Glocal Challenge | Kelsey Timmerman

My Two Weeks W/O Wolfe Blitzer

By Kelsey

I grabbed a coffee and a meat pie. I brushed off the huckster trying to convince me to patronize his peep show. I had been traveling all over Australia for the past two months, and I was taking the morning off from sight-seeing and beach-going. I went to the newsstand in Sydney’s King’s Cross district and grabbed the morning paper.

It was September 12th, 2001 in Australia. Sitting on the stoop in front of that newsstand, the world changed; I never felt more American.

My Two Weeks Without Wolf Blitzer

For the past two weeks I haven’t flipped to CNN or Fox News once. I haven’t read the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. As part of the Go Glocal Project I forced myself to look for news beyond our borders. Once again I saw 9/11 through the eyes of the world. 9/11 changed our lives, but it’s important to remember that it changed a lot of lives in the Mid-East and around the world too.

The new source that I found the most interesting the past two weeks was Al Jazeera English. Of note were stories on American Anti-War Veterans in Their Own Words, 911 First Responders Left in the Cold, and how the Taliban offered the U.S. a trial of Bin Laden pre-9/11. The first and the last are stories that likely would not appear at all in the U.S. media, especially not on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. And the story on how the first responders are being treated is just plain embarrassing to read. It’s kind of like how you’re okay with a friend (Jon Stewart) pointing out your flaws, but it stings a bit more when it’s someone looking in from the outside.

I also turned to the Economist and The Guardian for news, largely because they have great iPhone apps. Here’s a resource I compiled of other global media outlets that you could turn to. One of the great things about reading news from outlets beyond our borders is that they are written for folks who aren’t supposed to be familiar with all things American. Often American news assumes that we know how Medicare or the electoral college works. Let’s face it, most Americans don’t. But international outlets spend more time explaining the basics. So, reading about the United States in an international newspaper can help you know our country better.

That said, I missed my local newspaper. It made me feel disconnected not reading it every morning. I caught some of the Republican debates, but missing how the debates were being spun drove me nuts. Like it or not, spin is important. As much as I find it interesting to see how other countries report on us, how we report on us matters more.

Are you what you watch?

I noted on a friend’s Facebook wall that I was watching Al Jazeera English. Another commenter couldn’t believe any self-respecting American would watch Al Jazeera. No doubt, he thought I was a terrorist. I’m not sure why seeking out and watching one of the largest networks closest to the heart of much of the world’s major current events is a bad thing. But there you go. Terrorist. Me.

Anyhow this got me thinking about the stereotypes of media outlets and what where we get our news says about us. (Please excuse me while I share – and have a little fun with – the stereotypes.

If you watch Fox News you are conservative redneck who likes to shoot guns like Yosemite Sam.

If you watch MSNBC, you are pot-smoking, tree hugging, communist or Nazi or Socialist or Greenpeace terrorist.

If you watch CNN, you are a pot-smoking closet liberal who secretly desires to change your first name to Wolf.

If you read the Wall Street Journal, you are a soul-crushing businessman who would sell puppy smoothies if you could turn a profit.

If you read the USA Today, you have the attention span of a hummingbird.

If you read the New Yorker, you are an elitist; they use semicolons!

If you watch Al Jazeera you are an ululating terrorist who wears Death-to-America pajamas.

Anyone want to take a crack at CBS or ABC or any other network or newspaper?

I don’t believe these stereotypes, but I know one thing for sure:

If you are getting all of your news from one source, from one perspective, or one geographic region, you aren’t getting the whole story.

The world is complex and the more angles we can see it from the better glocals we can be.

3 tips to be a better consumer of news

1. Be a regular at irregular news outlets. Regularly consume news from outside your geographic region. Here’s an in-progress list of info sources for some suggestions. If you find yourself always quoting the same network or the same talking head, you are doing something wrong.

2. Go where the news is. What are the Japanese saying about Fukushima? What are Brazilians saying about the 2016 games? What are Egyptians…Kenyans…Chinese…Nicaraguans…saying? You can find out.

3. All news is glocal: today’s global news is tomorrow’s local news.

The new challenge: Become a Global Volunteer from the comfort of your home

Do you have a passion for fighting global poverty, but you can’t commit to traveling to the other side of the world? No problem. There’s an app for that.

Go to this page on VolunteerMatch.org and select “search for virtual opportunities” along with areas that interest you. Sign up for a project that puts your skills and passions to use and start making a difference.

