Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2006 > June > 02 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USLots of room in cyberspace for right turns
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tomorrow, I am a newspaper.
It’s a free circulation, paperless newspaper produced by a staff of reporters and commentators who write when they have something to say.
My newspaper, Thinking Right (www.ajc.com/thinkingright) starts with a point of view. It’s conservative. But all contributors are welcome.
The traditional newspaper has always been a part of my life. It’s the conscience of the front-porch assembly of community and kin, an instrument for finding answers, sharing information and making our lives — and the next generation’s — better. It was what we talked about. What we clipped. The invited guest at our kitchen table.
But my sense of what a newspaper is has evolved. It’s not the paper — though, frankly, nothing will ever replace that in my life. It’s those scraps of paper, the clippings, the headlines, the placement of stories, that are my family history. The silliness — giddiness, really — of the Mama-and-friends prank launched a half-century ago by a newspaper photo of a Hollywood hunk who pretended to be searching for a bride. The prank was on my teenage sister. The proposal never arrived in the mail. She married another.
Then there was the story of Anjette Lyles, no kin for sure, and thank goodness since she poisoned hers. The daily Macon Telegraph accounts of the investigation and trial of the popular restaurant owner — who was convicted and who died in prison — were clipped, discussed, rolled in a family collection bound with a string, and thus became a part of our lives.
These recollections don’t presage bad news. It is merely, for me, a recognition that a newspaper is not just the paper or the print. It’s a gathering place. A front porch where tolerant and reasonable people gather to fulfill the promises of democratic self-governance.
Four events trigger my intrigue about the possibilities of assembling communities and kin in cyberspace.
One traces to efforts seven years ago by the editorial board of The Atlanta Journal to extend our voice beyond the reach of afternoon delivery trucks. We created — largely on the back of the technological wizardry of board member Richard Matthews, now with ajc.com — an electronic version of Thinking Right.
One day we quoted a poem. The next morning, we had a note from a reader in Israel, correctly informing us that we had slightly misquoted the poem.
It was an epiphany, later reinforced: One that a community of people who care about Georgia exists all over the world. The other that smart people and experts on something exist everywhere — if, by chance, we knew how to gather them.
The second event was the rise of the Swift Boat veterans to challenge the wartime record of presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004.
That story existed in distinctly different fashion in print and in cyberspace. In cyberspace, experts self-selected, joining in as warranted, to add a bit of specialized information, often esoteric. In print, the story was primarily he said/she said quoting one side or the other.
The third event was triggered by Atlanta attorney Harry McDougald, a blogger who, within minutes of the Sept. 8, 2004, account by CBS’ “60 Minutes” of George W. Bush’s Air National Guard service during the Vietnam War, raised expert questions about whether the source documents were forgeries, which they turned out to be.
And finally, this editorial board’s experiment in finding, and blogging about, alternative ways of getting to work, convinced me, too, that print and cyberspace are both elements of community problem-solving. Print doesn’t have the time, space or immediacy for the “public hearing” on every element of a transportation discussion. Cyberspace does.
But at some point, the whole community does have to gather to decide “what is in conscience needful and right,” in the words of former Ohio Gov. James M. Cox, who founded the corporation that owns this newspaper. That place is print.
Together print and cyberspace are a place for community — whether Thinking Right conservatives or people who care about Georgia — come together to decide how to make self-governance work. Tomorrow I will be a newspaper working for a newspaper.
• Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Services »
Comments
By Joe Knippenberg
June 4, 2006 08:15 AM | Link to this
Welcome to the blogosphere! What took you so long?
By Pam Davidson
June 4, 2006 05:54 PM | Link to this
this is such a wonderful piece- and I appreciate your column so much.
Two great art forms: writing and politics. I don’t always agree- but it certainly makes me think. and, on many occassion, it has changed my mind.
What I love about this piece and all from the author is that a true love for the state and it’s people comes through. There is geniune concern.
It is such a celebration of people and cuslture- we have become so self-oriented and isolated and polarized. I feel that I learned something about someone, somewhere in Georgia everytime I read it.
I always, too, feel impassioned- rather than bitter or skeptical when i read it. Even if I am passionately opposed to the writer’s opinions.
I often find myself considering the nuances of something taken from this coluumn many days after i have read it. - i often quote it (only verbally)
I am just glad to read the work of someone who geniunely wants to share the imagery and art- the old-fashioned so valuable sense of community that the media used to offer- offering a challenge without being spiteful or arrogant or patrionizing-
celebrating life and our great state- and it’s modern circumstances and problems in an old-fashioned way- making the news our life, which it is. Thanks. pam
By Cindy Sue Causey
June 5, 2006 10:04 AM | Link to this
Welcome..
Thinking Right proposes to be interesting to follow, not to mention possibly contribute to, for sure.. Can certainly relate to your opening entries as we have doozies for front porch rocking chair roundtables ourselves here in North Georgia..
Peace and Best Wishes..
Cindy Sue Talking Rock, Pickens County
By Midori
June 5, 2006 12:41 PM | Link to this
thank you for setting up this blog and giving the vermin who disrupts the Luckovich blog somewhere else to go.
By Pink Lady
June 5, 2006 01:22 PM | Link to this
Maybe you can bribe Andy to switch to your blog. Will you please take him. He is lower than whale do-do.
By Andy
June 5, 2006 02:02 PM | Link to this
Hey Midori and Pinko — kiss my a$$ I’ll post whenever and whereever I damn well please.
By Joe Wilson
June 5, 2006 02:02 PM | Link to this
You should call it Wingnut Wooten’s blog.
By Lastango
June 5, 2006 02:35 PM | Link to this
I’m look forward to reading what you have to say, Mr. Wooten, because I especially enjoy blogs by people who write from experience.
By GA Liberal
June 5, 2006 02:43 PM | Link to this
JW- Congratulations on your blog. I wonder if liberals will spam out and jack this blog like conservatives do Luckovitch’s? They are so rude and just plain nasty over there that MLs blog has been effectively closed (which is the conservative STFU agenda of course). Get ready to blow chunks when you see conservatives in all their glory.
By Al Gore
June 5, 2006 03:03 PM | Link to this
The dream ticket in 08. Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.
By ARRF
June 5, 2006 03:05 PM | Link to this
Common sense conservatism? What is that? Have you seen any lately?
By Fave
June 5, 2006 05:28 PM | Link to this
All right turns? SPIN SPIN SPIN.
Keep going and spinning Jim. Do Dumbya proud.