Most Americans agree.

For instance, polls say the majority of Americans are OK with losing some privacy for increased security.  Yet, others think Snowden’s actions were heroic.

Isn’t this a contradiction?  No, in fact, this is complex stuff.

Actually, this is the original American theme: the individual versus the common good.  It permeates Twain, Melville, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway.

We need to understand that no side of this issue is right or wrong.  It is the natural conflict of this new technological world we face.  So let’s embrace all facets of this issue.

First, realize this.  We are still living in the shadow of 9-11.

Fortunately, those attacks on American soil are seared into the minds of half of us.  And just as fortunate, the other half won’t allow September 11, 2001 to rule our lives.  If we’re honest, we all possess both these conflicting ideas in different proportions.  That is our American angst.

As December 7, 1941 started the US dominance on the world military stage and November 22, 1963 ushered in the 1960s, so too September 11, 2001 started the 21st Century.  They all started an era of conflict and change.

Think about what 9-11 did to our American psyche.  We hadn’t been attacked on the American mainland by a foreign enemy since 1812.  And 9-11 happened despite our possession of the greatest military in the history of the world.

But deep down, we fear that agents of evil are threatening – and maybe winning – the battle against what we hold so dear – Democracy.   Can this experiment from the 18th Century survive again?  That many of us even ask that question is a sign that we need to pay attention.

So, let’s be careful not to portray Snowden as a hero or an enemy.  He’s both.  Daniel Ellsberg called Snowden the next Daniel Ellsberg.  But remember what Ellsberg accomplished by leaking the Pentagon Papers.  He released secret documents that showed the military secrecy and crony capitalism surrounding the Vietnam War.  He was talking about taxpayer waste and immoral US actions.

But many – including Ellsberg – miss this point.  The Viet Cong never attacked New York City or Washington, D.C.  Today’s foreign enemies have and are planning again.

Sure, Snowden was trying to uncover what he believed was something immoral or in violation of the Constitution.  But you can easily make the case that he jeopardized our safety.  No one successfully argued that national security was violated by Ellsberg.

So Snowden has the right to Freedom of Speech and civil disobedience.  Those, too, are American traditions.

The irony is Snowden revealed himself outside the United States.  He fled to a country that is a potential economic and military opponent/enemy of the United States.  Yes, you can make the case that we’re trade partners with China.  And sure, Snowden’s efforts could be construed as a symbol of peaceful openness between two countries.  But to think China will acquiesce and stop their hacking and surveillance of our industries or exploiting Africa for natural resources because of Snowden’s actions is pure naivety.

Why haven’t we heard from the same people who chastised Jane Fonda for her propaganda photos with the North Vietnamese?  Shouldn’t Snowden get the same too?

Snowden’s and the libertarian creed followed by many lacks any checks and balances that he and others would demand from our government.

Too many of these Americans myopically believe their rights are being trampled when, in fact, they might be trampling the rights to security and safety for others.   Here’s what they forget.  Our rights in the Constitution are limited rights.  In other words, with those rights come responsibilities.  It’s the old adage: you don’t have the right to yell fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire.

Clearly, Snowden’s actions broke the law.  He also violated a contract he signed with his employer, a defense contractor.  That cannot be ignored by us – or the law.  Society doesn’t survive when people can ignore laws.

Sure, those laws, our government, and our industrial military complex may be obtrusive and may need changes.  And Snowden’s rights and freedoms may be taken away to help make those changes happen – but also to restore American faith in each other.

Clearly, we need to find that faith again.

Snowden is just a symptom of that faith that has eroded for decades.  For too long, we have leaders who take money from special interests.  We have a majority of Americans who are takers either as tax evaders or gluttons for government largesse.  There is no difference between the CEO who creates corporate by-laws that gives him a golden parachute even when stockholders lose than from someone taking government entitlements they don’t deserve.