The United Nations also runs a “volunteering over the Internet page.” I just checked and there are 85 opportunities for writers. How to choose?

Your assignment over the next two weeks is to choose an opportunity and get busy. I’ll report back in two weeks about what I’m doing. I hope you’ll do the same.

Good luck Glocals!

Oh, and if you want to get updates on all things Glocal, you can join my mobile list by texting GLOCAL to 97063.

Glocal, Glocal Challenge

The Rubber Glove

By Kelsey

“We have a lack of quality low-income housing in Muncie,” Steve, the city’s building commissioner, said. One night a month the Circles community, which works to lift people out of poverty, hosts a Big View session open to the public to discuss issues that people living in poverty face.

Last night we talked about housing.

“Two week into my job I got called out to a house.” Steve paused and stared at the floor. It seemed as if he was setting up a long story that would include details like where the house was and what it looked like. But then he sat back and got right to it. “A mother was holding her child and she forgot to put the rubber glove on that her landlord gave her to safely flip the light switch. They were both electrocuted.”

The room went silent. A breath would have been as loud as a gun shot.

“Now…now…” Steve said, not in a consoling sort of way but in a I should have said “shocked” instead of “electrocuted” way. “They were treated and released, but…I thought it was the only one. It’s not. I think it’s immoral to [as a landlord] take money and not provide simple services. “

For the first 15 minutes Steve talked about houses without running water and without electricity (or without safe electricity); places that endangered the lives and health of those paying to live there.

The mother who was shocked while holding her child paid $350 to live there.

Why would someone pay to live in those conditions? Probably because she’s scared. Would any other landlord rent to her? Would they want a deposit?

Who knows why she lived there. But living in poverty means you often have an extreme lack of options. Even Steve recognized his powers were limited.

“BUT…we can’t stop you from being evicted. “

So, you could report that your landlord isn’t providing a safe place that meets code. The building officials could come in and agree with you, but they couldn’t keep your landlord from kicking you to the curb.

What would you do? Would you keep your mouth shut or put on the glove?

Thankfully Muncie has a not-for-profit organization, Bridges Community Service, that helps mothers like this find new or temporary housing. But what if you didn’t know about that?

Last week I introduced a new Go Glocal challenge: research the poverty statistics in your backyard.

The poverty stats of my home county (Delaware County, Indiana):

20% live in poverty
23.5% under age 18 live in poverty

I’ve written about what the “poverty level” is before, but nothing quite sums it up for me as Steve’s story about the mother and her rubber glove.

Glocal, Glocal Challenge

Report on Glocal Challenge #1: bin hard to avoid the news

By Kelsey

Two weeks ago I announced my first Glocal Challenge: Boycott American News.

I failed horribly.

Watching Al Jazeera English

At first I was doing great. I would get up in the morning and live stream Al Jazeera English. (No I’m not a terrorist, if you think watching AJE is something a terrorist would do, you have to read this post.) It wasn’t always easy to watch AJE. At times it was like eavesdropping on friends who are talking about what they really think of you.

AJE finished an important story on protests in Syria and turned to a discussion about president Obama releasing his birth certificate.

Clip of Obama: “We live in serious times…”

Clip end.

“Please tell me this is the end of this issue,” the anchor said, and then asked about the possibility of Donald Trump being elected president.

The D.C. based reporter laughed a bit and said, “We’ve had Hollywood actors as the U.S. president; don’t discount the game show host.”

“Hollywood actors,” the anchor chuckled, “who worked with monkeys.”

Ouch! Our friends think we’re silly.

Snooki is not news

I read a lot of news on my iPhone and one of my most used apps is the Huffington Post. I’ve written for the Huffington Post and probably will do so again, but the HuffPo is a huge time suck for me. Headlines are sexed up to win my click and then there’s barely a story. There’s always a left-leaning slant on things too. I lean that direction myself, but I still find any obvious slant a little distasteful, even if it’s leaning toward my tastes. For example, I see the world more like the folks on MSNBC than on FOX news, but they drive me equally crazy. I don’t want to watch TEAM DEMOCRAT or TEAM REPUBLICAN. Cut the crap and give me the news.

For this project I needed to replace the Huffington Post app on my phone. I did so with the BBC app, which definitely gave me more important info in less time and fewer empty stories. That said, there was obviously more than a few royal wedding stories, but at least there wasn’t any Jersey Shore news.

Look at me, I’m reading The Economist

Does reading The Economist make me an elitist? In case you are wondering what “elite” really means, read this calorie-free “poop nugget” of a story in the Huffington Post about being elite.

