Hard Numbers Don't Tell The Whole Story

There are some pretty sobering numbers in the news this week – 100,000 people killed in the Myanmar cyclone, and at least 12,000 killed by the earthquake in Sichuan province in China.

These are numbers that stagger the imagination, make you feel small and insect-like, easy to blow away. It’s hard to feel anything other than despair in the face of such devastation. Certainly the lives of the survivors, especially in Myanmar, won’t get any easier in the months to come.

These staggering statistics obscure another, much smaller number, but one that has its own significance. Quietly, over the weekend, Orato.com’s 4,000th correspondent registered on the site. Our little community of citizen reporters is growing at a time when we’re all looking for eyewitness accounts and experiences to make sense of the senseless.

It’s one thing to see an earthquake through the dispassionate eye of a mainstream TV camera; the viewer and the victims are oddly detached from each other, creating in this viewer, at least, a feeling of unreality. You can tell the people are suffering but the camera is remorseless and impersonal. The camera doesn’t appear to care, so you are compelled to summon your own detachment. The world is reduced to a giant accident and you are relegated to the side, watching.

How much different is the news when it comes from Orato.com correspondent # 4000-plus Alvin Wong, who, although he is in Beijing, more than 2000 kilometres away from Chengdu, is right there emotionally. Thanks to Alvin for keeping us updated as we wait to hear the fate of the schoolchildren trapped by the quake.

The editorial team at Orato.com: myself, Heather Wallace, Robyn Stubbs and Mike Small, are combing the Internet looking for people who are reporting on their experiences in Myanmar and China. You can be part of this: if you are near the devastation, bring Orato.com into your experience – as you can see for yourself in Alvin’s report, even if you’re just near the Chengdu, Sichuan quake or the Irawaddy Delta in Myanmar, you can tell these stories in a way the mainstream media can’t or won’t: with all the emotion they require.

And if you’re not there, please participate wherever you are. When correspondents such as Bud Oracle, Michelle Kenneth and David Mixner add their voices to the stories, we get a sense of the world as a village, where everyone is connected and everyone is affected. I don’t know about you, but I much prefer this to a world in which people are reduced to … information.

Which is why, despite the terrible toll, the number 4,000 can breed a modicum of hope – the world can be a brutal place, but we can make it less so, with our eyes, our hearts, our voices and our platform—Orato.com.

Ain't Democracy Grand?

The US Democratic primary race is starting to feel like a marathon.

I’ve run 18 of those suckers, and my experience is that the only times you really feel good are at the start line…and at the finish line.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama must be feeling like they’re at Mile 24 of the 26.2 mile race – there are only two miles to go, but it seems like forever. Meanwhile, John McCain crossed the finish line, got his medal and goodie bag long ago. Now he’s standing on the sidelines jeering at the poor saps left in the race.

After her decisive loss in North Carolina and narrow midnight victory in Indiana last night, you’d almost expect Clinton to call it a day and limp off to the curb, leaving the race to the younger, swifter Barack Obama. But marathoners don’t quit easily, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this tight race comes down to the Democratic Convention in August.

Orato.com featured coverage of last night’s Indiana primary by Blueindiana.net blogger Thomas Cook, who has a granular knowledge of his home state. Check out his story here: Minute-By-Minute At The Indiana Primary.

Also, stellar Orato.com correspondent Josh Sidman has posted a new story: Democratic Presidential Race: Its Over. The headline gives you a good idea of what he thinks about this marathon contest.

While you’re at it browse through the dozens of stories on the site about this historic race. It’s great to be alive to see the first serious black and female candidates for president running neck and neck for their party’s nomination.

The easiest way to find the coverage is just to go to the search window in the upper right hand corner of any page on the site and type in Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or both to see the list of stories.

Meanwhile, remember: You Are The News. And there’s lots of news to report. Next up, West Virginia, with 28 delegates up for grabs. Then comes Oregon with 52 and Kentucky with 51, followed by Puerto Rico, 55, Montana, 16, and ending on June 3 (finally!) with South Dakota’s 15. Of course, if Clinton thinks she has any chance at winning on the floor of the convention, she might go for it, but if Obama’s momentum holds through the final primaries, she may throw in the towel.

Whatever happens, it has been the most exciting presidential primary race in decades – and for the first time, citizens are as involved in the journalism as the politicking.

Ain’t democracy grand?

Citizen-Powered Campaign Coverage: When George Stephanopoulos Isn’t Enough

Here’s what we wonder.

Are you as tired of the US presidential campaign as we are?

Or maybe I should frame that another way: Are you as tired of the US presidential campaign coverage as we are?

We are as gossip-prone as anyone, but is this campaign really about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright or whether or not John McCain has a girlfriend on the side?

Or is it about more important – much more important – issues?

You certainly wouldn’t know it, and campaign coverage hit a new low during the Democratic debate prior to the Pennsylvania primary. It wasn’t Hillary or Obama’s fault; Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, the alleged journalists, were impossible to distinguish from correspondents for the National Enquirer … or maybe that was the National Lampoon.

At any rate, the media appear to be missing the main point, which is that Americans are freaked out and want to elect someone in November who will deal rationally with Iraq and the economy, both of which went south while we were watching the so-called “horse race”. At least they got the first word right.

I just got the results of an interesting poll in my Inbox: According to American Pulse, 54.1 per cent of Democrats and 51.4 per cent of Independents (and even 47.5% of republicans) think the US government should spend more money on Social Security and Medicare, and if they need to find the money to pay for it, they should cancel some of the $17.2 billion already allotted in 2008 for pork barrel spending. Maybe not as sexy as who’s zooming whom, but it’s a clear indication of what people are really thinking about.

(If you’re looking for a Democratic candidate to back, you might note that Hillary Clinton is named on 281 earmarks (pet projects tacked on to legislation) compared to 52 for Obama.)

So, if the mainstream media won’t do it, this looks like a job for citizen journalism. I was actually a little pleasantly surprised when I counted the number of stories referring to Obama, (42) Hillary (57), and McCain (201) on Orato.com. As the date of the election (Tuesday, November 4) is now only seven months away, it’s time to add your voice to that number. Join Orato.com correspondents such as Josh Sidman, who recently submitted, Silly Season's Over, Disgusting Season Has Just Begun, just the latest in a string of two dozen stories, mostly about the economy and politics, or David Mixner, who’s most recent piece Presidential Election: The Price Of Clinton's Victory, is the latest of 14 stories on everything from politics to sexual politics.

Our presidential campaign coverage continues today with our latest poll. Who is YOUR candidate: Hillary? Obama? Or McCain? Vote now, and avoid the rush!