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In the retaliation for Troy Davis’ execution, the hackers collective Anonymous promised a “Day of Vengeance” on September 24th – a national “cyber-attack” on a number of institutions including the Atlanta Police Department. Even though several members of the shadowy internet activist group were arrested and are being prosecuted, their high-profile work continues, targeting state and corporate websites related to various causes. Anonymous represents a new type of political activism, possible only because of the advent of the internet. What the internet has also afforded, is for ordinary people to get heard outside the confines of traditional corporate media, blurring the lines between journalism, communication, and advocacy. While this can make for a lot of misinformation and white noise, it can also enable ordinary people to reach a wide audience without gatekeepers, and allow programs like Uprising to reach people well beyond our geographical reach.

GUEST: David Pakman is the host and Executive Producer of the David Pakman show, an independent television and radio show currently airing on about 150 stations across the US, on DirecTV & DISH Network, and through a popular podcast and youtube channel.

For more information visit www.davidpakman.com.

Rough Transcript:

KOLHATKAR: Let’s talk first about the eternal question it seems when we have media critiques. The right often refers to corporate media and the mainstream media in much the same way that the left does. Both sides of the political spectrum often argue that the mainstream media as a whole is heavily skewed in one direction or the other. Often we hear people like Sarah Palin making lots of claims. But maybe I’m biased, when we step back and look at so many mainstream media outlets, whether it’s CNN, whether it’s NPR, whether it’s the New York Times, they tend to cover many stories with a pseudo objective spin. A lot of them favor power, favor elites, and it’s almost as if its designed so they start with the most important voice first. The Associated Press model if you will. Do you think our media as a whole, mainstream media as a whole, is skewed right or left?

PAKMAN: I think there’s an argument to be made in individual media outlets for particular bias and usually people look at social political issues when they talk about that bias — that can be gay marriage or abortion or religion. But I think if we step back as a whole there is kind of a pro-corporate view that exists there. So whether we are looking at Fox News which has chosen to put out a more conservative political product or MSNBC which has chosen to put out a more liberal product they are still both basically wholly owned corporate interests. We look back at the stimulus and TARP money at the point where MSNBC was owned by General Electric and none of those hosts on MSNBC, even though they are putting out a more liberal product, are talking about the fact that GE is the recipient of those funds. Beyond that we can look at individual media outlets and I think there’s a big fear of being branded as liberal in the mainstream media and therefore makes a lot of outlets that consider themselves objective like CNN take more conservative views to avoid that branding.

KOLHATKAR: And, so, in a way it’s almost as if within the confines of discussing certain issues they can be discussed as long as they don’t undermine corporate domination or corporate power. But of course there’s a lot of bigger individual journalists doing a very good job of covering stories. It’s sometimes where you get the clash of how journalists see doing their jobs and how the corporation as a whole spins it. We don’t get to see that clash. Very often it’s not very visible. And, maybe sometimes we tend to think of it as one vast conspiracy.

PAKMAN: It is easy to do that. There are several good examples. We can find great examples of everything you just listed. On Fox News we can find — like for example because of my schedule I haven’t seen Shepard Smith a lot — but Shepard Smith is the kind of guy who often will go outside of even what we’ve seen internal fox memos suggest fox news hard news people use whether it comes to health care the so called public option is how they ware supposed to refer to it, etc. On MSNBC we saw Cenk Uygur
From The Young Turks, who is a friend of mine, leave MSNBC because he was told you are being a little too hard on Obama people in Washington don’t want you to be as hard on the administration and other things. They offered him more money for a smaller role and he said no I’m not doing it. I need to be able to say what I want. So there are definitely examples of all those things you mentioned on all channels.

KOLHATKAR: Today we have a merging of media which is an industry that’s supposed to uphold journalism but it is doing it in a corporate model. The proposed merger of AT&T with T Mobile has garnered a lot of attention just on the basis of media consolidation. How has that blurring of lines between these industries affected the final product?

