Blog tax via energy tax? Kinda. Up with WaPo editorials! Down with evil Net! Lapse from self-satirizing D.C. elite

Was this guitar-lovin’ environmental lawyer—yes, I’ll explain why the guitar matters here—aiming for an April Fool’s joke in August?

In Sunday’s Washington Post, Dusty Horwitt complains that Internet-related technology is too cheap and overloads us with junky Web sites and other threats to humanity.

A senior public lands analyst with the Environmental Working Group, Horwitt isn’t calling for a blog tax directly, and, in fact, he wants an energy tax to crimp many activities, not just the Internet.

But you can tell where his heart is, assuming he isn’t in a Swiftian mode or a bait-the-animals mood, which, alas, I don’t think he is.

A funny lapse from the chattering class

I’m not picking on Horwitt alone. His elitism is the kind about which most politicians and lawyers in D.C. just tend to be more circumspect in public. Same for certain journalists. A graduate of Brown University and the Georgetown Law University Center, Horwitt has worked as a reporter and, as a member of the chattering class, should know better. However funny the lapse is, I’m disappointed that a world-class paper like the Post let it slip through. The Horwitt commentary appeared in the same edition as a stellar column from Deborah Howell, the ombudsman—headlined Why Isn’t the Post Easier to Reach? And now here’s Horwitt hoping to make America less wired than it would be otherwise? Who are his real heroes? The Slowsky turtles in the Comcast commercial?

Ironically Dusty’s father, Sanford, wrote a well-received biography of Saul Alinsky, a community organizer who would have loved the Internet as a way to bypass Big Media, even if the main action remained in the streets. Among Alinsky’s 11 Rules for Radicals were "Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon" and "A good tactic is one your people enjoy." Imagine what a free spirit like Alinsky would have made of Dusty Horwitt’s piece in the Outlook section.

Rx for America: Washington Post editorials?

First off, Horwitt complains we’re spending too much time interacting and not enough time with expert sources of news and opinions. The number of Web log—globally at least 112 million, as I learned directly from Technorati—appalls him because they fragment the audience and divert attention from serious news, typically ignored in the average blog. He also complains that people spend just a minute and a half on the average news site. One solution? Well, as an example, Horwitt approvingly notes that the Washington Post’s print edition reaches some two million readers on Sunday, "more than 35 percent of whom are likely to read the editorial page."

So where does the energy angle come in, as far as the Net? In his freelance piece—no, Horwitt isn’t speaking for the Post and presumably not officially for EWG—he writes:

According to Arizona State University engineering professor Eric Williams, a desktop computer "is probably the most energy-intensive of home devices, aside from furnaces and boilers." The Internet is built on about a billion such computers, in addition to data centers that, says the Wall Street Journal, "can consume enough juice to power a small city of 30,000."

It’s possible that over time, an energy tax, by making some computers, Web sites, blogs and perhaps cable TV channels too costly to maintain, could reduce the supply of information. If Americans are finally giving up SUVs because of high oil prices, might we not eventually do the same with some information technologies that only seem to fragment our society, not unite it? A reduced supply of information technology might at least gradually cause us to gravitate toward community-centered media such as local newspapers instead of the hyper-individualistic outlets we have now.

Now here’s another irony. I actually agree with the concern in the headline of Horwitt’s piece: "If Everyone’s Talking, Who Will Listen?" I want people to spend much more time with newspapers and books. I’m the guy, after all, who wrote a Post op-ed in the 1990s calling for "real books" to go the Internet. I can even see some advantages in an energy tax if the revenue is put to good use in, say, developing solar and wind power. And like Horwitt, I do worry about Corporate America nuking job opportunities at home as part of the outsourcing craze—I’m thrilled if higher energy prices have slowed or reversed this insanity.

It’s the Net angle I have problems with. Horwitt ignores a fact obvious to many TeleBlog readers. "Many to many" and "one to many" can strengthen each other, especially with the help of technology. Some points in rebuttal to him:

1. What about telecommuting as an energy saver? Shudder, the trend is probably toward more bandwidth intensive applications here, such as video. Oh, no! More data centers. But even if telecommuting isn’t right for most jobs, the net energy consumption from it will hardly be a match for 20-mile drives even in nonSUVs. Moreover, what about telecommuting as a godsend for the disabled or Americans in rural areas with few jobs? EWG, Horwitt’s employer, has reproduced a Boston Globe article with the following tip among others: "Whether your employer’s best offer is telecommuting or a T pass, take advantage of it." Will EWG now disavow the tip? And if employers won’t pay the cost of telecommuting, do we really want Washington to undertake a massive subsidy program or burden the taxpayers with yet more paperwork to reduce the burden of Horwitt’s energy tax on those working at home? Moreover keep in mind that many telecommuters use their machines—with the permission of employers—for personal use as a job perk. Um, things could get a little tricky here.