I downloaded The Economist app on my iPhone and love it. My favorite feature is that you can download someone with a very lovely English accent reading the stories. I listened to multiple issues on planes, in my car, mowing my lawn. I appreciate the depth they go into a story. That said, a part of me want to be seen reading The Economist, and when I read/listen to it on my phone a passerby might just as well think I’m playing Angry Birds.

I highly recommend this story from The Economist on China’s presence in Africa. More Chinese have been to Africa in the past 10 years than Europeans in the previous 10. What does this mean for China? Africa? The world? Give this Snooki/birther-free story a read or a listen and find out.

Bin Laden killed my Glocal Challenge

Those are the the three outlets that I worked into my news consuming routine, and, successfully so. But I did fail spectacularly when it came to boycotting American news for the purposed of this experiment.

I blame bin Laden.

He had to go and get shot in the eye, leaving me scrambling all over cable for how the story was being spun. That’s the thing with news. It’s not always about where the truth is (there was plenty of untruths wrapped up in the bin Laden story from the beginning), but it’s also about what spin on the news will win the day. So I bounced from FOX to CNN to MSNBC and back again.

“What does this mean for the stock market?” “What does this mean for the 2012 election?” The hosts asked.

Ick. I wanted to take a bath. Still I flipped from one channel to the next. No one over-reports, over-analyzes, over-guesstimates, and over-speculates what the Hell is actually happening like the American media. I couldn’t get enough of the bin Laden story and I sat their lapping it up.

I fell off the wagon. Somewhere there was an Al Jazeera English reporter laughing at me.

But this time my news consumption didn’t end with the major US-based networks; I also turned to the BBC, The Economist, and Al Jazeera for a more nuanced, and less subjective account of what bin Laden’s death really meant. Most of the American media is based in NYC and one can hardly expect a subjective take on the fellas responsible for 9/11. Even the most liberal of reporters would’ve pulled the trigger on Osama.

Sometimes news is too close to home to report well. We’re lucky to have a world full of news outlets that allow us to look in a mirror. If only we’ll look.

3 tips to be a better consumer of news:

Be a regular at irregular news outlets. Regularly consume news from outside your geographic region. Here’s an in-progress list of info sources for some suggestions. If you find yourself always quoting the same network or the same talking head, you are doing something wrong.
Go where the news is. What are the Japanese saying about Fukushima? What are Brazilians saying about the 2016 games? What are Egyptians…Kenyans…Chinese…Nicaraguans…saying? You can find out.
All news is glocal: today’s global news is tomorrow’s local news.

Where did you turn for news the last two week? Where did you hear about bin Laden first?

Learn more about the Go Glocal Project.

Glocal Challenge

Glocal Challenge #1: Boycotting American News (but not news about America)

By Kelsey

Welcome to the first Glocal Challenge of the Go Glocal Project!

Let’s do this!

What does Timbuktu think of you?

Do you read any newspapers based in developing countries ? Me neither. What if we did? How would seeing how the world sees us change the way we see ourselves?

Conor Friedersdorf had an interesting piece in the Atlantic Monthly comparing CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, to Al Jazeera. The American mainstay cable network sites’ headlines were filled with royal wedding news, puppies, and sex, while Al Jazeera had headlines about the press in Iraq, women’s rights in Bahrain, and war crimes in Sri Lanka.

Are we really that self-centered and shallow?

Friedersdorf writes:

If Americans felt an appropriate degree of responsibility for the actions of its government, its citizens would be consuming world news at an unrivaled pace. Human nature being what it is, however, folks whose daily lives are mostly unaffected by the actions of other countries remain relatively ignorant of world affairs. In contrast, residents of less powerful countries have a much bigger appetite for news.

…we’re a nation ultimately governed “by the people,” and collectively, we’ve precious little interest in what’s going on far from our borders.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m above all of this. I check the HuffPo daily . Every night before bed I browse the “most emailed” stories in the NY Times on my iPhone, as if “most emailed” means “most important.”

We’re only as informed as our news, right? But what is “our” news. There’s no reason we can’t seek news beyond our borders. So…

Glocal Challenge #1

Find three quality international news sources (preferably based in different regions of the world) and make them (or at least try to) my sole source of news-gathering for an entire week.

It looks like Al Jazeera should make the list. Do you have any other recommendations? If so, let me know asap?

I’ll report back next week.

Glocal, Glocal Challenge