Nick Griffin, the leader of the tiny British National Party, has a very low profile outside the UK. Their best political showing has been to pick up two seats in the European Parliament, when they polled 6% of the UK vote in that election in June 2009.

They are a minority party and are unlikely to ever lead political thought in the UK, let alone Europe.

Griffin has never appeared on public television to either promote or defend his party. The BBC, acknowledging that he now represents a small, but distinct, subset of the British population, invited him onto their long-running political panel discussion show, Question Time.

Outside, angry demonstrators gathered to protest Griffin’s arrival. Hundreds of police battled hundreds of protestors. 25 broke through a barrier and managed to make it inside the BBC buildings before being dragged back outside. By the end of the evening, three policemen had been injured and six protestors arrested.

What gives? Full Story »

On the same day that The New York Times said (buried in its Media Decoder blog) that it would cut 100 newsroom jobs (again), Columbia University said it would not accept applications next year for its dual-degree graduate program in environmental journalism. The former is no surprise; the latter is a sad sign of the impact of newsroom job cuts on what news gets reported — or not.

In a letter to faculty, the directors of the program wrote:

As you know, media organizations across the county are in dire financial straits and thousands of journalists’ jobs have been eliminated. Science and environment beats have been particularly vulnerable. Although our graduates have done well in their careers, even those still employed are finding few opportunities to do the kind of substantive reporting for which the dual degree program has trained them, as they scramble to do their own work plus that of laid-off colleagues. [emphasis added]

The ability of newspapers to report credibly and capably on news other than sports, entertainment, business and politics has been severely undercut by the loss of several thousand journalists over the past three years. In the case of environmental issues, such as climate change, the loss is incalculable.
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A recent edition of Forbes magazine explores the ROI — return on investment — of the cost of attending the nation’s more prestigious schools of business. Generally speaking, graduates of these top 75 schools need 4 to 4 1/2 years to recoup tuition, fees and foregone compensation.

Part of my job as a journalism professor is to recruit students. Because I was a journalist, I’m interested in finding bright, hard-working young men and women who’d like to follow the calling of the public service mission of journalism. (I remain optimistic, perhaps foolishly.)

Parents of prospective students, of course, routinely ask: “What’s your record on job placement?” That I can tell them, based on surveys of our grads six months after matriculation. (And it’s an excellent record, too.)

But here’s the question I dread:
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I’m trying to decide if I want to read the new book by David Denby called Snark, which is just being published here in Britain. It’s apparently a dignified commentary on what’s wrong with the world today, perhaps something along the lines Miss Manners might come up with if she addressed blogging as a cultural phenomenon. But I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t really say if that’s what it is. Denby is a film reviewer for The New Yorker Magazine, which gives him a certain cache as a “New Yorker staff writer.” He has also written some books, one of which chronicled how he lost a bundle of money by being naïve, greedy and stupid (American Sucker), although it’s possible he made some money by writing the book, which also chronicled the failure of his marriage and a near-breakdown—all aspects of David Denby’s life I could probably get by without learning anything about. Another book chronicled his return to Columbia College many decades after graduation to re-take the Great Books courses he had taken as an undergraduate (Great Books). This was a pretty good book, and Denby and I share something in common—we like to re-read great books we read decades earlier. Personally, I think Conrad and Cary hold up pretty well, but Durrell doesn’t, sadly. So far as I know, he does not have a blog.
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There is much you need to know to wisely direct your life. At some point, an event may occur that you cannot personally witness. Suppose the consequences of the event affect you — without first-hand knowledge of the event, will you be aware of it? Will you be able to react to it?

You will want to know what happened. You may not immediately want to know what someone else thinks or feels about what happened. That may come later. You first want someone to tell you clearly and with minimal subjectivity what happened with no opinion or impression attached.

You live in a second-hand world. You need someone to observe the world first-hand when you cannot. Who will you trust to faithfully do that for you?
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Over the past nearly four years, nearly 2,600 posts have appeared on Scholars & Rogues, almost all researched and written by the 15 folks whose names appear on our writers’ bio page. S&R writers have devoted thousands of hours to the task of filling this space.