2. Americans are no more likely to give up their computers or significantly cut back on their use—because of higher energy costs—than they are to stop using air conditioning. We’re not talking Hummers here, just reasonable energy use. The 150-watt power supply in my little HP s3320f may well be eating up just 50 watts or so when idle and less than 150W at busy times. Computers, moreover, are becoming more energy-efficient, and many Americans have even abandoned desktops entirely for laptops, which I myself might do if my computing needs were less intense. Should we raise the Horwitt energy tax if technology decreases the drain on our energy supplies? What’s more, can we control what the rest of the world does?

3. Last I knew, newspapers contributed to the solid waste problem—itself related to the energy crisis, since waste requires energy to move and process. I myself canceled a subscription to the p-Post mainly because I didn’t have time to wade through all the ad-cluttered bloat. But along the way, the environmentalist in me cheered. Meanwhile, speaking of newspapers and energy, remember the energy expenditures of delivery trucks—especially in the case of regional newspapers, which already have been trimming out-of-town circulation.

4. The media could do a much better job of packaging its information online than it does. I spent ten minutes yesterday reading the Washington Post on my iPod Touch and at least 30-40 minutes on the New York Times, because the mobile edition of the online Post is so chaotic compared to the Times. And mind you, both papers on the Web are leagues ahead of the typical daily. I’m hardly surprised that the average American does not linger on news sites. Recently, Washington Post executives visited the Times to see what the competition up north was doing right. Smart move! But how about trying out iPods and iPhones and reading the paper for a week that way? Post people should pay far more attention to their mobile edition, which, though improved, is nowhere in the Times’ league. As many as 100 million iPhones may be sold goballly. The good news is that the Associated Press has laudably shown an interest in optimal presentation on phones and handhelds, although I still don’t know if AP understands the importance of many-to-many technology, given its highly restrictive copyright policies. See screenshot of AP’s outstanding software for the iPhone
. I’d love to see the Times and Post and other AP members back the wire service to the hilt and come up with a more interactive version of Mobile News for use on desktops and laptops, not just cellphones and handhelds.

5. Both newspaper sites and books sites can use interactivity to draw Net-oriented young people to authoritative information, and in fact, even individual e-books can be interactive. No, I don’t want The Solomon Scandals, my forthcoming D.C. newspaper novel in E and P, to be interactive in its first electronic edition. But interactivity should be an option for writers who want it, especially for nonfiction. And even Scandals might come someday with a forum built in for engineering students to comment on the building collapse there. Two engineering professors, from Clarkson and Penn State, vetted it.

6. What’s authoritative, and shouldn’t we be able to second-guess the big boys? To give one example, the Washington Post weakened its credibility by giving so much space to an activist who undoubtedly knows his energy policy but is so out of touch with information issues. EWG is obviously proud of Horwitt and, in fact, promotes him as one of "EWG experts available for interviews." But it should consider itself very lucky that the Post piece identified him as simply "a lawyer who works for a nonprofit environmental group in Washington." On Internet policy matters, he is outside his main turf. It’s tough enough even for the Net-oriented to keep up with their specialties and subspecialities. I’ve been writing about e-books since the early 1990s and yet constantly learn from readers of the TeleBlog. Like big media, I am hardly infallible or completely up to date—not with so much to cover and with limited resources.

Here’s another example of how "authoritative" can be in the eyes of the beholder. Just the other day, one of my regulars helped me in my so-far-futile quest to get the New York Times to consider a correction of a classic D.C. witticism. Apparently attributed inaccurately to Harry S. Truman, the quote reads: "If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog." A sharp, helpful archivist at the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum told me that the Times’ Maureen Dowd put those words in Truman’s mouth. Fair enough. But that wasn’t the entire story. Thanks to Garson O’Toole, I was able to discover earlier uses in America’s paper of record, which, from time to time, is repeating the probable error.

Meanwhile, speaking of "interactive" vs. "authoritative," I’d heartily recommend that people check out not just the Horwitt piece but also the dozens of comments—some stupid but many rather clueful—that Washington Post readers made in response to it.