What’s worse: we’ve become a nation that compliments rather than questions this behavior that is zapping our faith in our institutions and way of life.

That’s why we need a deep and pervasive debate on the issue of who we really are.

We need careful debate on this.  We also need to reassess ourselves individually.  And you and I — with our online pulpit — need to embrace the entire landscape of ideas.

Thus, calls to prosecute journalists like The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald are useless.  If anything, our elected officials should be outlining how the stories got some details and context of the PRISM program wrong.

And calls for complete transparency of these programs to the public are just as useless.  Let’s broadcast to al Qaeda, Iran, the Chinese military, and other nefarious groups that we are not home and the door is unlocked.

Despite the wave of Big Brother rhetoric against the government, I have been eased by the bi-partisan response and the Administration’s explanations of what the program really does and how it works.

Sure, there are some questions that cannot be answered like what terrorist threats were thwarted.  But I believe there are checks and balances on the program – from all three branches of government – that should foster some faith from us.

But we need more debate and introspection.

My fear is that we will just move onto the next issue and never really find the solution.

Your thoughts now.

Here are some of my takeaways.

Snowden raises security issues that many of our leaders won’t address.  Granted, discussing some of these issues publicly could hurt national security.  But the big problem is that our elected officials have always reacted to trends rather than being proactive.  Blame crony capitalism.  It causes politicians to heed the needs of special interests trying to hold onto power or markets rather than allowing us to prepare for the future.

So, Snowden should be applauded for making us address these security issues created by the twin phenomena of easy-access communication and a world where terrorists are no longer states but tribes or cults.

We don’t know everything about this story yet.  That is the nature of these government programs.  The government is trying to keep secrets.  Some would say it is for our security; others would say those secrets could be used against us.  We will have to determine that balance.

Don’t fall for the political hacks trying to create headlines or attract campaign donations.  They don’t have all the info either.  So, be careful in how you analyze or criticize this story.

To that point: Bravo to Informed Not Inflamed followers who seem to be in more research mode rather than opinion shouting mode.

Understand this slight distinction.  PRISM is not the same as the phone records Verizon story that broke a few days before.  That program appears to be a temporary data search of Americans phone records in reaction to the Boston Marathon Bombing.  However, I think public opinion will show more horror about their phones being tapped than about their emails or social media sites.

PRISM is directed at Internet companies.  PRISM was vetted and signed-off by Congressional leaders.  So, it is a legal program that is under the scrutiny of the FISA Court.  (The phone records data dump was also signed off by FISA Court.)  As a result, I don’t think PRISM will have long-term traction in public opinion.  And I think it will cause divides in both political parties.

However, there are solid counter arguments against that.

Yes, PRISM deals with foreign data.  But what if that foreign source is dealing with an innocent American?  Is that data off limits?  Probably not.

Being vetted by Congress is not reassuring.  First, these are people who got elected based on taking campaign donations from special interests so we could be dealing with people who don’t look at the overall interests of America.

Furthermore, the executive branch of government holds the trump card on national security.  The Administration can give to Congress what they think Congress needs to know.  And Congress has no choice but to hear that information – and not say anything.

The FISA Court is run by a judge – no one who is elected by the people.

Time and more information will help us assess Snowden.  Was he just a naïve young man with an ideology?  Or is he the symbol of the Millenials?  You can make a case for both.

What Snowden did took courage.  He went with his convictions.  I think he is sincere.  And he gave up a lot: a good paying job and a good life in Hawaii.

But Snowden most likely broke some federal laws.  Sure, you can call it civil disobedience.  But some might call it treason.  He also violated a contract he signed with his employer Booz Allen Hamilton.

And we can question some of this thinking behind the leaks.

Snowden said he wanted this type of program to be “determined by the public not by someone hired by the government.”

Aren’t there certain things we don’t want the public knowing?  That’s why we elect people to represent us.  No one elected Snowden.  Because of the new technology today, he has thrust himself into the national debate.  That can be good and bad.  He’s a “nobody” but he’s also a citizen with access.

