THE US REPORT

Employees and independents in media, including leading Internet companies, have donated generously to Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The US Report conducted searches of donations by individuals in specific positions as well as individuals at specific media and Internet corporations,  using an interactive tool at The Orlando Sentinel. The results of our search parallel results of a study noted by The Committee of Concerned Journalists in October, 2007.  The Project for Excellence in Journalism conducted the study. The study compared coverage of each candidate. At that time, results indicated of all stories run on Obama, 46.7 percent were positive and 15.8 percent were negative. Of all stories run on Sen. John McCain, 12.4 percent were positive and 47.9 percent were negative.

Our search for figures on individual campaign donations used identical terms for each candidate. The figures we found cover the first three quarters of 2007. Note on the term ‘reporter’ there were several entries by court reporters, but the majority are from media. The entry for Time, Inc., is for Time Magazine. Utilizing a different search tool may produce different results; this is by no means an official study. These cursory results, however, indicate overwhelming bias for Obama, in print and on the Web and suggest his narrative and possibly his presence on the Web are being shaped for the public by media who actively support his campaign.

Despite frequent calls from media for open government, little about media is open to the public. Should Obama win the election, we must ask ourselves will bias continue? Obama is often compared to John F. Kennedy. Writing about that president in his book 'The Dark Side of Camelot,' author Seymour M. Hersh noted, "The mythmaking and media wooing began soon after Kennedy took office. Newspapers and magazines were filled with articles and photographs, usually touted as exclusive, of family life in the White House...Even the most earnest publications fell prey." (pg.223)

The chart below lists total dollar donations from each type of employee or independent, with donations also listed for select, influential media and Web corporation employees or independents.

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*Text and chart by Kay B. Day. Disclosure: I am a supporter of and a donor to Sen. John McCain's campaign. I am not officially connected to his campaign in any manner.

**For additional reading and to access the interactive tool at The Orlando Sentinel, follow links in 'References' below.

Some bloggers—apparently in the progressive political realm—have declared war on the Associated Press. The New York Times has the full story; the paper says the AP will try to figure out some standards for use of its content. Media Bloggers Association is mentioned as an organization the AP plans to talk to. My perception is that MBA is a great source for progressive bloggers. I’ve tried to join MBA on several occasions, and a representative wrote me back to tell me I could join on the next go-round. Nothing happened after that and my emails go unanswered now.  So why wouldn't I be accepted by that organization?

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The shape-shifter entity I call the Neo World Order (aka our “global village”) has led Singapore authorities to charge US citizen Gopalan Nair for insults because he blogged about a political matter in Singapore. This charge should concern anyone who lives in a country where there is freedom of speech. Agence France-Presse reported Nair’s creative expression on his blog in declaring a Singapore judge was “prostituting herself” in the matter of a defamation case filed by a political figure.

AFP says, “If convicted, Nair, a former Singaporean lawyer now based in California, faces up to one year in prison and a 5,000 dollar (3,630 US) fine.”

Hopefully, Nair’s lawyer will send Singapore authorities a copy of the U.S. Constitution and highlight Amendment I. And hopefully, those same lawyers will insist, with the help of our government, on recouping fees from Singapore’s government for trying to usurp the rights of a US citizen in the first place. The Web is under assault globally. Bloggers in free countries should speak up loud and clear. You'd think US and European media would be all over a story about Singapore's government trying to convict a US citizen for blogging his thoughts via social media, which constitutes the press in my opinion.
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[Text filed by Kay B. Day; photo US Government National Archives]

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Borders has departed from amazon.com, opting to sell their books online at the Borders website and an anti-trust lawsuit against Amazon is in progress.  An email I received this morning from Amazon suggests the departure occurred almost two weeks ago. “Starting May 31, 2008, the Borders.com/Waldenbooks.com website is no longer associated with Amazon.com.”

Financial news outlets have reported Borders Group Inc. has been challenged by the marketplace; recently businesses in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore were sold. Borders has a new, more attractive website, reflecting a corporate aim to wise up and increase gross profits (and thereby net) from online sales. How do these developments affect authors and publishing? How will the anti-trust lawsuit work out—a veritable David vs. Goliath battle?

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The Iraq war has probably spawned as many poems as Vietnam. I rarely read them, because there’s nothing worse than confessionals dying to be poems but falling short of the mark. So I was surprised at Francis Richey’s new collection, ‘The Warrior.’ The poems in the collection are not your usual run-of-the-mill anti-war poems. Instead, the poems are a sort of bridge between Richey and her son Ben, who decided at a young age he wanted to be a soldier. Richey, who’d raised her son as a single mother before doing so became common, wasn’t pleased when Ben met his goal. There’s an automatic premise of conflict with a son determined to serve and a mother dismayed that he does.

Ben graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point, became a Green Beret and went to Iraq twice. Rather than engage in wailing verses, Richey explores her feelings by tapping into her reactions to news from Ben, special occasions, even visits to museums. She expresses herself in free verse with a decidedly confessional bent, but she manages to keep her lines tight and stay on the poetry path rather than the rant path. This sets up an accessible link for the reader and rather astonishingly avoids the political abyss most war poems freefall into. It’s my impression her short lines—some include only two stressed syllables—tend  to be punchier and to deliver more impact than her long lines, but that’s a fairly common reaction for me to free verse. The poems will work on the page and on the stage, meeting a goal many poets today are unable to achieve.

My favorite in the collection is "Kill School." Richey recounts her son’s experiences learning to kill a rabbit with his bare hands, and several lines leave lasting impressions. After describing rocking the rabbit “like a baby in his arms”, Richey writes, “until every sinew surrendered/and he smashed its head into a tree.” There is the pivotal moment in this poem, very much like the turn in a formal sonnet, when Ben responds to the horror his mother conceivably felt, along with the reader—“You said you wanted to know.” That line was so remarkable in the context of the narrative, I wanted the poem to end there. That it did not evoked my comparison to a sonnet.

Richey’s book is an engaging read, and for those of us who have loved ones in the military, there will definitely be common ground in fear, admiration and anxiety. The collection’s strongest elements are admirably controlled drama and backstory. That a mother who is against a war can write about her son’s experiences with eloquence and grace goes to the heart of a mother’s love. Though we may disagree with decisions our children make, we respect those decisions and refrain from bitterness, come what may. As Memorial Day approaches, the book is an excellent gift for anyone experiencing a loved one serving in war. That young women and men like Ben are offering the ultimate sacrifice for our country is a truly remarkable act of generosity as old as mankind itself.