Re: Project 3Jane

jesus man. This is so awesome. You know Allie and I are in for what
ever you want to do. On another note sorry to be a pain in the ass -
we just added Taibbi to the show on the 8th and I really want it to
sell out. Is there anyway to get it printed before then? Thanks man

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 1:13 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Yo yo-
Our pursuit of creative destruction as relates to the corporate media is off
to a pretty amazing start; Professor Juan Cole, who does such fine work on
the Middle East, is interested in getting involved and wants me to call him
this afternoon; with him on board, we'll have no problem recruiting tons of
other left-of-center bloggers and commentators. I just talked to Coates
Bateman at T/S and he's excited, too, wants to discuss how they can promote
the project and otherwise get involved; Andrew Stein and I will probably
meet with them next month to see if we can come to some sort of agreement
that would advance the project while keeping it independent (T/S is great,
but their capital comes from Forbes, I believe, and we're not having our
anarcho-syndicalist insurgent media operation under that particular thumb,
obviously; we don't necessarily need money for any of this anyhow).
Also, I got rid of that crazy girl I was dating that I told you guys about
and found a new girlfriend that's sweet and cool and allows me to lecture
her on history and media theory and pretends that I'm interesting.
A few other bloggers have also gotten in touch and vowed allegiance to the
jihad against the defunct media superstructure. A bunch of conservatives who
hate Charles Johnson and now me helped to promote the project over the
weekend by talking about how badly it would fail because Charles Johnson is
involved (Johnson, on a totally unrelated note, co-founded Pajamas Media,
for which a couple of those bloggers now work). I haven't even really
started recruiting in earnest yet, but I'll begin doing so later this week
after I write a formal announcement and manifesto for T/S, HuffPo, Daily
Kos, and whatever else. Thinking of trying to get P.Z. Myers to serve as an
advisor with regards to the demands we'll eventually make regarding superior
science journalism in such things as Time. I've also got plenty of street
cred with the skeptic crowd and should thus be able to get plenty of other
science bloggers on board soon as well.
Our approach to the blogger network is something we need to think about -
specific structure, etc. I'm thinking that all of those I recruit will be
permitted to bring others in and they in turn, etc. Invitation-only, or
rather anyone can also apply to anyone in the network and be brought in.
I'll provide more details on the software end of things later; I'm meeting
with Stein tonight and will have him talk me through the essentials.
Basically, the application is going to make information flow, evaluation,
characterization/tagging, and all of that far easier, and partially
automatic insomuch as that the blogs themselves will be "talking" to each
other 24/7. After we've gotten the basics presented in such a way as that us
laymen can understand them, you guys should start thinking about what
additional features you might want and I'll be having others giving their
input as well; Stein's not a writer or a blogger or researcher, so he won't
have the same insight into the trade as we do. Later on, we can add new
features to the system; he and I have been talking for several months about
an improved application for compiling info in the course of research and
making it more accessible when it comes down to writing; this is really only
necessary for research-intensive books or long articles and the like, but I
want it anyway. We've got a couple of other plans along those lines as well.
I gave my first university lecture two weeks ago to a class at Rutgers; this
will help my academic straight cred, particularly if I do more of them. One
girl raised her hand and asked where I studied or did my postgraduate work
or some such nonsense. I explained that I did it at home because college is
for suckers. It was a great victory for all of us who ditched school in
favor of actually doing things.
Anyway, I'll make the formal announcement soon and will include some more
details therein. Allison, I'd like you to be involved in whatever sort of
"executive committee" we may establish to oversee this thing, as you're
perfectly representative of the Democracy Now school of journalism insomuch
as that you do wonkish work and otherwise are the exact opposite of Maureen
Dowd, which is to say that you're exactly the sort of journalist we want to
promote as we enter the later stages of this project, which will
theoretically entail stacking the media with our people like we're FDR and
it's the Supreme Court. That part probably would have sounded ambitious even
to me just a couple of days ago, but I'm frankly amazed at how this has been
received so far. Check out the comments at Balloon Juice:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=33149
 A lot of people have been waiting for this for a long time. If we do this
right, we will have really done something significant.
Thanks again for being on board with this.
Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302