But his comment about “someone hired by the government” raises the issue of government out-sourcing.  You will hear a lot of arguments on the size of government debate.  Be careful with this. We can make the argument that Republicans have caused this by pushing for massive cuts to make government smaller.  But Republicans can blame Democrats for having too big of a government that allowed a low level person like Snowden to get this information.

It also raises the question about crony capitalism.  Snowden worked for government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.  Nearly all of Booz Allen’s revenues come from the government.  Its employees have given more than $1 million in campaign donations since 1990.  The split seems to be nearly even between both parties with Democrats getting a larger share more recently.

But more importantly, if Snowden was only working for Booz Allen Hamilton for 3 months then how did he get access to that information?  Again, we need to see what were the exact terms or length of his employment before we make any concrete assertions on Booz Allen Hamilton and government contractors.

Snowden appears very naïve about China.  He may seek asylum there so he chose Hong Kong to reveal himself as the whistle blower.

He believes China “is not an enemy of United States.”   He concludes that we trade with China and the Chinese people like us.  Ironically, that is a Cold War mentality.  We didn’t trade with the Soviet Union so that is the difference in the criteria for labeling China as a non-enemy?  Sure, we trade with China but the one-party apparatus that runs China is looking out for themselves.

Snowden says “Hong Kong has history of free speech.”  And if you see some Hong Kong newspapers you might agree.  They were allowed to cover in front page splashes the commemorations of the Tiananmen Square government crackdown.

Still, Hong Kong is run by the People’s Republic of China.  As someone tweeted, “I wonder how the Dali Lama would see free speech in China”.

Snowden assumes China is pure and the US is not.

Your thoughts.

Coming up I will have some thoughts on media bias and this story.

We have not seen that word — surplus — in a decade.

And who knew the state that brought us entertainment, culture, and vapidness is now bringing us financial responsibility.

But it’s not just California being fiscally smart; Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Utah are reporting the same surplus problem.

But still there are pitfalls.  We need to pay attention even more now.

Remember, we still have the same Democrats and Republicans running and corrupting our national government.  And the economic structure that led to the Great Recession is also still in place.

First, let’s set the record straight on the politics of this good economic news.

Notice the four states that have accomplished this financial resurrection.  California and Connecticut are run by Democrats; Utah and Wisconsin are controlled by the GOP.  Remember this because the national parties will take credit for it.  The truth: there is a difference in running a state government compared to running the federal government.  Local and state politicians to get things done ignore the extremist bromides of the federal party planks.

The formula was real simple: cut spending and increase revenues on the wealthy.  We finally got away from the two stupid formulas both parties have been trying to sell us over the years.

Democrats want to throw taxpayer dollars at shovel ready jobs that turn out to be cost over-runs thanks to crony contractors and union shenanigans.  All the money spent is usually, if not always, greater than the tax returns.

Republicans told us if you cut taxes on the wealthy and businesses they will invest in more jobs and bring even more dollars into government, but we never saw the returns equaling or exceeding taxpayer investment since most of the wealthy and the businesses pocketed the taxpayer proceeds.

Hopefully that type of thinking is done.  Hopefully you will see our recovery as something that happened in spite of our two major political parties.

Democrats should look at Jerry Brown as an example of how to govern fiscally.  Not since Clinton did we have a Democrat who does what he says economically.

Republicans should go back to Ike and stop following Reagan, Nixon, and George W. Bush and stop paying off the corrupt corporations that are controlling our government policy and expenditures in defense, energy, and the media – and let the new economy flourish.  GOP should condemn more loudly Cheney’s famous stupidity by telling him deficits do matter.

Next, everyone should tip a glass of California Zinfandel (the red, not the white) to (using his formal name) Edmund Gerald Brown for his thought process about what to do now that he has a surplus.

