Thanks for your interest in Project PM. I am writing to
provide you with more information.
What follows consists of:
--a
message Barrett Brown recently sent to the community of people who have
expressed an interest in being in involved in Project PM,
--some
background information about Project PM consisting of links to Barrett's past
writings related to the project
--some information about how to contact
us, how to keep current on our activities and how to
participate.
Project PM Update - September 16th,
2010
First, Id like to thank everyone for having expressed
some degree of interest Project PM, particularly those who have been kind enough
to share with us their time and expertise as we go about bringing this to
fruition.
Project PM was originally intended to serve a narrow purpose:
to reduce the influence of those mainstream commentators who have done nothing
to merit the great influence they possess over the form and content of the
national dialogue. This goal itself was prompted by the months I had spent in
reading over the work of such people as Thomas Friedman and Charles Krauthammer
in the course of writing my next book as well as a series of articles on the
same general subject. During this time, it occurred to me that a great number of
our most influential commentators have gained that influence despite a
demonstrable and consistent tendency towards making predictions that did not
actually come true, deploying self-contradictory arguments, accidentally
misrepresenting important and verifiable facts, and otherwise conducting their
work in such a way as to damage the public understanding. Meanwhile, there exist
other pundits whose confidence and honesty are just easily identifiable but who
nonetheless have not been granted anything close to the numerical reach of their
more incompetent counterparts at such places as The New York Times and
Washington Post. The problem, it seems, is that those who would shift their
attention to other, better pundits if they knew about these failures have in
fact not managed to learn of them, not being consumers of those information
outlets which are in the business of pointing out such failures.
This
problem - all the more significant for having damaged the national
understanding, and thus having been at fundamental fault for some degree of the
problems the nation has concocted for itself over the years - has already been
remedied to a small but noticeable extent by the unprecedented increases in
communicational possibilities that have come about by way of the internet. In
particular, a portion of the blogosphere has proven itself effective in pointing
out these deficits to a considerable audience which has consequently abandoned
those pundits who have been shown to exhibit them. I think that this
advantageous process can be improved upon; in fact, Id argue that it would be
ridiculous to think that it cannot be improved upon.
Project PM
originated as a means to identify and implement such improvements in order to
meet this aforementioned goal of lessening the influence of those whose
influence plainly ought to be lessened. This was to be done by way of a very
simple schematic whereby a significant number of participating bloggers would be
persuaded to bring up the deficits of some or another commentator all at once
and in tandem, thereby prompting attention on the part of those mainstream
editors and producers who in turn would be hard-pressed not to address an issue
being widely and suddenly discussed by a large array of commentators with a high
level of collective notability. In this way, the blogger array may in effect
take temporary control of the mainstream medias infrastructure in order to get
across the general message to its vast audience that the commentators on whom
they are depending for information are incompetent and ought to be
disregarded.
To this end, I began contacting some of the better bloggers
(including traditional journalists who work in part through online media) and
explaining that shit be all fucked up and that maybe we could unfuck it to some
extent if we all got together and did our thing as described above, or words to
that effect. Having recruited a couple of dozen such folks possessed of combined
notoriety more than sufficient to prompt the necessary reaction, and having
designed a simple schematic by which this would all be carried out, it occurred
to me that a similar schematic, backed by simple software, could also be used by
bloggers to greatly improve the means by which they communicate with one
another. Meanwhile, we had managed to recruit an even greater number of
non-bloggers possessed of various skill sets - many with extraordinarily
impressive backgrounds - and we were happy to note that such people could not
only be of assistance in helping to implement our main goal of establishing the
blogger network, but could also be organized in such a way as to compose and
pursue solutions to any number of related problems.
This expansion
of purpose was prompted by our desire for Project PM to exist as an
opportunistic sort of entity, taking on whichever tasks are found to be most
viable in light of whichever sorts of resources and human capital have been made
available to it. Although we remain light on resources, the degree of human
capital we have accumulated is particularly humbling. Among the journalists and
bloggers who have agreed to participate or assist, we have Michael Hastings, the
author and war correspondent whose Rolling Stone piece on Afghanistan prompted
the near-immediate resignation of General McChrystal; Charles Johnson, a pioneer
of blogging conventions and technology who served as the co-creator of the
influential but idiotic blog consortium Pajamas Media and whose gradual shift
from right to center has been frought with hilarity on the part of his
allies-turned-enemies; Allison Kilkenny, a wonkish progressive whose radio
program Citizen Radio, co-hosted with husband and comedian Jamie Kilstein, has
become an inimitable and entertaining forum for honest-to-god policy
discussions; and Dr. Juan Cole, whose erudite blogging on Middle Eastern affairs
has happily translated into some degree of mainstream exposure. Among our
non-blogging participants, meanwhile, we have a former editor of The Washington
Post, a former CIA Directorate of Operations agent, a variety of scientists and
programmers and engineers, several flavors of lawyer, various veteran political
activists, and a great many people who lack formal credentials but nonetheless
have demonstrated a keen understanding of the subjects on which we are focused
as well as an inclination to put that understanding to fullest use.
Over
the past couple of months, Ive been working with many of our participants in an
effort to finalize and implement the blogger project as well as the various
other sub-projects weve adopted so far. The process has involved an overlapping
tangle of makeshift experiments in online collaboration, the launching of
various discussion groups, research on emergent internet dynamics and related
items of inquiry, recruitment of additional participants capable of filling in
any remaining expertise gaps, determinations of legal framework, and writing all
of that down just now. Having meanwhile developed a more specific idea of what
we want to do and why and how, we have finally gotten to the matter of when
and decided that now would probably work. As such, Id like to invite you to
join one or more of the following working groups by contacting me with your
interest:
The Science/Journalism Improvement Project, which seeks
to match freelance writers with scientists in order to encourage the production
of more accurate science journalism.
