Brian Lamb, our man in Washington

The civic-minded and intellectually curious among us catch some of our biggest waves while channel surfing on C-Span.

The nonprofit cable network provides us with great roaring riptides of polite Q&A sessions and dramatic wipeouts of the congressional legislative process.

On Sunday it was announced that C-Span founder Brian Lamb would be stepping down as chief executive of the network he founded in 1979.

Besides their meticulous documentation of Washington goings-on, C-Span has trained its eye on writers, critics, and public intellectuals with programs like the interview show Booknotes, Lamb’s pet project that he will continue to host in his reduced capacity.

The idea of making the most basic workings of government visible and audible to everyone seems like such an obviously good thing — something really necessary for a free democracy. It’s actually extraordinary it took until 1979 for something like C-Span to exist.

You learn to appreciate Brian Lamb not because he’s unafraid to “tell it like it is” but because he’s completely comfortable showing it like it is and keeping his mouth shut. As an interviewer, Lamb demands your respect for what he doesn’t say: the joke left unmade, the rear orifice left unripped, the guest’s revealing comment left hanging in the air without mercy.

Brian Lamb is one of the few thoroughly good guys in the media. While his belief in journalistic professionalism and objectivity seem cute by today’s standards of fair and balanced shouting matches (in which everyone involved is equally, objectively moronic), you have to respect a prominent television personality who basically denies his own personality.

The guy has never even said his name on the air, for crissakes. Never could there have been a “Brian Lamb Factor” or a “Countdown with Brian Lamb.” Whether he would acknowledge it at this point or not, the entire federal government is “The Brian Lamb Show” — he just turns the cameras on.

The American people pay for all this that goes on in this town. It’s always been my contention — and it’s not a sophisticated, intelligent position, it’s just a gut reaction — that if we pay for something and it’s the public’s business we ought to be able to see how it’s done. It’s just that simple.

Fans of public radio will no doubt have heard by now the thunderclap of self-administered face-palmings going on at the studios of the popular documentary radio show “This American Life” at WBEZ in Chicago.

The facts: In January of this year, an episode of “This American Life” featured segments of a performance by a chap named Mike Daisy of his one-man show, called “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” about his visits to factories in China where Apple products are manufactured by headless orphans paid in Monopoly money, etc. (Daisey didn’t actually claim that last part, but you know how those factories are. Or not, actually. But keep reading.)

Listeners flipped. The episode became the most downloaded in the history of the show, which has had a standing reservation at the top of iTunes podcasts for forever. But a fellow public radio correspondent in China who began to investigate the story’s accuracy didn’t have to look very far; he practically tripped over evidence that contradicted Daisey’s story, and soon enough the crew at “This American Life” found themselves with part of an apple and half a worm.

Some of the show’s most dramatic moments were outright lies. Like this account from Daisy about when he showed a functioning iPad to an assembly line worker who had (allegedly) lost his hand in an accident at the factory:

He’s never actually seen [an iPad] on, this thing that took his hand. I turn it on, unlock the screen, and pass it to him. He takes it. The icons flare into view, and he strokes the screen with his ruined hand, and the icons slide back and forth. And he says something to (the interpreter)… “he says it’s a kind of magic.”

Daisy defended these fabrications saying he does theater not journalism:

I stand by my work. My show is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge. It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity . . . . What I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism.

The folks at This American Life responded with vigor.

They did exactly what you would expect people in public radio to do: They got a little mad, drank a little Raspberry Zinger to mellow out (maybe), then they made a radio program rebuttal. That episode, it will be heard, turned out to be not just credibility-saving but credibility-enhancing.

“I think you can trust my word in the context of the theater,” Daisey told Ira Glass in a post-blow-up interview featured in the new episode. In Daisey’s world, the accounts of visiting the factories weren’t true true. Not true like fact-true. Is that good enough? Not for National Public Radio, dammit.

“This American Life” fell for the oldest trick in the book (the book called How to Tell Unbelievable Stories).

Isaiah 61

¹ The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
³ and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.

⁴ They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
⁵ Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
⁶ And you will be called priests of the LORD,
you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
and in their riches you will boast.

⁷ Instead of your shame
you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
and everlasting joy will be yours.

⁸ “For I, the LORD, love justice;
I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
and make an everlasting covenant with them.
⁹ Their descendants will be known among the nations
and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
that they are a people the LORD has blessed.”

¹⁰ I delight greatly in the LORD;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
¹¹ For as the soil makes the sprout come up
and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness
and praise spring up before all nations.

Reflection:

This is who our God is.He came to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim the good news- He came and fulfilled His Words.And through His death and resurrection, He has set His people free, brought them out of exodus.We’ve died and resurrected with our Lord and the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is living in us and we are also to live the anointed life just as Jesus did.

Response:

Let’s ask the Lord to empower us to go out and be the Lord’s anointed on our campuses, neighborhoods and work places to proclaim good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted and to trust and follow the Lord in doing the other wonderful things He did.

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Be the Change You Wish To See in the World!

Apply to become an AmeriCorps VISTA

with UMBC’s Service-Learning Program!

Through partnership with the Maryland-Washington, DC Campus Compact (MDCCC), the AmeriCorps VISTA position will provide leadership in the design and implementation of the Service-Learning & School-Family Connections MDCCC-VISTA project and will serve as the liaison between UMBC and its school partner.  The MDCCC-VISTA will meet with teachers and administrators to devise a plan for increasing student engagement in the Homework Club and will create surveys and assessments to ensure that data is measured on a regular basis.  The Information Workshops for parents will address the school’s commitment to provide school-family support.  The MDCCC-VISTA will meet with school administrators and parents to create a curriculum plan for the sessions that she or he will also implement and facilitate; surveys and other assessments will be created to ensure that data from sessions is assessed.  The MDCCC-VISTA will also recruit UMBC students to participate in service-learning activities that leverage the resources of the campus to meet the volunteer needs of local community programs.   

What is AmeriCorps VISTA?

• AmeriCorps VISTA is the national service program designed specifically to fight poverty. 
• VISTA members serve as full-time volunteers, organizing and implementing programs that build the capacity of organizations while making resources available to communities in need.

What are the benefits of serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA?

• The VISTA member will receive health insurance, a travel allowance (for work-related meetings and events), and a taxable living allowance of approximately $13,000 for their year of service.
• After successfully completing the service year, the VISTA will be eligible to receive either $1,200 in cash or an AmeriCorps Education Award of $5,550 that can be used toward the repayment of student loans or school tuition.  

What are the eligibility requirements to be a VISTA?

• A Bachelor’s Degree and driver’s license is required by the start of the VISTA year.
• Commitment to provide one year of full-time service (8/15/12-8/14/13).  
• Desire to work on-campus and with a local school partner to combat poverty.

How can I apply?

• Complete the enclosed Intent to Apply Form and email it to Clare Greene (clare6@umbc.edu) in the Service-Learning Program at The Shriver Center at UMBC.  Only emailed submissions will be accepted.  Eligible applicants will be contacted for an interview.
• For more information about the AmeriCorps VISTA program, visit: http://www.americorps.gov/for_individuals/choose/vista.asp.

ALL INTENT TO APPLY FORMS MUST BE EMAILED TO clare6@umbc.edu

By 5pm on Friday, April 27^th, 2012.

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