Hours before the polls closed Tuesday, campaigners for Proposition 8 were informed that many Latino voters supporting traditional families were misreading the ballot and accidentally voting against the proposition.

"The way they worded it - it's a double negative and so voters get confused," said Tim Butler, zip-code manager for the Yes on 8 campaign. Equality for All volunteer Mahesh Mehta did not think the wording affected polls.  However, in one instance an opponent for the proposition accidentally urged voters to vote "yes" at a public rally in San Francisco.

This issue was brought up in July as well. The title proposed for Proposition 8 was "Limit on Marriage." What voters saw on the ballot on Tuesday was, "Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry," which a few voters found confusing.  

Latinos and African Americans were a big vote bank for the Yes on Prop 8 campaign. Newell and two other volunteers stood outside polling stations in the Westside of Los Angeles and tried to clarify the language of the proposition with as many Latino voters they could find.

Proposition 8 passed on Wednesday, despite the wording on the ballot and the increased funding received by the No on 8 campaign in the last few weeks.  This immediately cast a spell of doubt on the status given to around 18,000 same-sex couples that married in the past 4 months.

"Its clear that California is narrow-minded and heartless, I wouldn't be surprised even if these marriages become unconstitutional, but these couples are married in their hearts and no government can take that away," said Mehta. Melvin Brown, a student for the ban agreed. "We do not expect the status given to families in the past 4 months to be revoked. That's not we voted for," he said.

Speaking on the presidential candidates Newell said, "I thought I misunderstood when I heard Joe Biden in the vice presidential debate when he defined marriage. It doesn't really matter which candidate wins, both the vice presidential and presidential candidates support traditional marriages."  Many voters who were against Proposition 8 disagreed with Newell and believed that Obama and Biden supported same-sex marriage. Mehta too, was surprised by Biden's comments and said, "Obama will remain the favorite."

Presidential elect Barack Obama has publicly opposed both same-sex marriage and the ban on gay marriage.

Proposition 8 is believed to be the most funded proposition on the ballot all over the nation this year, over $74 million was raised by both sides. There have also been an unprecedented number of volunteers in both camps. "Until 2 weeks ago, we were pretty much neck-to-neck in funding, but the job got a lot more challenging for us volunteers in the past few weeks," said Newell.  Many volunteers left their jobs to campaign. Freelance visual effects designer Russell Lloyd, has been working on the Yes on 8 campaign for a month.  "As much as I enjoyed myself, I could really do with getting back to work," he said as he drove his car towards his third polling station of the evening.

After Californians elected for Proposition 8, some chapels are expecting same-sex couples to have rushed weddings before the law comes to effect. The opponents have already filed two legal challenges and Mehta said, "more may be expected."

I followed a team of supporters of Proposition 8 on this historic election day.

Halfway through my ride-along, Officer Butler turned towards me and said "hopefully you will be one of the journalists to give the police some positive publicity." Me? I don't know - after being strip searched, detained for laughing too loud and receiving three very expensive tickets for what could be at best, minor traffic violations, I tried to divert the attention away from journalists towards filmmakers. But my attempts were in vain. 

Watching a presidential debate in seclusion and with an audience are two entirely different experiences. Often, people form solidified opinions, only after being exposed to other opinions, both conflicting and reinforcing. After a debate, according to communication professor Thomas Hollihan, there is a 48-hour period of elasticity of public opinion. What people remember, he said, "is the excerpt they see, that gets played back again and again, and gets turned around in everyday conversation."

Viewing in a live audience however, its almost like the period of elasticity is shorter. The audience reactions are cues, similar to the ones they provide on sitcoms. Canned laughter and applauses prompt audiences to laugh and clap. Similarly, a room filled with a primarily democratic audience prompts viewers to applaud Senator Obama and "boo" the Republican candidate.

Doggonit! Audiences react to Sarah Palin at USC Annenberg's vice-presidential debate watch party. Photo: Anant Goenka

The difference wasn't evident to me until the second presidential debate - the first debate that I saw alone. I enjoyed watching McCain at his most aggressive yet. He walked in the hall and immediately began scribbling on his notepad.