7. Who’s responsible? How about the Simon & Schuster imprint that put out a lie-crammed book on Barcak Obama—well publicized by the establishment media, just as Joseph McCarthy’s smears were? Oh, well, at least the Net was around for Obama to use in responding. The good news is that if Horwatt’s energy tax happened, we might see fewer Swift Boat-style books on paper.

8. Just what are the real causes of the problem of apathy toward the news? The biggest obstacle to getting Americans to care about the news  isn’t the Internet but the blindness of so many politicians toward the country’s needs—causing average citizens just to give up and let K Street and friends run the country. A second, related cause is the failure of government and schools to take full and proper advantage of technology. If the Washington elite had listened to me and implemented TeleRead, a well-stocked national digital library system wouldn’t just exist but would also be well integrated with local schools and libraries and encourage the spread of the right hardware. You can’t just hand gadgets to students and teachers, however. You need to teach them both the technology and the proper techniques to find and assess information. What’s more, teachers need to know how to blend it in with their curriculum. Especially civics! I want students to know how to use local databases to track government. Let them grow up participating in the information flow, via the Net. Certain readers may offer expertise far beyond the kinds found in a city room and may even outshine the "experts" the gatekeepers quote. None other than the Gannett chain has experimented with citizens journalism.

9. Let’s look beyond newspaper: how about books and other content that encourages sustained thought and offers context—far beyond what newspapers alone can provide? Along with others, I noticed that Horwitt’s piece mentioned Father Charles Coughlin‘s advocacy of economic reforms, such as Social Security, to 40 million people a week. Horwitt rejoiced in Coughlin’s reach. But in the eagerness to make the case for few-to-many, Horwitt left out a little fact—that Coughlin was a vicious anti-semite with fascist tendencies. Yes, those are Wikipedia links. But I doubt many would say Coughlin was in line for an award from the Anti-Defamation League. TeleRead, anyone—to help people get context, and so that we could have professionally vetted encyclopedias as comprehensive as Wikipedia? Or perhaps more funding for the actual Wikipedia, which is becoming increasingly professionalized?

10. At the same time, book-friendly tablets and other hardware could also be used to read newspapers. Along the way, let’s not forget America’s growing elderly population: e-books could be the new large print.

11. Maybe Horwitt should be complaining about the major philanthropies that seem far more interested in exotic forms of interactivity than in advancing the presentation and use of e-books and other traditional media. Too many trendies in the foundation world are in love with virtual reality and all that. Forget about TeleRead—the very kind of approach that would help student grow up accustomed to online books and newspapers. While VR has its uses, we need a more balanced approach, which, by the way, could blend formal research with grassroots experience of the kind that the TeleBlog is all about. Yes, those hints are del
iberate. Care to help TeleRead, Dusty—and not just with education and literacy in mind? E-books and e-newspapers are waste-reducers. And talk about opportunities for community journalism at the neighborhood level!

12. Yes, all this fragmented media can jack up the costs of political candidates, but it can also lower them. Furthermore the Net creates new fund-raising possibilities. Besides, wouldn’t campaign reform legislation be a better way to address the finance issue than direct or indirect limits on Net use?

13. Horwitt says his energy tax could be progressive; whoops! So the masses will get a break and have enough resources to use the Net to excess after all? Or will Big Bro keep these things in check, case by case?

14. What’s wrong with Americans using the Net to express their passions—whether for news or, yes, guitar playing? I like Horwitt’s little site promoting his music business. Perhaps in time he can draw in more customers by making it more interactive.

Meanwhile, as old friend of one of Dusty Horwitt’s aunts and as someone who ate with his late grandfather and perhaps met Horwitt himself, I wish him all kinds of  luck with both the guitar and his battles against the oil baddies. Besides, who knows? Maybe after reading the smarter comments on the Post site, Mr. Anti-Interactivity will recant and move on. And if my friend’s nephew can appreciate the educational and civic potential of TeleRead, then so much the better. I’d love for the EWG to be allies in the TeleRead cause for well-stocked national digital libraries in the United States and elsewhere.

Just to repeat, I really like the headline over the Horwitt proposal: "If Everyone’s Talking, Who Will Listen?" But let’s remember the real problem, so well defined by one of his commenters on the "Too Much Information" question: "The problem isn’t TMI, it’s TMM (Too Much Misinformation)."

Related: MP3 of Dusty performing. If you like your lyrics gentle, this one’s pretty good; what’s more, he can impersonate Bill Clinton, too. Also check out another guitar-playin’ lawyer’s site, devoted in this case to legal parodies.