That ‘Yes We Can’ America Is Back; Now What?
(Updated version of a Nov. 18 post on Huffington Post.)

PARIS – A poker-faced French border cop actually cracked a faint smile as he hefted my U.S. passport. Rapture must fade inevitably in hard light but, even here, America is back. 

It was that simple. A convincing plurality showed a doubtful world that the United States they once respected – however grudgingly, at times – still has a heart and a soul.

The question, after an eight-year break from reality, is how much is left of its brain? 

For most of the world, it wasn’t so much that Barack Obama is half black and all not-Bush.

People heard his message: Think one planet. Listen to others. Watch out with that big stick.

Now they are waiting for us to act beyond our borders. Joe the plunger was a silly domestic sidelight. To the real world, who counts are key players like Vladimir the gasman.

Russia is back, too. Putin’s authoritarian state is not the Soviet Union. Yet in the ways that affect daily Western lives, it is a greater potential threat than the defunct Evil Empire.

Imagine an experiment: Jab a stick at any sort of bear (except maybe a polar bear; they’ve got enough problems.) Its reaction will explain the Georgia smackdown – and a lot more.

Already humiliated by Bill Clinton, who led it around by the nose, Russia saw Bush’s ideologues arm its neighbors, threaten its borders, and cut oil deals in its backyard.

Russia produces more oil than Saudi Arabia. It can freeze Europe simply by shutting off the gas. Germany, a giant within the European Union, sees huge opportunities for joint ventures.

A new Kremlin flush with chips is ready for serious poker.

On climate change, our greatest challenge, Beijing called Washington’s bluff. China is now the planet’s biggest polluter, but it blames crisis today on past offenders.

Unless the United States and Europe commit one percent of their wealth toward reversing atmospheric damage, the Chinese argue, emerging industrial powers are off the hook.
And then there is the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

Obama’s message resonates so loudly because an imperiled world desperately missed the nation that used to take on greater responsibilities than its own narrow interests.

Yet however good our intentions, how can we fix a world we don’t understand? Few Americans pay more than fleeting attention to vital details. That simplifies complexity into nonsense.

So many people have simply tuned out, allowing seasoned foreign correspondents to dwindle dramatically and schools to dumb down, that they have completely lost the plot.

And too many others, bedazzled by a range of options we old hands never dreamed could be possible, mistake informed comment for up-close reporting.

A Project for Excellence in Journalism tally shows media in America now gives only about 10 percent of space or time to world news.  Most of that is about China or U.S. angles abroad.

Imagine this: With all your loved ones aboard a jumbo jet, black out the cockpit and ask the crew to navigate through busy skies in a storm by interpreting lightning flashes on the wings.
That is precisely how we crash landed in Iraq. Where next?

It is dead simple. If foreign correspondents are not there, we’re not there. Distant guesswork is usually wrong, and it invariably misses nuances and undercurrents that matter most.

Plenty of pros are still out there, but their firsthand reporting competes with limitless Internet babble. Their own editors, misled by indirect sources, often second-guess them.
   
At best, this creates bad will abroad. It can also mean a half million needless Iraqi deaths, a Middle East in turmoil, squandered trillions, and a world fending off depression.

We have caused terrorist ranks to swell with people whose grandsons will hate us. The Taliban is not only taking back Afghanistan but also threatens a nuclear-tipped Pakistan.

Any nation, let alone a superpower, needs credible news organizations whose mastheads or call letters convey trust that can only be earned over time. They must define an agenda.

With this solid mainstream, any number of fresh eyes, ears, and voices can contribute from the margins to break overlooked stories and venture deep into forgotten back corners.

Headlines mean nothing without details and context. Someone who actually knows -- with cultivated sources, language skills, and a grasp of other cultures – must tell us what to worry about.

Yet only a few U.S. dailies still have correspondents. And although a paper costs less than a cup of coffee, so many people want it free online that even these are drastically cutting back.

Real news has a value like a gallon of gas or a pound of flour. Trained professionals must find it, and that costs money. If it is outsourced to amateurs, its credibility is in question.

