{"id":84,"date":"2004-07-19T02:12:12","date_gmt":"2004-07-19T08:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2004\/07\/19\/agora-sweater\/"},"modified":"2006-02-16T02:14:40","modified_gmt":"2006-02-16T08:14:40","slug":"agora-sweater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/07\/agora-sweater\/","title":{"rendered":"Agora sweater"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking good in an agora<\/i> sweater<\/font><\/h4>\n
Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock<\/font><\/h6>\n

Monday, July 19, 2004:<\/font><\/b><\/font> I raised a somewhat complex question in my previous essay. I’ve thought more, and I have a rough answer. The nature of a Web log such as Brick, however, is that it puts the newest material first. It’s Jeopardy: Here’s the answer, what’s the question? So I will wait while you review the Friday 7\/16 entry.<\/font><\/p>\n

Done? The name of the void has been called the marketplace of ideas, or agora.<\/i> It’s an old concept. The news as presented by responsible journalist organizations is one booth in that bazaar.<\/font><\/p>\n

If the latest facts, the most even-handed explanations and clearest analyses get lost among the hawkers of shiny trinkets, well, that’s to be expected to some extent. But our passers-by do prefer quality, and if they cannot find it or cannot discern it, well, that’s largely the fault of the journalists. The forum is a given, a constant and pretty much unchangeable.<\/font><\/p>\n

Newspapers and the responsible broadcast and online journalist outlets simply have not figured out yet how best to market their information in the 21st century.<\/font><\/p>\n

The problem of the major media is not so much sleazy or unethical reporting (Jayson Blair et al) but that they allowed some lazy reporting of trusting the government, following polls and so forth. This not only made for inaccurate journalism but boring, too. Enter the shouting TV shows into the agora.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

What really got us into Iraq? Is John Kerry the best the Democrats can come up with? Good questions? Yes, but it’s too late to answer them.<\/font><\/p>\n

If quality news outlets want folks to buy from their stands, they must hurry to find the current questions and begin to sell the answers — in ways that have appeal now, that fit people’s data-gathering habits now. How? A future Brick or 20 of them. -30-<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking good in an agora sweater Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Monday, July 19, 2004: I raised a somewhat complex question in my previous essay. I’ve thought more, and I have a rough answer. The nature of a Web log such as Brick, however, is that it puts the newest material first. It’s Jeopardy: Here’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":58,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/08\/being-baited\/","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":0},"title":"Being baited","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2004. Newspapers are suffering because they've lost both anger and humor, Jimmy Breslin said in a Poynter interview in late July. My slight spin would be that we're trying too hard to be nice. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette colleague Jennifer Hansen wrote a few\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/08\/city-editor-ray-hobbs\/","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":1},"title":"City editor Ray Hobbs","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 12, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004. Colleague Ray Hobbs of Little Rock died Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2004. He wasn't old, just 53, but had hepatitis C. [Link to obit has expired.] Here are two recollections of Ray. 1. In 1982, maybe 1983, I was working at a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/10\/thinks-hes-a-comedian\/","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":2},"title":"Thinks he’s a comedian","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"October 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, October 27, 2004. \"The Wall Street Journal\" today in a feature recalled Gracie Allen's 1940 run for president, noting also Eddie Cantor's in 1932 and Will Rogers in 1928 and also 1932. And it mentioned Pat Paulsen's runs in 1968, '72 and '76. No\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":76,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/03\/china-cups\/","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":3},"title":"China cups","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock \u00a0 Saturday, March 13, 2004. Green tea from red China. Nice, but no one says \"red China\" anymore. -30-","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":85,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/07\/need-to-void\/","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":4},"title":"Need to void","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 16, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Friday, July 16, 2004: I see it as a void, a vacuum that nature abhors, that will be filled no matter what. Its name I don't know: Maybe it's so obvious I cannot pin it down. If so, I hope it is not trite, like,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":75,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/03\/is-it-real-or-desenex\/","url_meta":{"origin":84,"position":5},"title":"Is it real, or Desenex?","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 15, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\u0005^q\u00c2\u00ac\u0005\b\u0015dt face=\"Courier New, Courier, mono\">Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Monday, March 15, 2004. Reality TV shows are not reality. Even close. Just think about them with a little deliberation, and it's obvious. Yet people watch them, and talk about them, as if they are. -30-","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}