The Commission on Presidential Debates has tried to keep these debates as unbiased, informative and helpful for voters, as possible. Anchors are selected by campaigns before presidential candidates are even elected; they are not allowed to ask follow up questions to minimize the effects of their biases. The cameras can not focus on the questioner's face after the questioned is asked and now, the anchors even hesitate to ask follow-up questions, (something we saw especially with Gwen Ifill).

Infact many find the format, entirely useless and the biggest evidence of this this time around, is a recent bipartisan effort called Open Debate Coalition, which hopes to change things before the final debate.

This presidential campaign has been unusually long, and voters have gotten to know both candidates pretty well. The result of the attemped neutral and unbiased campaign, are undecided voters, who remain as undecided after the debate, as they were before it. The debates seem to have become terribly predictable and rehearsed.

The biggest problem is the ease with which the candidates get away with general answers to specific questions.  In this last debate, both candidates simply repeated parts of their nomination acceptance speeches when they couldn't answer a question. Neither the anchor, nor the questioner, was allowed to ask a follow-up.

The commission has also tried to get the debate as freely accessible to citizens as possible. The format must be adjusted to make the debate more useful to undecided voters.

A member of CNN's focus group after the second presidential debate said, "I didn't hear anything at all..I just heard a bunch of..the same old thing, from both candidates, which I am surprised by. I was disappointed."

Candidates should not be able to get away with the same old, vague answers. Lets hope for some more aggressive cross questioning in the debates to come. 

The much-awaited debate season had a cold and unpromising start. MSNBC believed that Obama "won" the debate and Fox believed the same for McCain. The truth is, both candidates lost.

Debates are a huge opportunity for either side. The 1976 debates illustrated the potential they have to influence a presidential election. Although Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford in the elections, polls showed the gap narrowing after the first debate - and swaying almost entirely Ford's way, until the third debate.                                                                                                                   

The purpose of having a presidential debate in such close proximity to the main elections was entirely defeated this year. As an audience, we only heard again what we have been hearing through the race. The undecided voters remained undecided and the voters who were certain will remain unwavering.

Surprising, given the number of Democrats that agreed with McCain, and the number of Republicans that agreed with Obama, as was visible in CNN's "audience reaction" meter. Also surprising, given how close this presidential race is.

The choice of topics didn't help either. Both sides have been very clear about their foreign policy, especially with regards to Iraq, Afghanistan and Georgia. The economic crisis issue had tremendous potential as a debate topic. Both candidates, however, were hesitant to aggressively comment on the issue because it is so new - they haven't had the time to effectively use it to their advantage. Both candidates are well aware that every single thing they say is going to be simultaneously checked by scores of fact checkers, waiting for one to make a mistake. 

In this excerpt, the extent to which the moderator and PBS anchor Jim Leherer tried to illicit a substantial response from the candidates becomes evident: 

"I'm trying to get at, that one of you is going to be the President of the United States come January. In the middle of a huge financial crisis that is yet to be resolved. And what I'm trying to get at is how this is going to affect you not in very specific, small ways but in major ways and the approach to take as to the presidency."

I do find specific fault with Obama. The Democratic nominee should have stepped out, gotten aggressive and taken a few risks. His opponent is a member of the party that has arguably recreated America's 1929 depression. Only this time, the impact is much more global. According to filmmaker and author Bernard Henry Levy, "the left has always been too shy," and especially in the American scenario. At an event to promote his new book "The Left in Dark Times:  A Stand Against New Barbarism," Levy mentioned this fairly global trend. And this has been evident in this debate.

The following is one instance where Obama should have hit back a lot harder than he did. John McCain's vague justification of being cost-conscious:

"Who is the person who has believed that the best thing for America is to have a tax system that is fundamentally fair? And I've fought to simplify it, and I have proposals to simplify it. Let's give every American a choice, two tax brackets, generous dividends, and, ah, and two, and let Americans choose whether they want the, the existing tax code or they want a new tax code. And so, ah, again, look at the record, particularly the energy bill."

We can only hope the debate will get more interesting in the future when topics of abortion and same-sex marriage come up. For now we can just look forward to an entertaining vice president's debate. Especially since we know so little about one of the candidates.

