highwaymen, Auletta still has plenty of old-media analysis to include in Googled. The book’s narrative thread, however, is firmly set in Mountain View. (He sequesters most of the old media voices into two chapters, “Is ‘Old’ Media Drowning” and “Where is the Wave Taking Old Media.”)

Googled works not because of Auletta’s old media framing, but because of his ability to access and get good stories out of Eric Schmidt, early Googlers and, to a lesser degree, Seregy Brin and Larry Page.

The book opens with a discussion of old media’s failure to adjust to the web—“The media buzzwords were convergence and synergy.” Auletta does not acknowledge his role in building the buzz for those concepts.

Auletta describes the hubris that so many old, and more than a few new, media figures see in Google. One telling vignette derived from an exchange in which Brin “playfully ribbed me for writing this book. ‘People don’t buy books,’ he said…. ‘You might make more money if you put it online…More people will read it and get excited about it.’ Auletta responded with many reasons why that wouldn’t work: how could he report the book without a publisher’s advance? “With no publisher, who would edit and then copyright the book?…The usually voluble Brin grew quiet, ready to change the subject.”

Auletta foreshadows some 2010 Google developments.

The seeds of Buzz: “Although it has a broader base of data, social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Ning, or Linkedin retain more in-depth information about individuals and their community of friends.”

China In Highwaymen, Auletta wrote optimistically that “the government of China cannot block access to the Internet, anymore than the Communist governments of Eastern Europe could seal their borders against faxes and telephones and satellites.” In Googled he describes a World Economic Forum exchange in which Singaporean and Iranian officials spoke in favor of a regulated Internet. “This exchange was a reminder that ‘common values’ are not always common, and that Google, whose mission is to share and make the world’s information accessible, will always have government bears to contend with.”

Auletta chooses to use Google’s vaunted 20% time to question the company’s maturity.  Auletta reports on a COO “of an old media company” asking a Google tour guide about the practice. “Has there ever been a product started where someone said, ‘OK, it’s not what we thought it was. We should get rid of it.’? ‘I don’t think so,’ answered their tour guide….’This is a company that doesn’t set priorites,’ said another former Google executive.

I was hoping for more, as I’ve been curious about how 20% time is being used by other organizations—non-engineering companies in particular.  (I’ve only had one such report, that John Palfrey has introduced 20% at the Harvard Law Library.) After reading this week’s blog posts by Toni Schneider and Rob Paterson on the benefits of distributed companies, I’m curious to learn more about how virtualpractices are being used by non-geek companies.

Oops, and 10 conclusions from the Illinois Primary

With turnout of less than 30%, I’m loathe to draw many conclusions from Tuesday’s primary vote. Among the few things I do know:

1. I, along with 213,000 other voters, screwed up and now the Democratic Party is trying to figure out how to dump the roided-up, woman-bashing pawn shop king Scott Lee Cohen from the Lt. Governor spot we gave him.  I was influenced by all those ads “job fair” ads on sports radio enough to give him the nod on the blog– but don’t blame me: I voted for Rickey Hendon.

2. Some political science student somewhere is going to have a fun figuring out the impact of Dan Hynes’ Harold Washington ad. I haven’t seen the numbers but my guess is that the hubabuloo and crocodile tears Pat Quinn brought on in response to the ad helped him.

3. Andy McKenna and Dan Hynes will likely never run for anything again– though at least McKenna didn’t cry.

4. Pat Quinn’s chances for re-election hinge on Bill Brady’s 420 vote lead. Moderate Republican Kirk Dillard would mop the floor with the inconsistent Quinn. Brady, on the other hand, is far enough out of the mainstream (pro-Creationism, voted against a bill to outlaw anti-gay discrimination, opposes abortion in cases of rape and incest, doesn’t believe in global warming) that even Quinn will stand a fighting chance.

5. About two-fifth of the GOP electorate voted for one of the hard-core conservatives in the race, Brady, Andrzejewski and Proft.

6. Andrzejewski would have been a better investment among the tea party crowd then was Patrick Hughes in the Senate race. The push he received from Rush Limbaugh et al in the final days could have propelled him more had it come earlier.

7. I’ve had Charles McGrath’s New Yorker look at the Tea Party movement on my mind all week.

8. The SEIU is a force to reckon with in Illinois politics. Giannoulias, Quinn and Preckwinkle all had their endorsements. Of course, the SEIU is also responsible for giving u Rod Blagojevich.

8b. The Cook County Democratic Party remains the force to reckon with in Illinois politics, at least for another few months. Each of the candidates it supported in statewide races won.

9. Despite all the hopeful nattering of Logan Square progressive bke-rider set, Mayor Daley is unlikely to face a serious challenge in 2011– not even if the SEIU opposes him.

10. Alexi Giannoulias is in for a tough race against Mark Kirk. Consider the difference in style, and relevancy, of the initial two ads from the Republican and Democratic Senatorial Campaign committees:

First, the GOP ad:

And the Dems’ entry:

My Illinois Primary Ballot

Joe Germuska and his Tribune Interactive colleagues built Election Center as a catch-all for election stories and info. The most interesting part is the Ballot Builder, which allows you to sketch out your vote and share it over Twitter or Facebook, if you dare. Not many have: I count 6 mentions on Twitter. (Kind of odd. In an era of ubiquitous sharing, I’d think sharing your vote would be a natural. Presumably, if you think highly enough of someone to vote for them, you’d like others to do so as well. Perhaps the cultural legacy of the secret ballot outweighs that.)

