Last week I live blogged in real time during a Public Workshop on the Urban Development Boundary. The public meeting was hosted by the US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Smart Growth. I live blogged because the meeting was held at the Miami Dade Public Library which has free wireless. There is nothing unique about live blogging. But as far as I know, it has never been done before in Miami in a government sponsored forum. Within this coincidence, Eyeonmiami had an noticeable spike in readers. It seems like a lot of readers passed along the news to colleagues and friends. So the question arises: why not free wireless in government chambers?
The way we get our news of government is limited by scarce resources of the mainstream press. They decide who and what should be published or broadcast. There is no scarcity of bandwidth in wireless communication: why accept the judgment of what is newsworthy from budget-strapped and advertiser-challenged news executives when wireless could let a thousand voices bloom?
As Eyeonmiami approaches one million page views, we prove every day that a small mesh net captures interesting creatures.
Consider: The Miami Herald is so stretched thin, with a handful of reporters covering local politics, that public meetings often don't make the B section. Interested citizens are left to watch on the government channel on cable TV or internet webcasts. Usually, news of these meetings is limited to those who can afford the time or are paid to attend on behalf of one employer or another. Our taxes pay for their privileges: maybe live blogging will never rise to the standards of professional journalism, but isn't some news worth more than none. Isn't Eyeonmiami's blog better for the public than a blackout imposed by someone else's profit motive?
It is easy to anticipate where this call for free, open wireless in government chambers will be resisted. In Miami-Dade County, for example, the unreformable majority of the county commission was so incensed by print media initiatives of a citizen's initiative to protect the Urban Development Boundary called Hold The Line, that made up Spanish language broadsides and gave them away freely in coffee shops in Hialeah and on Calle Ocho, that commissioners Diaz, Moss, Seijas, and Martinez resolved to spend county funds on an officially sponsored news organ "to get the truth out".
Let the corporate citizens live blog too: Lowe's, FPL, and Lennar. 95 percent of the time, voters have little idea what their elected officials do. For people who don't have the time to watch cable TV, or the endurance to cope with archived webcasts, or the scrim that passes for local news, citizens might be energized by reports and feeds on particular subjects from government chambers using free wireless.
Democracy thrives in the sunshine, and on that basis alone there is no reasonable argument to oppose free wireless signals in government chambers. At County Hall, although cell phone use is prohibited in the Chamber, everyone is text messaging or reading emails. Why not blogs?
3 comments:
The lobbyists would be able to message the commissioners and staff directly. In fact, instead of simple text messages (refer to PSC, Florida) they could send entire diagrams illustrating the point for those who could not read txt shorthand.
It isn't that nefarious. It is more an issue of technology. Wireless even for county employees is weak in the chamber.
The big issue is security. The wireless system was installed 6 years ago - still B, not even G - and is closed to keep people from jumping firewalls.
Why not free wireless everywhere????Mayor Carlos Alvarez tried it but the powers that be killed it. Miami Beach just implemented it Oct 21st.
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