Sunday, September 9, 2007

Taking Shape: Susie Madrak

I've asked Susie Madrak to chair a panel, and she has agreed. If you don't know Susie, she's the brilliant and delightful woman behind Suburban Guerrilla, one of th bright lights of the Philly blogosphere. She and i are still playing phone tag about what exactly her topic will be, but you can rest assured it will be something good. Click around her site to see what her interests are (and one of them is music, so you know I love that).

Susie's interests, like Atrios's, tend to circle around the media, so I expect that that's more or less what we'll be organizing.

I wanted to get back to this, since I think there are a couple of different ideas on the table here re: the media. QL justly pointed out that YKos took some heat for perceived kowtowing to the media, and that's not quite what we do. But Eschaton (the site) started as a critique of the media, and I think leaving them out would be short-sighted. Besides, I'm interested in what the media has to say about bloggers--Will Bunch, who also commented on that thread, is a good example of someone who spans the divide.

I'm not talking here about comping Joe Klein to come and abuse us (though I would love to let simels harangue him in person), but I'd be curious to hear the stories of progressive media people and how they see the shape of their profession. But David Corn? Paul Krugman? Barbara Ehrenreich? Why not?

Prior A's comment has more to do with media coverage of what we're doing, which we obviously can't control. The DFH meme will undoubtedly be as tenacious for them as the Hillary-Ballbuster meme: too much depends upon its continued health to let it rest.

UPDATE: Spocko swung by Eschaton and said he'd be interested in presenting. Few know more about doing battle with the right-wing talk-radio machine than Spocko, whose crusade against KSFO in San Francisco has had real, concrete results (to the tune of about a half million in ad revenues for shit-spewers like Melanie Morgan). I hope he can come!

12 comments:

steve simels said...

I demand a cage match to the death with Klein!!!!

That, or we force him to read aloud from his article describing the race riots sure to occur upon the release of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing."

The Kenosha Kid said...

Didn't we have Susie Madrak the last time around?

Anonymous said...

My pipe dream is Carl Bernstein (who made a comment on Press the Meat recently that the traditional media should pay more attention to the blogs), and John Dean ... they could give some real insights into the inner workings of a corrupt presidency and the role in the media in exposing it, and even more important, taking it down.

Also, we were told during Iran-Contra that the country "couldn't take anothe Watergate and we had to heal" ... really? Were we injured by Watergate? I found it absolutely invigorating to see that the system worked. The creation of the "we can't handle the truth" mentality represents, to me, the beginning of the death of our democracy. And yet the media cheerfully sold it. Why? What happened?

Anonymous said...

Sounds good to me. Afterall, we did have a serious afternoon session with Slaughter et al, then proceeded to party after dinner.

ql-was in ny

NYMary said...

Didn't we have Susie Madrak the last time around?

Precisely why I asked her.

Sinfonian said...

Dammit, you're going to make me think at this thing, aren't you?

I was only coming for the snacks ... and the booze. Well, mostly the booze.

And the non-existent game show presentation ... "DFH Jeopardy!," anyone?

;)

lutton said...

Any interest in having my sister-in-law, a journalism professor at NYU (She's also working journalist, but freelacing while teaching) come to talk about the future of media?

NYMary said...

lutton,
Drop me a line.

Anonymous said...

Didn't we have Susie Madrak the last time around?

Yes, Susie was there, and she took over plans that Mrs. David and I had made with some people.

Not that I'm bitter or anything ;)

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry if I did that. I don't remember, but I do tend to be oblivious to other people at times and I apologize.

NYMary said...

Ah, I think David is just teasing, Susie. Some things, like lunch Saturday, were pretty chaotic.

Anonymous said...

Susie,

It really wasn't a big deal, I just like to complain about minor things. :-) It wasn't really planned or anything, very spur of the moment. The place we went to instead was very good, and a good time was had by all.

Which, in the end, is far more important.