PAKMAN: Well I think there’s ways that its affected already which is that there is increasingly homogenous points of view increasingly homogenous voices and people really have to go outside to find alternative voices. So it’s much more difficult to find my show although hopefully its getting easier and easier to find it than it is to just turn on your TV and you put on FOX news and you go up one channel and then its CNN and then you go up one channel and then its MSNBC. Its very easy its all right there. I think the other thing is as far as, I recently interviewed Craig Aaron who is the new Free Press CEO, and with AT&T and T Mobile there is an increasing concern that its also happening with cable companies which is that when you blur the lines between what is video and what is internet its very clear who is going to lose. Its public access centers. For example like the one I’m on the board of in North Hampton Massachusetts because their fees are based on the money made by Comcast where I live for example on video services if people are increasingly watching Netflix through the internet well maybe that no longer counts as video revenue. So that I think will be the loophole to even further restrict access to public media.

KOLHATKAR: And yet the internet has in many ways and to a great extent has helped level the playing field given the kind of competition to the mainstream media that we could have only dreamed of seeing twenty thirty years ago.

PAKMAN: No question about it. I mean my show would not exist if it weren’t for the internet. The first affiliate we obtained was because somebody heard my podcast. The first time a clip of my show made it on CNN was because of Youtube I don’t live in New York or Los Angeles its been a huge equalizer and social media has as well.

KOLHATKAR: So let’s talk about how social networking, how the internet has been taken advantage of in many ways on one hand you see proliferation of grass roots media blogs, from blogs to full on video produced shows, that are internet only and on the other hand you have a proliferation of right wing blogs and hate groups. I mean the whole gamut. Do you see one way or another that one side of the political spectrum or the other has taken better advantage of the internet?

PAKMAN: I think traditionally the left has taken much better advantage of the internet both in terms of media and politically I mean if we looked at the 2008 election I was on both the McCain and Obama mailing lists. I wanted to see what they were sending out. The McCain side was almost non existent on the internet, both in terms of frequency and quality of what was being sent out. So politically I think that on the left democrats for the most part have been better with the internet. The problem when you say that the playing field is leveled which is completely true in that access has increased for smaller players with the internet is that you can get fooled by Astroturf. While there is a lot of grass roots there’s a lot of Astroturf and the Tea Party is actually a brilliant example of Astroturf something that is posed as grass roots in reality is funded by a lot of the same corporate interests that are the mainstream media were trying to differentiate from.

KOLHATKAR: it seems as though the definition of media is changing so much because of the internet today because of social networking. Rather than in addition to having one institution spread the news to an audience you have much more peer to peer communication. I mean, just this week around the execution of Troy Davis’ very very high profile story that so many progressives were monitoring there was a huge flurry back to Facebook where people were able to instantly communicate with one another second by second what was happening. And they almost didn’t need the mainstream media. It helped to have an outlet like Democracy Now on the scene providing video streaming via the internet right? The people didn’t tune it to their television sets to get that. So that peer to peer communication can that be seen as media or is it simply blurring the lines between media or expanding the definition of media?

PAKMAN: I think it completely can be seen as media and increasingly with things like Twitter as we saw in the Middle East so often. The primary, sometimes the only source of information as to what’s going on. I think it definitely counts as media and increasingly what’s amazing is that things that start on social media that are eventually being referred to in mainstream media as the primary news source.

KOLHATKAR: Individuals’ first response is their tweet.

PAKMAN: Exactly. Absolutely. So it absolutely counts. I think it becomes increasingly irrelevant how we actually define media. Because with this expansion, with so many other outlets, the definition I don’t know if blurred or changed is the right word, but I think it becomes increasingly irrelevant because people are just in contact with each other in a much different way maybe the word media itself is becoming outdated.

KOLHATKAR: And then again you might have somebody coming at this whole discussion from a traditional media perspective who understands that when we put out a story that the checks and balances on the veracity of information are crucial to the trust that a public places in a source. When you have instant social communication peer to peer, you don’t often have those checks and balances. And often a small rumor gets blown widely out of proportion.

PAKMAN: it happens. Absolutely. The question I think we have to ask is that on the whole is the side effect that is reasonable that we’re willing to accept in exchange for all the positives that have come as a result of that including the growth of all the alternative voices in the media. The giving of voice to people who didn’t have a small voice previously but had no voice at all I think that you are absolutely right that there is some misinformation that is bound to get out there. Anybody can make a Twitter account, people make twitter accounts and impersonate other people all the time. Personally, I think it’s a worthwhile exchange. I’m willing to accept that. I’m willing to pay that price.

KOLHATKAR: And I’m wondering if it may lead to the rise of people developing their own filters when they do consume information.