These are skilled people with diverse interests and even more diverse points of view. Three are college professors. Also writing for S&R have been or are an Hispanic activist from Texas; a foreign affairs writer who specializes in nuclear deproliferation issues and civilian casualties resulting from armed conflict; a gay staff cartoonist; a management consultant specializing in organizational behavior whose clients include 20 percent of the Fortune 500; an ex-pat South African economist; three experts in popular culture; a former director of the Berkeley Stage Company and statistical demographer for the U.S. Census Bureau; a professional stage actor; two stay-at-moms; a photographer; and occasional guest columnists.

However, we all share one trait: We are volunteers. We don’t get paid. We have other lives, other responsibilities, other people dependent on us to make a living. As business models go, ours sucks. Modest ad income and passing the hat means S&R remains a labor of love. But can love be a sustaining force for the online medium in the absence of profit?
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I had been the scheduled guest today on “IMportant People” (sic), an online collaboration between students in a course taught by a colleague and The Buffalo News on Buffalo.com. “IMportant People,” according to a house ad in today’s News, is “a weekly lunch hour, live-chat interview series featuring some of Buffalo’s best and brightest …” Yep, I had been scheduled to appear today.

My colleague told The News that his class had scheduled a media critic from Scholars and Rogues as a guest. He invited The News to send a representative to join in as a co-guest. It would have been a wonderful opportunity for The News — and me — to talk about western New York’s largest newspaper in the context of the larger turmoil surrounding the industry. But The News yanked the microphone, er, the keyboard, out of my hands.
Full Story »

Our favorites, that is.

To your left on our home page is our somewhat, uh, quirky blog roll. We’ll now endeavor to attribute the listings to specific Scholars & Rogues staff members and add their other personal favorites. Some are just listed; others, annotated, as well. Remember: Blogs only — no websites, as such, allowed.

Ann Ivins:
Go Fug Yourself: Pure unadulterated (and funny) bitchiness on one of my favorite topics: fashion.
PhotoShop Disasters: Where reality meets Photoshop meets insanity. Full Story »

I just thought inquiring minds might want to know. Full Story »

I recently offered up an open letter to America’s progressive billionaires where I noted how much better conservatives have been historically at making best use of their intellectuals and at assuring that those laying the foundation for political action were taken care of. That is, the Daniel Bells of the world didn’t have to slave at two jobs to scrape together half a salary, and as a result they were able to do important work that paid off – and handsomely – for their patrons.

In truth, the problem runs deeper than just “our side’s” billionaires, or so it appears. It started the other day when some prominent Left Blogistanis decided they weren’t going to keep their mouths shut anymore. The first shot was fired in a Greg Sargent piece at Who Runs Gov: Full Story »

Early today hackers launched an attack against the SoapBlox network, wreaking havoc with a significant number of progressive blogs (including Pam’s House Blend, My Left Wing and several state-focused sites). At one point it looked as though the whole network may have been trashed, although at this point it seems that some sites (like our friends at Square State) were mercifully unaffected (for the time being, anyway). Some that were initially taken down are now back up and running.

It’s not yet known who was behind the attack.

Paul Preston, who runs the network, was understandably at the point of despair early today, posting a note saying that the operation was dead. Fortunately his latest missive notes that things are stabilized and moving ahead, and for this we’re grateful. Full Story »

Today is the last day of voting! Please vote for us. Also, a climate-denying blog is presently leading for “best Science blog” when its content is hardly scientific. Please go here and vote for Pharyngula.

It’s true. Scholars & Rogues has been nominated (again) for a 2008 Weblog Award in the Midsize Blog category. We’re not sure who nominated us or why, but we’re gratified and honored, to be sure. But what we’d really like is to win. Especially given the quality of the competition. Full Story »

It has been alleged that Scholars & Rogues is not, strictly speaking, a political blog. Sure, we write about overtly political issues and devote our share of time to things like media policy, energy and the environment, business and the economy, and international dynamics. Yes, we were credentialed to cover the DNC, but we don’t really do hard, insider, by god politics. Daily Kos is a political blog. Firedoglake is a political blog. Little Green Footballs, The Agonist, Politico, The Seminal – these are real poliblogs.