Notice, he is not getting euphoric about this new windfall.  He’s actually looking at the real source of the new revenues – an excessive amount of taxes paid on capital gains from the wealthy selling their stocks at the end of 2012 knowing the Bush era tax cuts were history.  He wants to put it into a rainy day fund for the next economic collapse.

He’s right.  Consider these factors:

Those tax increases are most likely a one-time thing.

The stock market is probably at a peak after doubling since the financial collapse in 2008.  As Chance The Gardener says in the film Being There, “growth has its seasons.”  We may have reached the end of a growth season.

The Fed might be plowing up the growth fields as well.  We are getting hints from Bernanke that quantitative easing and the raising of rates may be happening soon.

There’s a lot of talk that tax reform could raise capital gains rates closer to income tax rates.

Despite recovering from the Great Recession, our economy remains under the same structural problems.  We will continue to swing between boom and bust cycles.  We’re seeing the real estate market heat up again.  Fannie and Freddie, with growing revenues, are paying back Uncle Sam which is helping to reduce the federal budget deficit.

But already the morons in Congress are resting on the falling deficit numbers.  They still think if we raise taxes on the wealthy and cutting defense budgets are all we have to do.  As a result, they’ve stopped any discussion on the long-term deficit explosion from entitlements that could ruin us over the next 15 to 20 years.

It’s like going on a diet for a week and losing a pound and calling it a success when you need to lose 30 pounds.  Like proper nutrition and exercise for better health, this fiscal program has to be a life-long routine.

If you think these economic surpluses or revenue streams from an uptick in real estate are going to last then we’ve learned nothing from 2008.

Still, we need to invest.

Our roads need repair.  Look no further than the bridge collapse in Washington State.

But we also need high-speed, fuel efficient trains and mass transit to remove as many cars from the roads.  Investment to reduce our consumption is needed.

But we also need to invest in an array of new energy sources.  That includes getting all government energy from US sources.

We also need to invest in environmental safeguards for fracking.  We actually are on our way to energy independence.  But we need to make sure we don’t make a mess of our lands here.  This is our chance to become the world leader in everything again while we leave the quagmire of the Middle East behind.

We also need high-speed internet for every American.

But – and here’s the big BUT — for these investments, government must place standards and financial safeguards on contractors and unions.  What government says is the cost of the project, then that is the price of the project.  Taxpayers pay no more.  Cost over-runs come out of the pay to the contractors and the workers.  Government and contractors need to be efficient for taxpayers.

As the GOP has always said, but rarely done, let’s run government like a business.

So how do we get the rest of the country to act like California?

Pass Simpson-Bowles.

That’s right.  It’s the future.

Hey I didn’t promise you a rose garden.

This week we witnessed (maybe endured) four big stories: the IRS flagging Tea Party groups, Benghazi hearings, the DOJ getting phone records of AP reporters and Fox News’s James Rosen to find leaks, and Bloomberg Media’s digital spying.

Expect more of these.

Four good books tell us this is what is happening now and will happen in the near future.  The causes are innovative technology and problems in our political structure.

Unfortunately our elected officials and the corporate-controlled media are the last to understand the underlying causes which is threatening our economy and our democracy.

This is where the new innovative media – with free-lance journalists and thinkers – can make a big difference in our politics and quality of life.

Let’s look at these books.

Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, in their book The New Digital Age, outline the future of technology.  They examine the good and the bad for governments, businesses, activist groups, and terrorists.  The message is clear: entities that don’t keep up with technology won’t exist.

Moises Naim’s book, The End of Power, shows how technology is making it more difficult to govern.  Communication technology gives us more voices – but also more noise.  Thus, we witness dumb statements from elected officials who are either uninformed or opportunistic.

