JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Brian Austin Whitney Blog Sunday, May 14th, 2006

Hi Folks,
I figured it was about time to create an actual blog here on the JPF site. Rather than post it on the home page only like many other sites, I wanted to launch it here in the message boards because I know it's where most of you start your day with all things JPF.

I can't believe it's been 8 years since I launched JPF from scratch and I am really pleased with how far we've come. I also realize that I've barely scratched the surface of things I want to do which includes diversifying the community and what we do together. These are things I hope to bring up in the blog as time goes by. So many things come up in a given day that I never get to discuss or share that I wanted to have this blog as much to keep track of things I need to remember later as anything else.

By the way, Happy Mothers Day to all the Mothers out there. If she's still with you, and you haven't called your own Mother yet, stop reading this and pick up the phone right now while you're thinking about it! = )

Note To Self: Call Mom when you're done typing this!

Okay, so I got some interesting stuff in the mail yesterday. This is the time of the year where we don't get a ton of mail since we're not getting daily mail crates full of CD's anymore. Yesterday I got 3 things of particular interest/curiosity:

1. A DVD of the PBS TV Show "My Girlfriends Quilt" from old friend and JPF Mentor Valerie DeLaCruz. If you surf though PBS on the TV you'll see it on fairly often of late. It's all based around her song of the same name. Though I don't think the special does justice to her or the cause behind it, I still think it's great that she was able to get her vision out there. She's been a great example of creating her own success through persistence and passion and I congratulate her on yet another achievement.

2. I got a copy of Canadian Musician Magazine in the mail. I've never seen a copy, but it's not much different than a lot of mainstream US Music Magazines. I figured someone just wanted me to check it out (there was no letter or anything in the envelope.. just the issue). I remember someone from Canada had asked for permission to reprint a newsletter article I wrote recently and thought maybe this was included but it wasn't. Instead there was a full page article on JPF with my picture (not a great one, they must have just pulled it off a Roadtrip photo page or something) and mostly text from our website and welcome email. It's was very nice of them to do it, but I've never understood why so many magazines will do articles on something without ever making a single contact with the subject of the article. If they had gotten with us, we could have helped them edit it into a more understandable and less repetitive article. There was even conflicting info on membership numbers within the article because one source they used was older and we had less members. I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I am appreciative of their gesture to include info on JPF which was very nice of them to do. But if they or anyone else ever wants to cover us in the future, we are VERY happy to help you out directly anytime. Seriously.. call me. = ) This same thing has happened with EQ, Mix, Electronic Musician, Keyboard Magazine, Acoustic Guitar, Music Connection and many others I have lost track of over the years. Even large newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune have covered us in the past without ever actually talking to us directly. The Chicago Tribune has interviewed me on several occasions however in addition to the un attributed articles. As someone who took a lot of journalism classes and has worked in Print Media, I am always surprised at how little research happens in many publications today. It's easy to see how things get misinterpreted and mis-attributed. Making matters worse is when one publications, as part of their research, will simply reprint factual errors in someone else's publication without checking themselves. If they do this to something like JPF, I can only imagine what happens in political stories where people ALSO have a biased viewpoint to start with. The same thing happens on TV and Radio. Food for thought.

3. The most intriguing thing I got in the mail yesterday was an invitation from the Stanford Law Review to write a 10-40 page article for their next issue on the topic of "The Ethical Dimensions of Law and Technology Policy." The Stanford Law and Policy Review is an academic journal that explores current issues at the nexus of law and public policy. Each issue they solicit articles from prominent professors, judges, lawyers, political leaders and other experts. This has included Bill Clinton, Joseph Biden, Patricia Wald and Cass Sunstein. (Yeah, I must confess.. I had to look up Cass myself... ). If they like my article and decide to use it, I also get to visit the Stanford Campus and present my paper to their conference in the winter of 2007. Wow.. now THIS is cool. Of course I have no idea who decided to contact me or why exactly beyond my advocacy and outspoken calls for ethics in the music industry and the world at large. Perhaps someone out there in authority is actually listening? Pretty exciting to be honest. I was invited by Dana Craig to submit. I am going to email Dana right after I finish them and call my Mom for mothers day just to be sure they aren't pulling my leg.

So yesterday I worked about 16 hours on the music awards stuff (we were screening Polka, Rockabilly and Surf Music this weekend). I got up at 5:20 AM to start all over.

So that's it for the first edition of my new Blog. Let's see how many days in a row I can do it before I collapse under the pressure of giving my opinion... (ha.. it's a rhetorical statement.. you all know I'll never tire of giving my opinion...).

Brian

[This message has been edited by Brian Austin Whitney (edited 05-14-2006).]