What we are witnessing in the Trump times is the last stand of angry, old, white men, who would sooner destroy the institutions of democracy than share them with those who will follow.

Conservatives — whom Robert Nisbet called “prophets of the past” — no longer strive to conserve institutions. Instead they are undermining the presidency, Congress, the courts, the rule of law, the armed forces, the United States Postal Service, standards of human rights, the Census, voting rights, elections, the peaceful transfer of power — in short, democracy itself — not to mention science, medicine, education, and the press.

These old, white men recognize that their hold on power is slipping as the demographics of the nation inevitably progress. …

The Facebook Oversight Board is now open for cases and I look forward to seeing the results. But I have the same question I’ve had since the planning for its creation began, and I asked that question in a web call today with board leadership:

What higher principles will the Board call upon in making its decisions? It will be ruling on Facebook’s content decisions based on the company’s own statutes — that is, the “community standards” Facebook sets for the community.

The Board says it will also decide cases on the basis of international human rights standards. This could mean the board might find that Facebook correctly enforced its statute but that the statute violates a principle of human rights, which would result in a policy recommendation to Facebook. …

The pandemic has killed clapping.

In the abstract, applause is stupid: You hit yourself, but only when in the company of others hitting themselves, to show approval.

The end of applause occurred to me as I watched recent events: Apple’s latest product announcement sans clapping geeks and sycophants (revealing its true aesthetic as just another infomercial); the US Open with tepid, sitcom-like clap-tracks where cheers would have been; the Democrats’ intimate and audience-free YouTube convention — which I wrote about here; and Sarah Cooper’s opener for Jimmy Kimmel’s show. I’m in awe of Cooper anyway, but watching her monologue, I marveled at the courage of a comedian telling jokes without the immediate feedback of laughter, applause, and cheers: without an audience, or at least one that could be heard. …

Donald Trump’s war on TikTok in U.S. and Rupert Murdoch’s on Facebook in Australia are not being seen for their true import: as government attacks on the people’s press, on freedom of expression, on human rights.

In Australia, Facebook just said that if Murdoch-backed legislation requiring platforms to pay for news is enacted, the company will stop media companies — and users — from posting news on Facebook and Instagram.

Who is hurt there? The public and its conversation. The public loses access to its means of sharing and debating news. Never before in history — never before the internet — has everyone had access to a press; only the privileged had it and now the privileged will rob the people of theirs. Without the people’s press, we would not have #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, #OccupyWallStreet and the voices of so many too long not heard. …

Finally a convention for the public, not the pols

Tragic circumstances forced them into it, but the Democrats created the first democratic convention, the convention for citizens.

It is the YouTube convention, with all the intimacy and directness the medium of the age demands: click on Michelle Obama and she speaks directly to you and no one else: not to a cheering crowd, the mass; not to delegates who are included through patronage and politics, to the exclusion of everyone else. YouTube is one of the mechanisms of the public conversation the internet provides and the Democrats had to learn how to use it.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump pines for the roaring crowd, the now extinct kind of convention that was an institution of television and mass media: the really big show, the firepit for enthusiasm and anger and, in its dying breath, authoritarian adulation. Now who’s going to sit home in front of a laptop chanting “Lock her up!”? …

Here is a video I made for all our incoming students at the Newmark Journalism School about the history of media and journalism. In years past, I’ve had the high honor an opportunity to brainwash the entire incoming classes in orientation, giving them some context, history, and theory of journalism. It is usually a string of all-morning discussions. But what with COVID, it was decided that this year, staring at my face for three hours straight would be inhuman, and so I recorded the substance of each session as a video for later discussion.

In this one, I start with movable type and cover a half-millennium of history, up through the creation of the newspaper, steam and the penny press and mass, the telegraph and broadcast.

I made other videos about the business of journalism and the role and goals of the journalist that I’ll post later.

Here’s an update on an impressive pandemic-inspired pivot by Samir Arora’s Sage, the company I wrote about at the start of the year that is building what I hope is a next phase of the net: a expert-based web.

When the pandemic hit and travel was all but shut down I worried particularly about two friends’ businesses because each was centered on travel. One is Samir’s Sage, which was starting its expert network with expertise about destinations — hotels, restaurants, places. I’ll tell you how he reacted in a moment.

The other was Rafat Ali’s Skift, which covers the travel industry and built its business around in-person events: a double whammy. I interviewed Rafat for the Newmark J-School’s leadership program about the painful decisions he had to make to keep the business alive. I think you’ll find it informative. Since we had this conversation, Skift shifted to offer a daily news subscription service and Rafat now says “subscription-first is the path forward for us.” …

We call for MSNBC and CNN to create shows dedicated to amplifying the voices of African-Americans and others too long not heard in mass media

I wrote this in preparation for joining Pete Dominick on his podcast today to talk about the need to schedule a daily show in prime time. Then the Wall Street Journal reported that Joy Reid would finally take over Chris Matthews’ 7 p.m. time slot on MSNBC. As of the moment, nothing is official. So Pete and I went ahead with the discussion and I’m posting this:

My friend Pete Dominick and I have been banging the same drum over and over on social media and on his podcast: It is time — it is long overdue — for MSNBC and CNN to immediately devote at least one daily show each to the voices of African-Americans and other communities too long ignored. …