For you to be reading this blog, you probably have an opinion already on what I am going to write about, and for some reason, you think that this student of journalism might have something interesting to say. Something that you would like to read because of the possibility of it adding to your opinion of the news media or in order to gauge a student's opinion on the news media. But you wouldn't trust everything I say, unless you spend a lot of time viewing and cross checking all the links I provide. You may still be unsatisfied.

To get any information on the American news media, a layman would choose a more reliable source, such as Editor and Publisher Magazine or Poynter as first stops. They were probably yours as well.

The internet has complicated things for a reader. Legacy media like ABC News and Washington Post are online, trying to be as interactive as a blog but also as "balanced" as they have aspired to be. The lines between these two entities have been blurred, and unsophisticated consumers of news are hesitant to distinguish the two; they don't know what they can expect from either. They don't know what is trustworthy.

But websites like SpinSpotter.com and NewsTrust.net will change all that. Before you waste your time reading a story, SpinSpotter tells you if you can trust the content or not. NewsTrust aggregates all information it deems reliable, and organizes it based on topics.

Here is how they work.

 SpinSpotter

A toolbar is downloaded onto your browser. As you read an article, the Spinoculars indicator comes on and discovers all the items that illustrate the "spin" in the piece being read.

The system identifies "Spin," based on a set of criteria created by a Journalism Advisory Board. These include, biased sources and over-reliance on press releases.

Evidently, an opinion/editorial story will have the most "red." Consider Nicholas Kristof's column in the New York Times.

As for the tool's usage, unfortunately there were a variety of websites I visited, that did strike out on a few of the elements my Spinoculars should have had caught on to. Aside from the technical tweaking the tool may need, the tool performed smoothly and was easy to use. 

NewsTrust

The objective is to be the last stop for trustworthy news or "quality journalism." Articles are rated by reviewers for fitting the "core principles of journalism," including fairness and transparency. 

They call themselves a "guide to good journalism." A large variety of sources of news are reviewed and lists of good stories are populated.

The benefit to the reader is that the website has information on all the major topics in the news. It is strictly an aggregator, but has a variety of stories from both sources in both mainstream media like the New York Times, USA Today, etc., and what it calls the "Independent" media - a host of websites and blogs such as AlterNet - a left wing news webstie, MotherJones and even The Huffington Post.

The difference is that NewsTrust requires the proactive effort of its viewers to grow the number of stories it has whereas SpinSpotter is a tool, applicable to any content page.

Both sites function on one underlying belief: viewers want to be aware of the fact that they are reading biased content.

Consumers of news have gotten critical about the messengers of news they once trusted blindly. To get an accurate account of news today, the coverage of the same story must by viewed in two different websites, in both mainstream media and "independent" media. Neither NewsTrust nor SpinSpotter would work if readers were not proactively concerned about the quality of news. 

No matter what your opinion on blogs and amateur journalism is, you need to accept that these new players in the news industry cannot be ignored and that they are here to stay. And they have earned their place. Websites like Drudge Report, Politico and DailyKos have broken stories which would have arguably gone unnoticed (or maybe just unreported) by the traditional media. 

 But the resulting problem is an overload of information. In this cluttered environment, NewsTrust and SpinSpotter make a confused and overloaded news viewer's job, a lot easier. 

We have seen outrage against Fox by democrats and independents, against MSNBC by republicans at the RNC and also against ABC by an undistinguishable group of citizens. 

On this instance, MSNBC discovered an inconsistency with CBS' coverage of GOP nominee John McCain. 

The original video was posted on CBS' website. Later, the edited version 
was aired on TV.

In a country such as the United States of America, the biases are known. They may not be officially advertised, but they are immediately evident. This is probably why few cared to watch Obama's interview on MSNBC; According to Nielsen, Bill O'Reilly's interview with Obama had more than twice as many viewers as his interview with NBC's Keith Olbermann.

"The two taped interviews aired head-to-head at 8 p.m. and O'Reilly's show on Fox News drew 4.6 million viewers compared to the 1.9 million who tuned into Olbermann's show on MSNBC."

