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Mayor Bloomberg won't allow 311 operators internet access because he's afraid they'd shop at work.

The 311 non-emergency government information system is a program Mayor Bloomberg loves to brag about, touting it as among his greatest accomplishments during the 05 campaign.

311 operators' mission is to help citizens navigate the often confusing government agency maze. Theoretically, 311 could duplicate much of what the Public Advocate's office is charged with doing as the people's ombudsman. But that's theory. In reality, 311 is not much more useful than 411 directory assistance operators, with 311 often referring callers back to the agency whose non-responsiveness or unavailability, if the problem arises after the agency is closed, prompted the 311 call to begin with. One reason for the department's relative uselessness, is their lack of internet access.

It blows my mid, that in 2007, 14 years after the web became a mainstream information resource, that New York City won't allow people whose primary responsibility is to provide information, internet access.

I first became aware of 311 operators not having internet access in August 2005, nearly 2 years ago.  read more »

I have a long-winded blogospheric gracias up at culturekitchen.

Just to reiterate what I had written over there, thanks Mole333, Michael, Out Gal in Brooklyn, Atomic Birdsong, Take Back the City, DFNYC, New Democratic Majority and the cornucopia of politicians, friends and bloggers that make this site happen. I also want to thank Drum Major Institute, our friends at The Village Voice, New York Observer, Newsday, The Daily News, New York Times as well as on other blogs like The Politicker, On NY Turf, The Corsair, My Left Wing, WYSIWYG, Post.Thing.Net and Rhizome.

And y'all know we have to give thanks to the 2005 Elections, which were the reason that jolted me into creating this blog in the first place.

Gracias, gracias and once again, gracias.

Ben says that Freddy Ferrer poisoned his relationship with the press. Ben claims the press coverage was fine but that Ferrer off-hands attitude at first and then

Patrick says that NYT was the only newspaper that covered the issues, policy proposals. NYT asked daily the Ferrer campaign asking for the big policies. "Where are the ideas?" and the campaign kept telling they were coming. They actually wanted to give him a platform when New York Post and New York Daily News were writing about the polls and declaring the race over.

Evelyn also did issue pieces. "For the most part those pieces were responsible pieces". When you run into trouble when you start running the pieces about the reporters point of view ... how the frame it. She says that those kinds of pieces the media were kind unfair. She says the elite of the city --the people that write the checks, own the real estate-- they made the decision that Ferrer was in no way going to be the mayor of the city. One of the issues is incumbency. Beyond that, I do believe that the powers that be decided that Mike was the one and Ferrer was portrayed as a loser." The underdog quality of his campaign came too late in the game. "There is a mentality that sets in among reporters that are covering the same story ... you are all getting tired of the same candidate at the same time ... I think that journalists do think in packs ... you get often a similar take". We got complaints and criticism was too skewed for Freddy, nobody is exempt. The pollsters, the media and the elite decided he was not going to win.

Patrick disagrees : "There were sort of moments that Freddy could put something together. The question is could he build on that." When things changed was after the blog story. We made a decision to not write about polls unless we ran them. The Times made a decision to not do that. About the elite decisions, though, that is true.

Ben The decisions that went on the

Jonathan Mandell from Gotham Gazette : He asked how many people read GG and how many people voted. A mojority of the people raised their hands : "You are New York specialits." 1.2 million voted at the last election out of the 4.7 million of elegible voters. Bloomberg's mandate comes from only out of the 15% of elegible voters. If the point of the campaign is to ask New Yorkers who is going to govern, then the system is obviously broken.

Pat says that an underdog campaign like Ferrer's has to have a serious media strategy from the get go.

Mandell :

(1) The system is broken because the media focused on the mayoralty when there were 200 candidates running.

(2) On the polls : This was not a horse race. Horse races are fast and exciting. This was more like a chess game. The reporting of polls is pointless, obscuring and inaccurate.