David Stockman, in The Great Deformation, explains how crony capitalism has caused our economic uncertainty and failures.  He points out that the massive giveaways to special interests and corporations have bloated our tax code and caused unfair economic distribution.  Stockman correctly shows us how our elected officials have built a massive military that is geared to fight the Soviet Union in the 1970’s, not today’s low-tech, non-state insurgents.  Those same elected officials tout the defense build-up as a local jobs program for their districts.

The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt, shows us why we don’t change opinions very easily.  He shows how most of us are wired to be Democrats/liberals or Republicans/conservatives.  Our experiences and upbringing – call it our intellectual DNA – is ingrained in all of us.  It’s very rare that someone in adulthood swings from one party philosophy to another.  The prejudices or biases are only enforced by most of the so-called mainstream media.

So, how do these authors explain the underlying problems in these four major stories of the past week?

The IRS scandal is real to many Americans.  A bunch of bureaucrats targeting our finances based on our political leanings is scary.  Yet, when you look deeper, you realize who caused this problem: the Republicans and the Democrats creating complicated laws to put more campaign money in their election coffers.

And yet these laws give more tax breaks to more people who are politically connected.  That means fewer revenues to run government.  Instead, that money stays in the pockets of special interests to influence the same elected officials who passed the same laws.  And we wonder why the debt crisis isn’t properly addressed.

This brings us to the Benghazi hearings.  The House hearings are taken seriously by most Americans because four Americans died.  We correctly raise the issue of protecting our diplomats and representatives overseas.  However, those same elected officials addressing that security issue are the same ones who have cut government budgets at our foreign outposts and possibly helped arm those insurgents during the fall of Libya.

And then laughably, these same elected officials decry that the US military did not respond to Benghazi with fighter jets to scare away insurgent terrorists.  As I mentioned in a previous column, it’s the equivalent of trying to kill a bug with a baseball bat.  It proves that most of our elected officials are clueless about foreign policy or the complexities of the locales and societies we’re dealing with.  It also shows how powerful and dangerous some populaces have become without a massive military.

Yet the Benghazi hearings barely mentioned these underlying problems that make us less secure.  Instead, the hearings, at times, became a political circus.  The attacks seemed to target Hillary Clinton, thought to be the next Democratic candidate for the White House.  Within days of the hearings, the Karl Rove group had an anti-Hillary political ad running.

But isn’t that ad a political spot – not an issue ad?  If so, then why isn’t Rove’s group investigated for violating the IRS laws like those Tea Party groups?  The truth is the big organizations run by both major political parties won’t be investigated at all.

Let’s look at the Justice Department’s ease of tracing phone records of the AP and why this won’t be the last time it happens.  Look at the reaction when the FBI failed to keep tabs on the Boston Marathon bomber who traveled to the Caucuses in 2011.  We want the Justice Department to tap the phones of suspected terrorists.  So why wouldn’t a news organization either innocently or knowingly have a connection to a terrorist?

And why shouldn’t we investigate the media whose news content, at times, calls for the downfall of different administrations?  Look at the editorial content of Fox News and MSNBC.

The election of Democratic control of Congress in 2006 and the presidency of Barack Obama in 2008 were certainly given a stronger voice by MSNBC programming geared to Democratic issues – that continues today.  Their goal: remove Republicans from office.

Fox News clearly promotes Republican voices that constantly call for impeachment and removal of President Obama while giving voice to insurgent groups that call for preparation aimed at armed insurrection against the government.  Their goal: remove Democrats from office.

So ask yourself: if you were in power wouldn’t you fight your political enemies that purport to be journalists acting as political operatives?  We want our government to go after terrorists who charade as student immigrants.  Is there a difference?  One person’s journalist is another person’s political insurgent.

I don’t mean to degrade journalists working for these major news outlets.  But how many of them have broken stories that have hurt their company’s bottom line or reputation?  Not many.

Still, we want a free press.  We don’t want our journalists and their sources to be quieted from speaking the truth or questioning the power of government.  But we also want a media that speaks to the whole truth – and not just the corporate truth that pays and supports them.  No major media conglomerate can push for true campaign finance reform because it hurts their revenues and possibly their existence.  Only an innovative media – free from the shareholder input — can speak to this.

