Posted on 05/08/2012 3:35:15 PM PDT by Admin Moderator
We can’t rely on the media, even the alternative media. Free Republic is announcing a new initiative that gives you a platform. We want to leverage the most powerful minds on the right to make a difference. To do this, we want to bring a new level of activism, the citizen investigator. In the spirit of 1750’s The Pennsylvania Gazette published by Ben Franklin and of Andrew Breitbart.
For the longest time, our primary focus has been on looking at what the media presents and investigating it or discussing it. We have been missing something, YOU!
Jim has created a new news category, “FReeper Editorial” (freepered) for you to post your investigative reports. We are working on getting this promoted to a sidebar and other ways to promote your work but here are the basics.
No longer will quality vanities posted in this topic be frowned upon. Free Republic needs to become about you. We are tired of waiting for the media to come around to us, it is time we take our many, many members and become an army. What was once was your vanity is now your megaphone.
To do this right, we need your help. Initially, we are trying to have this as a smooth launch, and creating the new news category is a baby step towards something big. We ask just a few things.
Stay tuned for more change, enhancements, and opportunities that go along with this. - Your friendly neighborhood Mod Squad with blessings of the big dog himself. We are not quite legion, but we are a bag of kittens.
Here’s a point you may want to consider: the old media is unlikely to publish FR-produced content, so its influence will be largely determined by the extent to it is picked up by other conservative blogs. Unfortunately, FR has earned a reputation for being extremely hostile to the bloggers who post here - especially those who excerpt their articles, something that virtually all other media sources require.
It won’t immediately eliminate the problem, but an official moratorium on greeting external bloggers with contempt and ridicule would be a useful start.
Interesting Times
Just my 2 cents, but bloggers who post 3 word ticklers, steal graphics from others, paraphrase or plagiarize from other sources, use a you tube video as their blog content or post and run at FR (with no participation) deserve ridicule.
What of those bloggers who research and write quality stories, excerpt them here, and are treated like rabid skunks?
NNNOOOOO!!!!!!! (sob)
I'm sure there are some. My non-scientific sample says there few. Can you point out a few? I'd like to see example of those that were unfairly ridiculed.
...they're...
BTT
I love the idea.
Can we continue to use our Freeper labels or do we have to post investigative journalism with a real name attached?
I have always been very protective of cyber privacy concerns.
I also think the first person account part is critical. That doesn’t mean the person can’t have opinions about what he or she has heard/seen/done, but the facts come first. Thanks for that. It is right on the money.
Right now, posting is no different than posting anything else, just the category and the type of content. It is your choice if you use your real name in the author field. I don’t see this ever being a requirement or even suggestion.
Perhaps you could offer to be the editor in chief?
Doesn’t Bray write on the Sunday Morning News threads....she’s also quite the writer.
Hi there, Laz! Thanks so much for the vote of confidence and the invitation -- high praise, coming from you!
Good to see you.
What do you mean, "other" blogs? Do you think FR is a blog?
FR has earned a reputation for being extremely hostile to the bloggers who post here - especially those who excerpt their articles
That's because the little wankers are using FR as advertising to get hits.
an official moratorium on greeting external bloggers with contempt and ridicule would be a useful start
If they don't excerpt their material they never hear a word of criticism.
I wasn’t talking to you.
You contribute nothing of value here, and do significant damage to FR’s reputation on the Web.
Too bad, I read it anyway.
We have gotten entirely away from content. If you go to the McGuffy Readers, they didn't teach "critical thinking." They taught straight up morals, patriotism, Biblical truths, etc. The notion that you can teach "critical thinking" outside of a vast body FIRST of information and basics, is flawed.
The fact is, when we taught "only" facts, we had far smarter and more innovative people (on the whole) than we do today.
Further, "critical thinking" ALWAYS assumes two points of view, that any position has "some validity" that we must "critically analyze." Well, no. Once a truth is established as a truth, you don't continually revisit it. We don't test anew gravity every year (ie., seeking to prove it). It is now a building block upon which we rest other ideas.
So I'm extremely skeptical of teaching "critical thinking" as an end. If you teach content correctly people will learn to think critically.
Having taught each of my four sons to read via McGuffey Readers, I must emphatically disagree. McGuffey did not teach straight up morals, etc., he offered well written literary pieces that illustrated proper behavior--behavior that actually worked for the benefit of the doer, his family & community; and foolish behavior that did not work--at least not for good--so that the child learned the critical thinking behind the ancient truths being illustrated.
The present debased educational structure does not work that way. Rather it assumes undemonstrated--and clearly false premises--that are treated as sacrosanct. The result, instead of the principled youth of McGuffey's day, we have the chanting Egalitarian automatons at a 2008 Obama rally, chanting in unison for changing America. The automatons may be on the attack, but they most certainly do not illustrate "critical thinking."
William Flax
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