Walking out of the C/E Spring Street stop, I got a “free NY Times” from a guy passing them out to riders leaving the station. I sort of knew something was up because it was a lot thinner than normal. Another clue is that it’s dated July 4, 2009, and full of articles talking about a future, where Gitmo is closing, oil companies are nationalized, and the National Health Insurance Act passes.

Here’s a screenshot of the site, nytimes-se.com, which has slow downloads times. A lot of people seem to be hitting the site, whose owner looks like a pseduonym, Ginsu and Treadmill Technologies?  I must admit that they did a good job mimicking the paper and web versions.

UPDATE:

I leared from Trebor Scholz’s, that the prankster activists group, the Yes Men are somehow involved, and have posted some video, which I can’t see because  I’m guessing the servers are still being overwhelmed with data requests.

We’re in the final stretch of a long presidential campaign, which is a watershed election for many reasons. The more obvious having to do with the race and gender of the candidates. However, there are lesser ones which are important as well. One aspect that people tend not to think as deeply about is the fact that we are increasing getting the most insightful political commentary from comedians like John Stewart of the Daily Show, David Letterman, and Tina Fey and the other cast members of Saturday Night Live. This observation is not my own, Charles Kaiser of Full Court Press, among others, have long championed Stewart and his staff writers for their dead-on political analysis.

With the country spending $10 billion a month on the war in Iraq, US banks struggling to survive and the world slipping in global recession, the increasingly ugly political presidential race blares onwards towards November 4th. This moment should be the time for journalists to step up and make sense of the world. And yet they seem two steps behind the joke makers. As long running dailies are turning weekly, traditional news outlets such as print newspapers, need to be making themselves more relevant, not less.

John Stewart’s interview with Peggy Noonan a few weeks ago was telling.  In the interview, Stewart at one point, gives an impassioned plea to his guest on how the politicians can get away with rhetoric which treats the public like children. The reason of course is that the people as well as journalists allow it to happen. (It’s the same reason for why the debate have been reduced to 90 second sound bite speaks which are so tightly controlled, that nothing meaningful is said.) It was so rare to as any journalist or tv personality show that he really cares about the country’s well being, rather an partisanship or sidestepping responsibility in the name of staying objective.

Similarly, the McCain / Letterman bro-mance turning sour was amusing to watch from start to conclusion. What does Letterman have to lose by a continuing barrage of criticism after being personally lied to by McCain on a phone call saying that he has to go to Washington to deal with the financial meltdown. Letterman’s cut to McCain getting make up with Katie Couric, during the taping of Letterman’s show he skipped was priceless. Further, in McCain’s kiss and make up appearance (which reeked of PR control,) Letterman pursued him on the qualifications of Palin and if he really thought Obama was a terrorist, in a way that journalist rarely dare to attempt. McCain tried to side stepped the questions, with rhetoric of “many words are said in politics.”

I can’t help but wonder if one of the main problems is that the journalists fear criticizing and questioning politicians, will result in losing access to their sources. Just like fashion writers who shred shows and don’t get invited the next season. This fear may make short term sense, but journalists will lose out in the long term. Stewart, often uses his television home of Comedy Central, the airer of South Park, as cover for expressing honest political views. “I can say whatever I want, because I follow potty mouthed cartoon boys!”  Actually he can say what he wants because he gets a lot of viewers online and offline, people blog about his segments, and lots of people of all ages do consider the Daily Show as an important source of political analysis. For this reason, he knows he can dig and deconstruction of McCain, as well as, Obama, because he knows that politicians realize his influence. Especially because the Daily Show will go on with or without them. The show doesn’t need direct access, so they don’t worry about being blacklisted.

Traditional journalism, especially newspapers and magazines are in trouble, and I’m really surprised by the response when there is so much to talk about. I usually don’t rant like this here, so in my follow up post, I’ll offer an alternative path on how journalism can regain it’s relevance.

Links to blogs with smart things to say about journalism:

Press Think - Jay Rosen

Buzz Machine - Jeff Jarvis

Unclaimed Terrortory - Glenn Greenwald

I finally made it to the New York Art Book Fair after being out of town last year. I think I learned about the first one a couple of days after it ended, which is quite typical for me.  In any event, there was the high and low brow and everything in between.

Image source: The Thing

I met Will Rogen and Jonn Herschend from The Thing Quarterly, which sends its subscribers a piece of art every quarter. I had just heard about it a couple of weeks ago, when I was out in SF, where they are based. It’s not quite publishing, although it’s definitely a self-described periodical, and a bit more like those organic local food subscription services where they mail you a box of kale or carrots or melons once a month, except its art and of course its quarterly.

I was pleased to find out that they were super friendly, and we had a short, but interesting conversation, on publishing. When I asked them if their backgrounds was in publishing, I found it of note that they said they are artists. That answer is personally great to me because I’m really intrigued in publishers (if you want to call them that) from non-traditional backgrounds.  I finally got my tax stimulus check from the federal government, and a chunk of it may just go towards a subscription, especially because Jonathan Lethem is on the docket as an artist. Will and Jonn are in town participating in various art organizations in the city of the rest of the week.

Stuart and David of Dexter Sinister had a table, and it always fun to talk to them, especially about geeky things like the text editor Tex. I ended up buying something that was quasi-expensive and actually deserves an entire post of its own later.

Image source: An Atlas of Radical Cartography

At the table next to Dexter Sinister, I met Alexis Bhagat who co-edited “An Atlas of Radical Cartography” which is a collection of essay and maps.  Coincidentally, Brett introduced to me the collection when I was at UArts a few weeks ago, funny how things work out that way.  The maps touch everything from oil to surveillance to garbage production. He was fun to chat with as map have been on my mind lately.

J Morrison was selling silk-screened man purses for a suggested donation. He had young women helping him silk screen images on the spot, and everyone was wearing matching colored tee and shorts. His assistants made a bag to order, for a good birthday present, which was my next stop after the fair.