The Africa Project, which is
concerned with producing self-perpetuating solutions by which to improve
education and standard of living in the context of Sub-Sahara, such as a program
to distribute guides with plans for locally-implementable engineering techniques
and to encourage the further distribution of those guides by the recipients
themselves.
The Software Project, members of which will hammer out
details regarding the proposed software for the Project PM blogger
network.
Wed also like to bring a few other people in to our weekly
online meeting, during which time we plot and scheme and process paperwork in an
effort to get Project PM established on its route to collective administration
of the sort that will no longer require us to hold weekly meetings. Those who
might be interested in joining us in this drudgery should e-mail me at their
convenience.
Project
PM -- Related Articles and Posts by Barrett Brown
In
addition to the older links below, you may read more recent writing by Barrett
Brown at The Faster Times (http://thefastertimes.com/punditry/)
and in the 'featured pages' at Little Green
Footballs (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/226175_The_Media-Establishment_Victim
and
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/226113_Charles_Krauthammer_vs._Compet).
Barrett
will publishing an new article soon in Skeptical Inquirer in which he discusses
in detail the Science Journalism sub-project being developed as part of Project
PM. ( http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/
)
Barrett's next book, Hot, Fat and Clouded, The Amazing and Amusing
Failures of Americas Chattering Class will be published later this year.
His first book, Flock of Dodos: Behind
Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design and the Easter Bunny is no longer
available in paper, but a Kindle edition is available from
Amazon.
From
Vanity Fair
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/06/why-the-hacks-hate-michael-hastings.html
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/01/ex-conservative-charles-johnsons-next-crusade.html
From
Skeptical Inquirer
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/a_tale_of_two_internets/
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/internet_and_the_republic_of_skepticism_part_one/
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/internet_and_the_republic_of_skepticism_part_two
From
True/Slant
http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/05/15/just-this-once-let-us-do-the-reasonable-thing/
http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/05/06/the-internet-as-revolutionary-tool-the-skeptical-opportunity/
http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/04/10/wikileaks-war-context-and-common-cause/
http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/04/07/wikileaks-the-reactive-media-and-the-necessity-of-project-pm/
http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/03/24/project-pm/
http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/03/20/the-internet-skepticism-and-self-perpetuating-revolution/
From
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barrett-brown/a-proposal-for-a-minor-re_b_566400.html
Current activities at Project PM
Software project
-- we are designing a program which will support the blogger/journalist network
component of Project PM
If you are interested in
this part of our efforts contact Barrett
(barriticus@gmail.com)
or myself (robinsonchicago@gmail.com), and we will share with you a
spreadsheet capturing our current design discussions, and will welcome your
comments and suggestions.
Science journalism
project --
This project will improve the quality of science
journalism by coupling freelance journalists and scientists while utilizing
media contacts to achieve publication.
Scientists and science-based practitioners (such as
healthcare professionals and engineers) will work with freelance journalists in
identifying story ideas; research; and contacting qualified sources, both for
background information and quotations.
Participating scientists will see increased media
attention to their area of expertise, publicity for themselves and their
institutions/sponsors, and by-line credit if the level of contribution
merits such recognition. Also, there is the bonus of not getting heartburn
reading media reports that mangle their areas of knowledge.
Participating journalists will produce articles of
greater accuracy than the current norm. Furthermore, higher quality articles
will result in an increase in published works.
Participating media experts will help get
articles published. For example, they can strategize the best publications to
contact, provide contact information for particular editors
and/or publications, help formulate the pitch, and provide assistance in
getting the piece sold.
We are enlisting interested scientists and
freelancers in order to create a database with their areas of interest and
expertise. Eventually, pairs will be created based on this database. Each pair
will decide on the particulars of the articles to be produced and on their
collaborative processes. However, unique to the Science Journalism Project is an
explicit recognition that journalists and scientists dont always work on
deadlines in a similar way. Therefore, mutual respect and understanding will be
necessary to keep to deadlines.
If you are interested in this project contact
Barrett or myself.
Africa Development Program --
The
goal of the Africa Development Project is to improve the standard of living in
the non-developed areas of Africa.
Unfortunately
while the world around us moves a mile a minute, there are parts of the globe
where advancements are made much more slowly, such as in parts of
Africa.
This
has resulted in many hardships that most living in developed countries dont
think twice about such as access to drinkable water, food, and electricity to
name a few.
With
the help of those who have experience in matters such as these, we aim to not
only raise awareness these plights, but to provide cost-effective, simple
solutions to remedy these difficulties to as great of an extent as
possible.
The group working on this includes people with
varying backgrounds, including work in Africa and in online support of
philanthropy, as well as those without such experience who are interested in
learning.
If you are interested in this project contact Barrett or
myself.
Other current activities:We now have an IRC
channel, #projectpm -- you may go there to see if Barrett, myself or others are
available to chat about Project PM. (Barrett is a freelance writer; I am a
retired lawyer; other Project PM associates are in several time zones and
countries, and may be online at various times.) If you are unfamiliar with
IRC, I can forward you a how-to sheet prepared by one of our
associates.
We have a website in the works; and we will soon be needing
writing and administrative assistance with that.
Do not hesitate to (and
I hope you will) reply with questions, and if you would like to describe your
skills and interests, that would be great.
Clark Robinson
Chicago,
Illinois