It’s Impact on the Economic Environment

Join us for lunch, Thursday, April 8, to share in a conversation about the quality of public debate. A blue ribbon panel, steeped in local experience, will discuss the opportunity to reshape the conversations that influence both public and business decisions. This panel includes:

Dick Wilson, Santa Cruz City Manager

Tom Honig, former editor of the Santa Cruz Sentinel

Alan Pagano, retired Superintendent of Santa Cruz Community Schools

Matthew Thompson, architect, Thacher and Thompson Architects

They will consider how changes in the form and quality of public discourse are changing the process and outcomes of both public and private sector decision making. We will encourage attendees to share how the outcome of current public decisions is affecting their business decisions.

…journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community, Oscar Wilde

We depend on journalism to prepare the electorate to make informed, considered decisions. Changes in the news economics and the tastes and interests of the electorate have combined to make this an extraordinarily challenging task. Here is a just one brief clip from Alisa Miller, CEO of National Public Radio, describing the problem on an international level. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alisa_miller_shares_the_news_about_the_news.html

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions …but they are not entitled to their own facts, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid

For every community the challenge is two-fold. With the segmentation of communications and news media into smaller and smaller units increasingly tuned to the interests and values of their audience, intentional misstatement of fact by interested parties has become more and more difficult to challenge. And, with the reduction in the number of journalists, the ability of the media to collect, digest, and report the news – much less to do research and investigation – is in decline.

This is a shame because our ability to collect and analyze facts and to use them to improve the quality of our public decisions is growing exponentially.

It has never been more important to have a good understanding of data in making informed decisions. Watch the first 2.5 minutes of this video of Hans Rosling describing how event public health professions are constrained by their assumptions and prejudices. http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum, John Kenneth Galbraith

Even if we know what we are talking about the process of public discourse is so noxious to most citizens that they refuse to participate. It is not just the irritation of standing in line with dozens of others waiting for their three minutes at the microphone or the anonymity of emailing a thoughtful opinion into a governmental in-box.

Our aversion is in significant measure the result of discomfort with the quality of the debate. Many Santa Cruzans (and hundreds of thousands of YouTube users) watched what surely was intended to be a pastiche of extremely ineffective public debate. However, for those who attend council meetings, and, one assumes, for the council and staff, this is not a joke. For those who don’t attend meetings it is a clear and unequivocal justification for turning their back on the process. Click here for a sample.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dChBN_zfofY&feature=related