Legal Insurrection, review of conservative website that started as a blog

Link to blog: http://legalinsurrection.com

I reviewed a conservative blog started by William Jacobson in 2008, a professor of law at Cornell University.

I do not agree with any of the viewpoints and opinions expressed in this blog and was very angry at the type of content that was posted in its articles.

As Halloween is fast approaching, one of the articles on the blog, now turned website was critical of the authorities at Tufts University, who sent out a warning to its students to choose and be careful of what hey wear this Halloween, in an attempt to stop the wearing of culturally inappropriate costumes during this festival.

The article also features images done by a cartoonist who works for the site which focus mainly on showing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in negative situations, highlighting them as bad guys.

The website also features a Post of the Day and a Blog of the Day section that link to other blogposts and websites that have similar and agreeing opinions to those at Legal Insurrection. This is done to promote other bloggers and increase online traffic.

The website has advertisements along its main page as a main source of income as well.

William Jacobson; Legal Insurrection

Link to blog: http://legalinsurrection.com

Our class speaker on Tuesday, October 25th was William Jacobson, who is a professor of law at Cornell. He started a conservative blog called Legal Insurrection in 2008.

I do not agree with any of the views and articles posted on the site, but it was very interesting to hear how he started the blog, and how he has kept it running in terms of revenue.

He explained that he started a political discussion with a Democratic friend, who encouraged him to start a blog as he felt he spoke about his views and opinions in a clear way.

Jacobson also mentioned that it was all his own work in the beginning, and that good content, especially if it is about a topic that has a potentially large market related to it, is the key to creating a following of readers. Once a following is established, 'true fans', as discussed in class will help to share your name and increase your fame online.

He also explained that the comments section is important to allow him to connect and create a relationship with his readers. His main source of revenue, as he showed was through advertisements on his site. "Images do really well on the Internet" is also a side note he gave.

One of the things I agreed upon with him was that he explained blogging must be done regularly because 3-4 days without updated and new content can cause a drop of readers that may take 3-4 weeks to regain.

He explained that when starting up a blog, it is important to market yourself on other blogs and media outlets/publications to help get your name out and then by providing a link to your blog, you can gain a few more readers.

He ended by saying the way to successfully run a blog, and gain regular readers is by showing consistency in content and building a sort of community with the readers that share the same passion or opinions about your blog. 

New Technology, New Voices, class handout

New age technology has changed the way citizens play their role in society today. Videos, pictures, Facebook Live, tweets, and blogs have revolutionized the term 'citizen journalist'.

As the article explained how videos of police brutality and blog posts exposing government crimes in Egypt helped bring about the 'Arab Spring' and also a new age of how people can use simple day to day technology to fight against the greatest powers in a country.

We can see a similar effect from new age technology in the US, in terms of body cameras on police and the use of taking mobile phone videos to record shootings, arrests, and accidents that occur. This has led to an uneasy relationship between a country's government and its citizens.

Such technology can and must be used by citizens to record anything they see happening in their world that may be ignored or suppressed by the mainstream media. This was the case seen in Egypt, as the government friendly media would not expose officials for human rights crimes they committed. It was the courageous work of journalists and citizens that brought to light the crimes happening in the country.

This of course, also leads to backlash by the government in forms of censorship, surveillance, and ban of networks and social media sites by governments fearful of the truths that can be exposed through them.

Digital revolutions such as those started in Egypt are seen all over the world. While these are essential to help bring about justice and democracy in the world, it can at times endanger the lives of those responsible for them.

While journalists gain training in how to work and stay safe in dangerous situations, the people who live in those places have no such training or help, which brings the question of what mainstream media of today can do to help protect the citizen journalists they encourage and support to share the news and truth from around the world.

I believe that citizen journalists are becoming more and more like independent journalists, because they record what is happening in front of them and expose the lies and crimes committed by people in power and authority. But this is journalism on a knifes edge, where manipulation, secrecy, and illegal methods can be used on citizen journalists.

The use of new age technology is essential in today's ever expanding and digitalized world, but at what cost to life is this method of journalism being used. 

All Governments Lie, private movie screening.

I was able to attend a private movie screening of a new film called All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone.

The movie follows the stories of various investigative and independent journalists, who uncover and try to expose the truth about government lies, as did before them the man named I.F. Stone.

The movie was eye opening and expected in many ways. It was eye opening to see the incredible lengths that the journalists go to, in order to always report and find the truth. However, it was expected in the terms that I was not surprised at the deceptions and lies made by the US government that come to light throughout the film.

The journey of John Carlos Frey was incredible and worrying, to see the lack of effort and indeed care shown by US officials and law enforcement in Texas to do anything about the mass graves and burials being investigated by Frey.

I enjoyed seeing how powerhouse journalists in the independent media world like Amy Goodman, Glen Greenwald, and Matt Taibbi have used I.F. Stone and his methods as influence in their own work. The movie gave a backstage access pass to the lives of these independent journalists.

As the movie criticizes mainstream media and how commercial the press of today has become, I came to realize just how this affects an average college student who feels he is informed about what the government is doing.

During the film, they explained how in the aftermath of 9/11, when the entire US airspace was shut down and every single plane in the country was grounded, one plane was authorized to take off. The plane that had aboard it the extended family members of Osama Bin Laden. While this was not news to me, my friend next to me looked clueless at the screen.

I turned to ask him, in much shock, how he did not know this till now. He said this never came on the news and I never read about this online. I realized that even in such a connected world with the Internet, without having the mainstream media of the country cover and report the real issues that matter, many more millions of Americans like him can be left in the dark about the works and decisions made by the government. 

In Fact newsletter by George Seldes, class handout.

It is very easy to see that Seldes' main aim in the newsletter given to us in class is to show the harmful effects of cigarette smoking and how it is linked to cancer.

Headlines such as, "Tobacco Money Pays Press and Radio", "Cancer Cases Increase With Cigaret Sale", and "U.S Press Whitewashes Tobacco" highlight the dangerous effects of smoking and how the mainstream media at the time, which Seldes was very critical of, would not publish stories about this as their main sources of income came from the tobacco industry through advertisements in the newspapers.

Seldes used his newsletter to show the truth about political, social, and economic wrongdoings of the mainstream/commercial press and the government.

It was interesting to see that Seldes used his own published books as a source of income to continue printing and writing In Fact. At the back of the printed newsletter is the list of Seldes' work with prices quoted alongside each of them. He also advertised at the back that new subscribers can purchase In Fact starting at only $1 as a scheme to attract more subscribers to read his newsletter.

Seldes used In Fact to bring to the public's attention all the misguided, suppressed, and ignored truths and facts that people deserved to know. He believed in a free press, away from commercial connections and an unbiased towards the work of the government. In Fact provided just that.