News TV becomes like bad reality TV when they publicly go at each other for not being objective. There have been numerous other instances of the media attacking each other over the airwaves. While most stories, even the important ones, are restricted to 1.5 minutes on TV, anchors of competing news channels don't hesitate before taking up 3-5 minutes of airtime to speak against other news organizations or journalists.

Keith Vs Bill

While News TV lowers itself to bad reality TV, did ABC do a good job with Palin's interview? No matter what Gibson could have done better, it would have been impossible to satisfy everyone, least of all journalists. Although the McCain campaign may have approached Gibson after his treatment of the Clinton-Obama debate, his questions were clearly direct and probing. 

But that doesn't mean that Gibson and Palin must have had some interaction in the past. As an independent and undecided voter, one interview with Palin is not enough for me to make my decision up about her. And the media's job, both liberal and conservative, is doubly important as she has not been a well-known, national public figure. Although ABC may be perceived to be fairly neutral in comparison to the other networks and cable channels, it is important that Palin interviews with MSNBC as well, as Obama interviewed with O'Reilly, for me to finalize my opinion on the candidate.

Are these two terms mutually exclusive? Can neutral organizations be transparent? If they truly are neutral, do they need to be transparent?

To compare "neutral" with biased and transparent news, I looked at a variety of organizations. As an international student, I am new to American media and have few preconceived notions of news media brands. Immediately, I was confused: I couldn't tell if The Los Angeles Times was left of center or right, whether CNN was Democratic or Republican or whether The Washington Post was Republican or simply an extremely political paper.

But what was evident was the bias of the reporter of each individual story. Even an organization like PBS that prides itself on balance and objectivity has biases. For instance, in a certain PBS documentary on marketing, it is evident that the reporter is skeptical about the sanctity of the advertising industry and in the process has packaged a 90-minute insightful, important, but nonetheless opinionated documentary of the industry. 

Let's accept that it is unrealistic to expect a well-informed individual, like a reporter, to not have opinions. 

That's where transparency comes in. Having links to a story published online makes it easier for the reader to verify the information put forth by the reporter. The reader may also pull up the reporter's personal blog site and investigate the point of view.

Fantastic! So as a journalist, we don't need to pretend anymore. Does this mean that we can proudly be human again?

Not really. Few consumers of news are not involved enough to bother, or have the time to take advantage of the tools that enable transparency. But consumers notice the biases of news brands like The New York Times or The Boston Globe. This is simply an outcome of repeated consumption. 

Therefore, it is only in the best interest of an organization to be transparent about their biases which can not be hidden. A contrary case in point: Fox News. They pride themselves on being objective and run their slogan, "We Report, You Decide" right next to their logo.

But Rupert Murdoch, owner of NewsCorp, FoxNews' holding company, made clear that he did try to influence audiences to support the war, through his various news outlets. "Good strong news organizations, can, by disclosing things, can help shape the agenda," he said.

The public does will notice these discrepancies and it is only damaging to the credibility of the brand to not be transparent about its objectives. As was evident in an incident involving Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins at the DNC in Denver, this year.

Also relevant are the other type of news consumers - the ones that are unexposed, uneducated and often unrepresented. This audience may not be easily found in America, but one step over to the developing countries like Spain, Brazil and India and one notices the impact a newspaper has in daily life. What is seen on TV or what is read in print is considered gospel. The audience is impressionable and without an infrastructure for Internet, they don't have the facilities to cross check what they read or view. In such an event, it becomes doubly important to be nothing but objective. But being neutral may not help here, because the audience may not have the ability to read between or act on just the cold facts. 

As entities that are better-informed and more knowledgeable than the average reader, news organizations are qualified to take a stand on the issue and not be neutral. But they must take a stand independently, without a bias. Being transparent can help an organization prove its independence and unbias. 

There is also a larger national risk in being biased, especially in a bi-partisan political scenario. As an audience, you are more inclined to consume the channel/newspaper that reinforces rather than challenges your view.