And how do we regulate the media’s freedom from becoming an intrusion on our privacy?  Bloomberg News reporters had access to private financial records of major organizations.  The reporters were looking for trends in the financial world to report on – not something traders and financial executives want.  Shouldn’t we know what some of these big financial firms are doing?  Many experts say these companies were a main cause of the financial crisis.  Still, this rubs against our belief of free enterprise along with a free media.

What needs to be done?

We need a lot of research and a lot of honest debate.

Overall, we need to remove money from politics.  If you look at all the underlying problems of the past week and the inability to solve them, the stumbling block is money in politics.

Tea Party’s initial goals were all about fiscal responsibility.  That got obscured once big corporate money came in.  Now, for a number of people, the Tea Party is confusing and it has not gained any consensus.

The corporate media needs to be broken up.  Not only are they not exploring or debating these underlying issues; they’re part of the problem making us choose political winners and losers instead of creating knowledge and understanding.  Plus, we have the technology to create strong journalistic content that can be attained by the majority of citizens.  But the growth of campaign funding keeps the corporately-owned media with massive revenues for shareholders, protection for the political parties, and no incentive to stand for purity of democracy.

At some point, we will also need to seriously look at our Constitution.  Something needs to change.  It is a document that, though beautifully crafted, was created in the 18^th Century.  We don’t live in that world.  And some of our Founding Fathers proposed Constitutional Conventions every 20 years to make sure the Constitution was meeting our needs.  The last Amendment was the repeal of Prohibition.

Elections need to change.  We need to put the power of the ballot back in the hands of the people and not the political parties.

The two political parties in the US, in some ways, resemble the ruling party mullahs in Iran.  Instead of showing your Islamic/Shiite bona fides to be allowed to run in Tehran, American politicians must show that they can raise huge amounts of money before they can make the ballot in the so-called land of the free and home of the brave.

Technology will move us closer to these solutions.  However, politics and money will make it a slow process.  That is, unless you’re more informed and ready to voice a thought-out opinion.

We amplify news services two ways.

1) For local news services that cover cities, like OaklandLocal, we are publicizing articles locally via Twitter using the RSS feed.

2) For state, regional and national news services, we offer our “Media Amplification Program” that uses Twitter to retweet news service posts.

For 2) above, here’s how it works. The news service simply finds the hashtag for the city associated with their local article at TheBNN’s City Directory. The hashtags are usually common sense, Cleveland is #Cleveland. Note that for now, only the cities rendered in navy blue font can be used.

In this example, @inthesetimesmag tweeted using the hashtag #Detroit

When @inthesetimesmag is authorized, our @detroit_buzz would RT to our Detroit readers as so:

We have authorized all of the news services who are members of The Media Consortium and Investigative News Network. Simply add the hashtag of the city to your tweets, and make sure your tweets are less than 118 characters so it can accomodate the RT text. Our city feed with retweet the tweet to our local readers. We hope this simple procedure helps news services develop and maintain local followers.

Here’s why.  It appears that the economic theory of creative destruction is about to wipe out local TV stations and, as a result, local TV news.

Making predictions on the media is not easy.  Technology is changing.  Various news markets have different needs and will consume news in different ways.  And media consolidation has created a powerful lobby that will try to stop innovation.

Still, the news is not good for local TV stations.

Just this week Senator John McCain introduced legislation to try to keep cable and satellite fees down.  The bill would allow cable and satellite customers to pay from a la carte menus.  In other words, you pay only for the stations you watch – not the 500 channel universe.

That could crush local TV stations.

People will probably choose only one local station.  It will be based on either what local news they like or what network prime time show they watch.

