Giant Distraction
My house is a disaster, and I haven’t opened office snail mail since the middle of February. Sure, I’ve been distracted by politics plenty of other times in my life, but nothing like this. This one feels like the Gulf oil spilled all over my kitchen. And my desk. And it’s spewing out of my Twitter feed, which I can’t stop checking. The compulsion is so strong that when my spouse asked me if he could have my BlackBerry for the day to exchange it for an iPhone I almost said no. No to the iPhone?! I had officially (and quite literally) lost my cool.
Why couldn’t I give up my phone for a few hours? Because it’s been my pipeline to the very unnatural disaster that has engulfed my city. Without it for one second, I might miss breaking news or information. I was driving down John Nolen the day I got the call that the “Wisconsin 14” were heading across the border. Via e-mail I’ve received hundreds of press releases, articles and blogs announcing, denouncing and declaring a position. I’ve sent and received so many texts on the subject that I exceeded my limit. I was on the third floor of the Capitol when news broke on Twitter that a camel—a camel!—had fallen on the ice outside. My reaction? I clicked on the link and watched the disturbing video.
I am not alone in my exhausting obsession with the latest developments. “From February 21–25, one quarter of the news links on blogs were about the political turmoil in Wisconsin, making it the No. 1 subject,” according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The second biggest story of the week—on blogs as well as Twitter—was the political turmoil in Libya. For live updates on that developing situation, I follow NPR’s social media guy Andy Carvin (@acarvin). It’s mind-blowing to scroll through his reports from endangered protestors on the ground in Tripoli tossed like a salad with the nonviolent version of unrest here at home. And that’s the great thing about Twitter. You don’t have to be friends like on Facebook; you can follow anybody you want!
My Twitter stream’s been so busy with all the democracy here, dictatorship there that my aging BlackBerry’s had trouble loading. My phone is seriously low-tech by today’s standards, but it still captures the chaos on two continents in the palm of my hand. On a Sunday, two weeks into the Wisconsin mayhem, I caught up with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Jason Stein, resting at home before heading back to the state Capitol, where he’s been covering the budget battle nonstop. He was kind enough to entertain a cell phone call about what it’s been like to chronicle the tumultuous and historic event.
“Every time you think it can’t get any more bizarre and wild, it gets more bizarre and wild,” he said. When the rumor of a mutiny swept through the Senate Chambers on February 17, Stein quickly recognized the quorum plot, then trailed Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald into Minority Leader Mark Miller’s office, where he says staffers were “totally noncommittal, not saying anything.” A week later, in the middle of the night, political theater unfolded sixteen hours into Stein’s shift. Pandemonium broke out as the Assembly swiftly passed the budget-repair bill before legislators from both parties had the chance to vote. I asked him what it’s been like to share his beat with reporters from media outlets all over the world. Funny I should ask, as it just so happens that Stein’s taking a turn as the head of the Wisconsin Capitol Correspondents Association. One of his duties is to credential visiting journalists. In a single day, Stein has handed out as many as a hundred media passes while filing stories and updates—and appearing on PBSNewsHour—constantly.
I’m following Stein on Twitter, but other than creating an account, he hasn’t knocked out a single tweet. I don’t blame him. Even if it is the most amazing social media tool I’ve experienced to date, it’s a terrible, 140-character distraction. But I love it, and here’s a reason why. While Stein was following the action live the night the Assembly erupted over the repair bill, I was following it tucked in bed. Before you judge me and my red pajamas, let me finish. As the breaking news spilled in fast and furious, a retweet from the NPR guy appeared on my tiny screen. The Dalai Lama is on Twitter, and at that moment, from some mountain high, this man was participating in the exact same human experience as I was.
Tweeted his Holiness, “ If our spirit is turned towards kindness, the positive side of things, loving our neighbors, this is the best way to solve our problems.”
Bring on my new iPhone.
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