Consider the difference in turnout at the screening and discussion of Obama's acceptance speech with John McCain's, at USC Annenberg's event that was organized at the same time and same day of the week. According to the Daily Trojan, "The scene in the Annenberg lobby, where about 100 students gathered to watch McCain's speech, was more subdued than the crowd of more than 300 that overflowed the lobby last week to witness Obama's speech. "

If a newspaper is leftist, and has a loyal leftist audience, it will be bad business to carry editorials that may be supporting a Republican movement. For instance, a newspaper may believe that same-sex marriages should be allowed. They may also believe that the War in Iraq is important for national security, but this opinion will disappoint their audience; it may cost the newspaper loyal readership.

One reason for the explosion of blogs may be that there are a large number of individuals found voiceless and unrepresented in this bi-partisan media - and technology has enabled them to take things into their own hands. 

If people keep reinforcing their own opinions little progress will be made. A Republican will prefer and restrict his daily news diet to organizations with a Republican slant. The same goes for Democrats. 

Eventually, the country will end up evenly split with an equally divided public opinion on any issue of importance.

Instead, if a news organization were to take open stances based on issues, it could be transparent about its opinion, and thus have content that is unique and constructive.

Photo: Anant Goenka

Click to view Album of the event. 

In the book Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky brings to light just how innately social human beings are, and how prone humans are to forming groups and/or categories of people. According to Shirky, an impact of technology is to enable "new kind of group-forming." It is not surprising then that most of the most popular websites in America today, work primarily on user-generated content and social interaction. For instance, MySpace.com is ranked 3^rd most popular. Youtube.com is 4^th and facebook.com is 5^th. Ebay.com (ranked 8^th) and craigslist.org (ranked 11^th), are both sites that work primarily of buyer-seller interaction; auctions and/or bargaining. These two shopping sites are ranked higher than amazon.com (13^th).

But in the news media, it's a little more difficult to analyze the situation. User generated content is indeed popular. When it comes to opinions, on a daily basis, a smaller community website seems much preferred. Blogs find an online community of people that share the same locality, opinions and/or concern.

As a critical consumer of news, I may not be convinced of a news story development until I see it in the legacy media. It will be unreliable to trust user-generated content. For instance, with the recent warnings of Hurricane Gustav and an ongoing evacuation, the official words will only be provided by legacy media and there would be utter chaos if everyone individually chose to trust the word of a different blog.

Analyzing McCain's choice of a running-mate, it was clear that blogs were generally very clear of their stand, and were far from neutral. For instance, looking at the archives of mudflats.com, a popular blogging site concerning Alaskan politics; every blog entry concerning Senator Palin was strongly in opposition to her. The Huffington Post's headline was published on the main page of the website in a large red font. "2 Top Alaska Newspapers Question Palin's Fitness," followed by the headline of the abovementioned two 'top' papers: "Most People Would Acknowledge...Palin Is Not Ready For The Top Job" and "It's Stunning That Someone With So Little National And International Experience Might Be Heartbeat Away From The Presidency"

Buying in to Shirky's theory of socialization, The Washington Post attempts to serve its print audience with opinions in the form of a discussion. But they do it very differently than the blogs. The Op-Ed page is complemented with what they call: "Plan A." it's an "occasional feature where The Post asks for first impressions on a hot topic."

The "hot topic" they found worthy of this occasional feature is "Assessing Sarah Palin." The topic has contributions from 8 people, ranging from a former Republican speaker of the House to a Senior Advisor to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The paper's stance is not particularly evident. The mainstream press appears to preserve a certain element of neutrality, which may in fact be the primary reason that legacy media are still considered 'credible' and trusted and especially turned back to on major developments.

However, big news like Hurricane Gustav or John McCain's choice of Vice President cannot be generated every day. On the other hand, there is never a shortage of opinions. People like to be heard and the chances of being heard by a common online community are higher in a smaller blog website than in a mainstream site like the newyorktimes.com. This is illustrated in comparing the coverage of Palin's appointment. Mudflats.com, a blog site unranked due to minimal traffic received 659 comments to the story. Washingtonpost.com, a website ranked the 74^th most popular in America, received 833 comments, a mere 174 additional responses to mudflats.com. Evidently, an interactive audience is more loyal than a spectator audience. And on a daily basis, this is where the new media impacts journalism.