Today we are embarking on an endeavor that can change the political and social landscape of Silicon Valley. It’s called The Left Hook-Politics with a Punch.
The Left Hook will offer a progressive perspective on issues that impact Silicon Valley. With new content daily and a wide variety of writers drawn from throughout the community, The Left Hook will be a new voice on current events.
Why is the Left Hook needed? Too many important stories go unreported. The Left Hook will fill a gap in the Silicon Valley media landscape by bringing to light neglected events and issues.
For instance, Dennis Raj’s column, “Policy Watch” highlights significant upcoming policy decisions that are on the County BOS, City Council, school board and other agendas throughout Santa Clara County and California.
The Left Hook is the only media source for that comprehensive information. If you don’t look at Dennis’s column once a week, you literally don’t know what you’re missing.
The Left Hook will provide information about politics and policy that people who want to be informed about what’s really going on in Silicon Valley should not do without. There will be regular political commentary by Rich Robinson and regular news analysis by Bob Brownstein. Progressives are not contributing nearly enough to the marketplace of ideas. We need to start talking more forcefully about the change we wish to see.
The launch of The Left Hook speaks to the new state of media consumption. People, especially young people, do not get their news from a single source, and they consume much of their news on line. We need to have our voices heard along with a number of other important community voices.
In some ways the new state of media consumption is not so new. At the turn of the 19th century in Philadelphia there were 92 newspapers, many of them daily, including several papers in German and French.
The Left Hook is part of a shift toward an environment with multiple media sources, but really this is more of a return than a departure. We are returning to an era when people get their news from many places.
And that’s a good thing. Why? It is not a coincidence that people were more involved in politics when there were so many competing news sources to provoke debate and generate excitement.
What is new is the rise of the citizen journalist. Just as newsrooms shrink and resources for investigative journalism decline, technology has created opportunities for citizen journalists to expose stories of public interest.
Citizen journalists can be subject matter experts with the knowledge and understanding necessary to unravel and explain complex stories. Who knows more about social justice for young people of color than Raj Jayadev? Who knows more about the struggle for immigration reform than Teresa Castellanos? Who knows more about LGBT rights than Wiggsy Sivertsen? On the pages of The Left Hook, these citizen journalists will enrich the public discussion about the future of our community.
The Left Hook can become a standard media source for opinion makers in Silicon Valley. When that happens we will have changed the media landscape in Silicon Valley and we will have created a place for progressive ideas to thrive.
Do you have a news tip you would like to share? Would you like to contribute to The Left Hook? Email us at LeftHookBlog@gmail.com
I had hope for this site, but then I saw who the various writers were and that hope went right out the window. This site is about as biased and full of agendas as any of the others out there.
I’ll still pass on through just because I’m a great fan of fiction.
Biased and full of agendas? No. Just trying to get the less noted side of the issue out there. Thanks for reading our blog!
This article is titled, “The rise of citizen journalist”
Steve Kline – Very active politically.
Ash Kalra, councilmember
Rich Robinson, Political consultant
I don’t consider any of these folks to be your normal, run of the mill citizens. You have an elected official, a political consultant, and Steve is a former council candidate that is currently trying to build his political collateral.
Did I miss something?
Oh and moderation just like SJI, now you can choose which comments to publish. Ya, this has all the makings of SJI 2.0.
Finally a blog that I can actually read!
Right on!!!
One of the interesting parts of the Christie Bridgegate affair is that in this morning’s news conference, the Governor said that he had no knowledge of the emails or any of the shenanigans except for the reporting of the Bergen Record and & production of emails on northjersey.com.
The value of journalists and citizen journalists is one of the strengths of our democracy. Especially in our Silicon Valley community where so many voices are not heard due to slanted media, thelefthook.com is going to be a great addition to our community. We have the power to open eyes.
“Who knows more about social justice for young people of color than Raj Jayadev?”
A veteran policeman of color, that’s who.