S&R, on the other hand, writes about music. About literature and poetry. About art. Education. Sports. Culture and popular culture. The Ramsey case and what it tells us about the state of media. And now that the election is over, S&R is writing about politics less than ever.

So really, what is S&R? Full Story »

Part two of the Zero Coordinate and EccentricProduction Web documentary series on blogging and political media is now posted. Have a look.

Several times in recent years I have said that while I’m certainly and unapologetically a progressive, I’m in no way, shape or form the kind of conventional “liberal” that a lot of people think I am. My views on a variety of issues simply don’t map onto our brain-dead, one-dimensional notion of “left” vs. “right,” and even the slightly more nuanced Political Compass fails to explain a lot of how I think. I suppose I’m instinctively a non-partisan oppositional type – that is, no party really reflects what I believe so I tend to stay mad at whoever is in power. As such, I have “caucused with the Democrats” for the past few years, and I trust the reasons are self-evident.

I begin with this because in the last month or two some of my progressive allies have been getting on my nerves. Full Story »

Back during the DNC S&R hooked up with the team from Zero Coordinate and EccentricProduction on the Tent State march and our interview with Lee Camp. Natalie, Paul and Chris were in town primarily to work on a documentary – a production I’ve been waiting on pretty anxiously.

Part 1 arrived today, and it provides a perspective on the process that most people probably haven’t encountered before.

Where are you Online” is a docuwebisode project exploring the shift from entertainment to ‘intertainment’.

We have a unique opportunity to document a shift in technology, entertainment, and our whole society’s view on “Who can be an artist?” Full Story »

“I’m interested in what motivates you, and how you understand the world.” He glanced sideways at her. “Rausch tells me you’ve written about music.”

“Sixties garage bands. I started writing about them when I was still in the Curfew.”"Were they an inspiration?”

She was watching a fourteen-inch display on the Maybach’s dash, the red cursor that was the car proceeding along the green line that was Sunset. She looked up at him. “Not in any linear way, musically. They were my favorite bands. Are,” she corrected herself.

He nodded.

- William Gibson, Spook Country

I’ve always been intrigued by the curious dynamic of influence. Full Story »

A guy on one of my music lists posted a question this morning: what’s everybody digging from eMusic these days? Wow – it’s like he knew it was TunesDay and wanted to set me up for another round of S&Recommends, huh?

Well, I don’t need a lot of prodding, so here you go. I’ve mentioned a couple of these before, I know, but great music is the sort of thing it’s okay to harp on…

• The Gaslight Anthem: The ‘59 Sound – Here are some Jersey boys who have listened to Springsteen. And, I’m guessing maybe Marah. And The Killers, and possibly even a touch of Tommy Conwell? Full Story »

In the column to the left you’ll see that we have once again been nominated for a Blogger’s Choice Award. Last year we were voted in the top 20 among political blogs, and hope to at least match that again this year.

If you’d like to help us, here’s what to do:

• Click on that badge (or the badge you see to the right in this post). It will take you to the site.
• If you have an account, click to vote.
• If not, it’s quick and painless to set one up. Then vote.
• You’ll see that we’re also nominated in three other categories. You can click on those links to vote there, as well. We’re especially interested in the “Blogitzer” category, as it honors the best-written blogs. We feel like we have some pretty accomplished writers on the staff, so that would mean a lot to us, as well.

Thanks for your support.

Well, well, well….

There’s been a spurt of 527 activity on behalf of Sen. John McCain, but Barack Obama campaign has suddenly gone silent on the subject.That’s because, after of year of telling donors not to contribute to 527 groups, of encouraging strategists not to form them and of suggesting that outside messaging efforts would not be welcome in Obama’s Democratic Party, Obama’s strategists have changed their approach. Full Story »