American network television, with few reporters aboard, is no alternative. Its fast-moving eyes focus mostly on U.S.

American network television, with few reporters aboard, is no alternative. Its fast-moving eyes focus mostly on U.S. interests. They seldom pause on what is not already familiar.

Commentators from Olbermann to O’Reilly depend on real reporters like the rest of us, faces we don’t recognize because they are out seeing, hearing, smelling news firsthand. 

This is why the Associated Press, a non-profit cooperative news supermarket, is unique, more vital to America’s well-being than the Department of Defense. 

AP dates back to 1848 when publishers pooled resources to cover news beyond their reach. Now, as newspapers and TV cut back in perilous times, it is more crucial than ever.

But new AP managers have focused so heavily on money-spinning sideshows and scoops at the expense of its basic mission that disgruntled members newspapers are plotting to replace it.

This should terrify us more than a truckload of Bin Ladens. We need AP’s wealth of skilled reporters who have stuck with it, despite its self-inflicted trauma, for love of their calling.

Now AP has announced a 10 percent staff cut, including solid journalists who work uncounted hours, facing hardship and danger, for wages sometimes lower than $2,000 a month.

Some earn a lot more, but it is hardly about the money.

I joined AP in 1965 and left at the end of 2004. When a new breed of editors blunted my stories that warned of what we faced in Iraq and recalled what I’d seen in Vietnam, the end was near.

After the November massacre, I visited the Paris bureau where I based for 25 years. What new branders call “AP 2.0” has quenched a spirit that had seemed capable of surviving anything.

Ex-colleagues around the world tell me the same thing: AP is cutting far too much essential muscle instead of extra fat. Its emphasis must return to where the rubber meets the road.

The blame is shared. Wall Street stripped papers and then dropped them. Shortsighted member publishers limit options. AP managers undervalue the people behind their product.

“The Media” is mostly just a bunch of businesses that guess at what consumers want. If enough of us want something better, we will get it. But first we have to demonstrate that demand.  

I banged this alarm last year in a book, Escaping Plato’s Cave. Since then, much is dramatically worse. And yet now there is also fresh promise in an energized America.

Citizens are finding new sources, mainstream and marginal. And they are supporting new ventures into guerrilla journalism by frustrated professionals who break new ground.

Demand is growing for BBC online, TV and radio, not the remedial version for the U.S. market. Al Jazeera in English, no less balanced than Fox, peppers the globe with correspondents. 

To fortify daily coverage, people who care build a bedrock context via magazines that delve into foreign affairs. The weekly Guardian combines spot stories with essential background.

A few of us now publish a close-to-the-news quarterly, dispatches, to go beyond the who and what of issues that matter to the why and what can be done.

An ambitious news agency called GlobalPost is coming online in January, edited by Charles Sennott, a star correspondent who left the Boston Globe in despair.

Other new experiments, such as Pro Publica, show promise.

Some old-model dailies can turn around. If you find one worth reading, pay for it. If it only wastes trees, cancel your subscription and tell the editor why.

Broadcasters are attentive to public tastes. Gather your friends, go viral, and lobby for something better.

Find authoritative voices on the Web. When a story breaks, read what local papers have to say. Support consolidator sites like Truthout.com that sample a lot of sources.

With encouragement, public-minded companies and foundations might join in a trust for global newsgathering along the lines of BBC’s autonomous status. (Government need not apply.)

In the longer term, we badly need better schools with inspired teachers who spark intellectual curiosity so kids learn early how to shape their own world.

Meantime, we can teach our own children that Americans make up only 4 percent of humanity. If we think we are a chosen people, we have to show others why.

Skin crawled just about everywhere on the planet when Sarah Palin chanted “USA! USA!” That sort of thing is why so many had lost faith in America.

Now we have a chance to reverse this.

With a bronze leader-god and renewed energy, it now up to us to bring back that lost shining city on a hill. All we have to do is, finally, flip on the lights.