Even my most civically-engaged friends have not been following this election, I suspect that a good chunk of the people who’ll vote tomorrow are deciding in the last hours. To help out, here are my picks. I’ll walk through the races from the bottom-up, as those are the races people are following the least. (I skipped the judge races altogether, you’re better off checking the recommendations of the Chicago Bar Association, though maybe they can get someone from Tribune Interactive to help make their list more web-friendly.)

For Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner, I’ll be happily voting for Todd Connor. I’ve been impressed by Todd when I’ve seen him around town and what I’ve learned from his consistent Twitter presence.  He’ll bring a smart, good government approach to an agency that has a legacy of nepotism and corruption.  He also sports an impressive list of endorsers– though beware the pop-up audio on his site. I’ll also be voting for Mariyana Spyropoulos, the only other candidate I’ve looked into. She was appointed to the position by Gov. Quinn, and like Todd, has an impressive slate of endorsements, including both newspapers, and should be a voice for independence.

I’m voting for Tom Dart and David Orr out of appreciation for the jobs they’ve done. In the Assessor’s race, I’m voting for Ray Figueroa. Not because he was jumped last week, allegedly by thugs associated with his opponent, Berrios. In short, he gets my vote because both of his opponents are ethically-challenged hacks. (The Tribune editorial board explains its support for Figueroa.)

For County Board President, Toni Preckwinkle is far-and-away the best choice. Take a gander at the recent “candidates forum” on Chicago Tonight, Preckwinkle is an adult among adolescents.)

I’m in the Illinois 7th Senate district. After some research, including help via Twitter, I’ve decided to vote for Jim Madigan. I probably agree with the incumbent Heather Steans on most issues, but the manner in which she was appointed to her position, her history of strong support for Rod Blagojevich, and a (perhaps irrational) sense of anti-incumbent fervor has me supporting Madigan. (David Ormsby has a post critical of both candidates.)

I tend to skip races where there is no opposition– but I’ll pull  levers for Jan Schakowsky and Lisa Madigan.

I’m voting for Justin Oberman, Raja Krishnamoorthi, and (tossing coing) Scott Lee Cohen for Treasurer, Comptroller and Lt. Governor, respectfully. I’m most enthusiastic about Raja, least enthusiastic about my Lt. Governor vote, a position I’d vote to abolish.

A month ago, Pat Quinn would have had my vote. As the vote has neared, I’ve seen him as a dithering, grandstanding, thin-skinned, race-card playing professional politician. Dan Hynes’ Harold Washington ad, below,  is the most influential local political ad I’ve seen in awhile (since Harold’s own lakefront walk ad, perhaps.) But as influential, if not more so, has been Quinn’s over-the-top reaction to the ad and his enlistment of a group of aging pols pining for the race politics of the 1980s. I appreciate that Dan Hynes is thinking about tax reform, and think he’s a much better chance at winning in November.  Should Quinn win the nomination, I’ll certainly take a long look at the GOP choice, as will many other normally consistent Dem voters.

Unlike the Governor’s race, I’d be happy to see any of the three as my Senator.  Cheryle Jackson has received the least attention, as David Hoffman and Alexi Giannoulias have gone after each other, but she’s run well. Should she lose, but finish strong, I’d add her name 2011 daydream lists local political junkies keep drawing up. And Giannoulias–  young, smart, and empathic– could be a great Senator. That said, in the political environment that is early 2010, I think Hoffman stands the best chance of winning in November, and I’m sticking to the call I made last fall.

But don’t take my word for it: Progress Illinois has put together its own guide to the Democratic ballot; WBEZ’s “Election File” has a lot of resources– including this fun look at election judge training by Sam Hudzik. Steve Rhodes has his own Election-eve summary.

A lot of lurching: Gabriel Sherman on the Washington Post’s Demise

It took me a few days, but last night I finally got to Gabriel Sherman’s Post-Apocalypse, an autopsy of the Washington Post.) Andrew Beaujon notes that “Sherman’s Twitter feed has a lot of things that didn’t make it into the story, some of which are much, much better than what actually landed.”) Here are my takeaways:

In a new era for journalism, The Washington Post has yet to figure out what it wants to be. The result has been a lot of lurching–some of it (like salongate) embarrassing, much of it merely ineffective, but almost all of it suggesting a newspaper in disarray….

The success of Kaplan may have also provided a financial cushion that insulated the Post from making changes necessary to survive in a new climate

“Len wouldn’t do things they felt needed to be done,” says former Post political reporter Peter Baker, who left the paper for the Times in 2008. “A whole generation of younger editors were smothered by a leadership that was resistant to change.”

Many of the people I spoke with agreed that the decision to let [Harris and VandeHei] walk out the door [to Politico] ended up being a disaster for the Post. “What a mistake,” says Baker. “The most obvious indictment is the failure to foresee what opportunities were out there that John Harris and Jim had created.

Some in the newsroom felt the frenzied coverage of the White House party-crasher scandal was driven in part by the millions of hits the story generated. A week after the story broke, Style editor Ned Martel convened a meeting attended by 25 reporters and editors to coordinate coverage of the scandal. “If I were to call a similar meeting on Al Qaeda’s recruitment in the U.S., you know what I would get? I might get two people there,” says a senior print staffer. “You’d have trouble getting support on the Web to mobilize.”

And an indication that collaborations with nonprofits could bring unwanted complications:

In December, thePost printed a news piece on the national debt in partnership with a publication called The Fiscal Times–without disclosing that the organization is backed by financier Pete Peterson, a well-known deficit hawk