But that means the majority of TV stations in each market will lose retransmission fees paid by cable outlets.  And in today’s TV world, most TV news stations rely on cable retransmission fees for half of their revenues.  Not many businesses can survive when half their gross revenues are cut.

Granted, there is a good chance that McCain’s bill won’t pass or even get a vote.  The broadcasters and the major TV networks are big campaign donors and lobbyists.  They aren’t going to give up their profits and control of distribution and content.

But there are other problems for TV stations.

Aereo is a new disruptive company that offers subscribers local TV programming on their computers, tablets, or smart phones for $12 a month.  But Aereo doesn’t have to pay retransmission fees to local TV stations to use their programs.

And the courts are siding with Aereo.  A number of courts have ruled that Aereo is no different than a VCR.  Previous court decisions allowed people to record a show on VCR and not pay rights to the station or network.  So, as long as Aereo is recording local TV stations off the public airwaves then it’s OK.  Technically, Aereo is just giving its customers a VCR-like copy of shows except over a computer, tablet, or smart phone.

As Aereo spreads to more cities, more cable outlets will refuse to pay those retransmission fees to TV stations.  Why would cable companies pay those fees when a company like Aereo is airing the same content and not paying anything?

Ironically, it was Aereo’s court successes that led to the broadcast networks threatening to move all of their programming to cable or pay-per-view.  In turn, that threat from broadcasters led to McCain’s a la carte bill.

Already, local TV stations are in trouble.  Advertisers are not interested in expensive 30-second spots that fail to target or give the advertiser enough feedback from customers.  Local newscasts are losing viewers to the Internet and other sources – even for breaking news.  Many stations rely too much on paid programming.  And others are outright political partisans without any regard for a good portion of their audience.

So if the McCain bill becomes law, if the Aereo model spreads to more cities, and if networks pull their primetime program breaks then there is a good chance the majority of TV stations will go bankrupt or will be forced into agreements with other local news outlets.  The problem is so many of these TV stations are owned by conglomerates that have had to finance the old and more expensive broadcast technology.

Either way, the local stations that survive will have to produce good local programming that pertains directly to their audiences.  And those audiences might not be categorized as cities but neighborhoods.  Whatever the model will be most of the old technology stations will not exist or will look totally different from today.

The TV stations that survive will do so by cutting costs.  The big costs are employees.  Already, older and more expensive journalists are no longer in the business.  As a result, journalists will probably become independent contractors selling their stories and segments back to TV stations.

That’s where local journalists can take advantage of a community’s need for credible news and information.  Again, it is hard to predict what will happen in each local market.  But these things are certain.

Each market will need strong investigative journalism to stand up and question elected officials and those in power.

Each market needs video content to accompany good journalism.

Each market needs journalists who will interact with the public and use content from the public that will be overflowing as communications technology improves.

Right now, journalists have the technology to undercut what local TV stations do.  Take a look at Tim Poole, a new age journalist who has covered events like the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations with smart phones by streaming them to computers and tablets LIVE.

What many citizen and entrepreneurial journalists don’t have is someone with technology protecting them.  Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, of Google fame, have penned a new book that future journalists should read.  One of their suggestions for journalists: find someone who can encrypt your site and protect your sources from governments and criminal enterprises.

Now it’s your turn.  What do you see and what do you want in this new media age?

Local news isn’t just reported by the local press. For example, compelling local stories appear in news services like The Atlantic Cities, Colorlines, Public News Service and Investigative News Network that are intended for their national readers — but may not reach the local readership where it has the most immediate impact. By necessity, news services need to cater and appeal to the broader national readership in order to achieve the traffic required for monetization. The hurdle is developing and maintaining the syndication channels that get investigative news reports in Cincinnati, Ohio to Cincinnati readers. I’m betting very few consumers recognize the networks named above, one reason is simply their brands are not distributed to local levels. Kevin Davis, CEO of Investigative News Network notes: “The new investigative news publishers, many of whom are nonprofit and in our network, need to be exposed to target and local readers across a variety of platforms. We work together with them to make sure their content is not siloed, but networked broadly across various channels that provide the consumer multiple opportunities to be informed. This is especially applicable for publishers reporting on diversity issues and underserved communities.”