The Gotham Gazette does it different because, back in 2001, they started mapping out the candidates and the issues. They actually asked government offices and political groups and nobody had an actual system for disseminating this information.

Ben says that he writes about what his readers want to read. He can't do what Gotham Gazette because nobody would read him. It is not his responsibility to present the issues or scolding people into getting to know the issues.

Pat says that at the Times they do set themselves a mandate to educated people but wishes they had been more creative about how they went ahead with it.

OOH! We have a heckler. I've seen him at other events. A professional heckler?

Evelyn says that Bloomberg was very insulated. He never bothered to come into El Diario because the campaign decided that El Diario was not going to endorse him --even though El Diario started invited back in the Spring. She says that Bloomberg did not put position papers out to the press, that he was running a very safe campaign and that the media was not covering his position papers. El Diario put out an editorial because they felt it was unfair how they treated the issue. The media was very unfair through out the campaign started way back in the spring.

Evelyn's point was that Bloomberg had the money to pay for negative campaigning and that makes an impact when you have someone feeding the media gossip and negative reporting.

Pat says that the mayor was influenced by NYT and other's discussing Ferrer's issues... The tabs from Diallo onward smelled blood on the water, they never gave him a break and were all over him relentlessly.

Mandell says that politics are for specialists but the every day life, that is most important. If the coverage is all about the polls, photoshopping instead of pot holes and every day life issues. The conduct of the campaign has some bearing but one of the things that disturbed me ... this is not the fault of the intelligent people covering the elections ... my thinking is that there are 3 basics : (1) character, (2) competence and (3) issues. The problem I have is with the imbalance of how the information is presented. The problem is with the narrative, of how it is framed.

Questions from the audience:

(1) Who gets to decide who is a legitimate candidate?
There is a consensus that resources were only allocated to the main characters or, as Pat said, 'star' endorsements.

(2) Same with sources. Andrea asks is it a priority to the newspapers to get more than the same 2 or 3 experts and/or advocates that get quoted all the time.

(3) To Evelyn: Did you document how the real estate and finance community were working to kill off Ferrer? She says EDLP did not consistently write about this and they did not pick up on it intellectually. "It was very hit and miss." She says they did cover the lukewarm endorsements, how Democrats did not want to make any commitments of money until after the primary.

Stopping right now. Will post the podcast afterwards.

Are you f*&^ing talking to me?

An influential voice is developed in this city by hitting the pavement not just by blogging. You've got to go out there, meet people, go to events, visit neighborhoods, knock on doors and shake hands.

We The People who blog here work our asses off in our neighborhoods and in our communities as activists. We don't just sit all day chipping our fingernails from blogging and you know what, that's how I as publisher of this blog want it to be.

We actually do not fall into the demographics of national political bloggers --we are older, sometimes much older than most. We not only have day jobs but have families. And we still find the time to be politically active.

And I am going to one-up you with a very Republican-like FU because, you know what, I happen to homeschool my kids. A liberal, atheist, soccer homeschooling mom of two who works as a web consultant and blogs. Oh yeah ... and is a political activist.

There are blogs out there, huge ones, where people go because they are more like electronic water coolers. Ask people to do something, and that is a whole different story.

Here, we walk the walk.

So you know what, Mr. Elephant? I got your vaccum right here. Now come clean my apartment.

The Media and the '05 Elections
Join The Politicker, Gotham Gazette, and the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy in a conversation about the role of the media in the 2005 New York City elections

Wednesday, November 16 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
The Tank @ chashama

Featuring a roundtable discussion with:
Patrick Healy, The New York Times
Ben Smith, The Politicker
Evelyn Hernandez, El Diario La Prensa
Jonathan Mandell, Gotham Gazette
Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy

To RSVP, please email dmi (at) drummajorinstitute.org or call 212.909.9663.

The Tank @ chashama
208 West 37th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

To get to The Tank by subway take the 1, 9, B, D, F,
V, N, Q, R, W A,C, or E trains to 34th Street.
WWW.DrumMajorInstitute.org