PAKMAN: I think its already happening if you look on Facebook, for example, people are becoming . . . internet users are actually very smart and people can quickly come up with some barometers if there is a Facebook page is legitimate or whether its some kind of spam. Definitely people who have a vested interest in getting information from these sources very quickly develop their own filters.

KOLHATKAR: David Pakman is the host and executive producer of the David Pakman Show currently here in Southern California on a tour. Well, generally the goal of media institutions, the goal of journalism has been at lest in its purest sense has been to hold power accountable, to light the fire, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable etc. In today’s internet age we’ve seen the Wikileaks phenomenon. Do you see that as being in line with . . . in spite of all the controversy surrounding Wikileaks, do you see that as embodying that original principle?

PAKMAN: I do see that. And I was incredibly shocked that there was coverage on CNN where Wolf Blitzer in announcing a lot of the things that were coming out as a result of the Wikileaks Cables was visibly angry about the fact that it had been revealed that, for example the US was doing something we kind of assumed but this was some tangible proof taking people offsite to these kind of CIA black sites, doing all sorts of things which also Wolf Blitzer referred to as enhanced interrogation techniques instead of torture. He was visibly angry that we had found that out. And I said to myself, I thought you were a journalist, I thought you were a reporter, isn’t this what you are supposed to be doing? Why are you so angry? Would you be happy if we didn’t know this? Because if by definition if you are so visibly angry that we found these horrible things out I guess you would be more happy if we didn’t know them. Which is a very strange attitude to take.

KOLHATKAR: Well we’re so dependent on technology as a society today that another thing that the internet of course has done is to enable individuals to undermine power in very concrete ways and one of the things that comes in to mind is the hackers collective, Anonymous who have used very innovative ways to draw attention to stories. I’m not sure what they do falls into the realm of media, but it certainly falls into the realm of activism, whether anybody agrees with their goals or not.

PAKMAN: They call it hacktivism. I actually had an incident on my program where the Westboro Baptist church from Topeka Kansas that is known for their “god hates fags” slogan claimed that Anonymous threatened them. I interviewed Shirley Phelps-Roper. After that interview someone from Anonymous contacted me anonymously, no surprise, and said they would like to come on my show and give their side. And I said well would you could come on with Shirley and you guys can discuss whether you did or did not threaten them. Long story short, they both came on the show and during the course of that interview anonymous hacked the Westboro website took the site down and replaced it with a message of their own and this went totally viral it was covered everywhere. French magazines were calling me, Washington Post talked about it, 150 articles and 1.5 million views in the first 24 hours. Eventually the individual who was on my show was arrested. I didn’t know his name, I didn’t know anything about him except for his Skype user name. But articles started coming out including in the AP that the individual who was on the David Pakman Show in February of 2011 was arrested. It turned out to be a 17 year old kid I think somewhere off the coast of England. And so certainly we can’t argue that they are having no effect. We have to agree that the internet is the venue through which they are having this worldwide impact. Do I agree with doing things that are against the law? No. He is going to be punished for whatever laws he broke but it’s a fascinating new dynamic.

KOLHATKAR: Sure and people break the laws as a matter of civil disobedience and you have to explore whether that falls in the same realm. Finally the internet also seems to blur the line between journalism and activism which is where one might try to place the hackers collective anonymous Pacifica’s always tried to tread that line carefully as well given the progressive roots of this network and often Pacifica journalists have said well there is no such thing as objectivity you are either on the side of those who are powerless or you are on the side of those who are powerful. Do you think that the internet is clarifying that more? That media and the production of media and journalism cannot be extricated from our own personal biases and that naturally people have used the internet for advocacy through journalism.

PAKMAN: I agree that all of those things are happening. I also think that there is a lot of confusion, in other words it may be clear to the person who is creating the media whether they are reporting or whether they are commenting or analyzing or giving opinion, many times I get emails from people saying how can I call myself a reporter if I said such and such on my program and I say I’m not a reporter I make very clear my program is based on opinion. The entire show is just my opinion it’s very very clear to me but its obviously not clear to everybody so I think the confusion exists probably more on the side of the audience than on the producer.

KOLHATKAR: give information for your website.

PAKMAN: davidpakman.com we have archives of programs on there. People can watch us on direcTV or dishnetwork. We’re on about 150 stations across six countries and always online 24 hours on youtube on itunes on our website. Hopefully it’s easy to find the show.

Special thanks to Bipasha Shom for transcribing this interview.