(Above paragraph an excerpt from my article In the Era of Networked Journalism, Everybody can Contribute on Street Fight.)

We’ve been working together with The Media Consortium and Investigative News Network, with 63 and 83 news services respectively, to amplify their news services’ stories down to the local level. Most news happens at a location. The Breaking News Network’s networked journalism mission is to simply make sure that news is delivered to those who can best use or appreciate it based on locality.

Related: The Breaking News Network supports Public Interest News Syndication

Here’s an example of how the BNN has helped indie filmmaker Stephen Silha with the local marketing of his film Big Joy, The Adventures of James Broughton, last month’s winner of best documentary at the Florida Film Festival. We’ve authorized the Twitter account @BigJoyProject to have specific tweets retweeted through @BreakingNYCNews when Stephen adds the hashtag #NYC to the tweet.

TODAY: Final #BigJoy screening at @tribecafilmfest ~ Noon Saturday April 27th ~ Get your tickets here: ow.ly/kt52u #TFF2013 #NYC

— Big Joy (@BigJoyProject) April 27, 2013

@BreakingNYCNews automatically retweets @BigJoyProject whenever it uses the city hashtag. It does not retweet it if the hashtag does not appear.

via @bigjoyproject: TODAY: Final #BigJoy screening at @tribecafilmfest ~ Noon Saturday April 27th ~ Get your tickets here: t.co/uXlp

— Breaking NYC News (@breakingnycnews) April 27, 2013

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This is the first of many media network collaborations for The Breaking News Network.

The Breaking News Network Partners with Public News Service to Support Local Syndication of Public Interest Articles

The Breaking News Network (“TheBNN”) and Public News Service (“PNS”), a member-supported news service that advocates journalism in the public interest, today announced a media collaboration that expands PNS’s local news distribution. The collaboration aims to insure that PNS’s regional and local public service news reaches the communities most affected by its coverage by syndication across TheBNN’s media network of 350 cities.

Lark Corbeil, Founder of PNS, says, “Creating media that serves the public is critical. And just as important is bringing that news to readers. Our collaboration with TheBNN will deliver our public interest content to local readers where it will have the most tangible impact.”

The Breaking News Network curates and publishes the most interesting local media and blog feeds in 350 cities worldwide. One of its main mission is to provide a non-commercial local media voice to journalists working in the public interest in the communities it serves. According to Patrick Kitano, administrator of TheBNN, “We’ve long supported local media institutions by automatically sharing their updates via what we call our Media Amplification Program. With PNS, we’re accomplishing our mission to syndicate their news directly to the communities they serve”.

About Public News Service

Currently reaching an audience of over 24 million weekly through 8,000 other outlets, PNS was launched in 1996 to promote public dialogue in a rapidly changing media environment. PNS examines the effects of policy on areas that receive too little coverage, lifting up often marginalized voices and making greater journalistic breadth available to broadcasters and publishers on any platform. Support comes from non-profit organizations, foundations, individuals and businesses for social responsibility.

About The Breaking News Network

Started in 2009, The BNN curates the most interesting media and blog feeds (avoiding car crashes and mundane crime reports) in 350 cities worldwide to create a real-time ticker tape of social media-sourced news in each city. The noncommercial network is unique in supporting each city’s civic groups, politicians, arts organizations, educators and causes by providing them with a free media voice to connect with their community. The Network now has, in aggregate, over 400,000 dedicated followers in part because they will never encounter a banner ad on the sites.

Contacts:

Public News Service – Lark Corbeil; 303-448-9105; Lark@publicnewsservice.org

TheBNN – Patrick Kitano; 415.573.2481; thebreakingnewsnetwork@gmail.com