Last night after a rough, though totally not surprising day, I posted the following on social media:
Certainly it was how I felt and was indeed an homage to Mr. Murrow and what he stood for. I didn’t go immediately to bed after posting that “good night” message. Instead I re-watched the excellent film containing Murrow’s famous sign-off, “Good Night and Good Luck.”
As we all go through what we’re going to continue to go through (and who really knows what that is), I’d recommend watching or re-watching the film again. It’s on most streaming services so it’s easy to find.
There are and will be pressures all the way around and certainly a dramatization of any kind compresses events to create that drama. Given that we may never hear about any of the recent conflicts that I can only hope happened inside corporate media headquarters before they folded up their tents to march willingly in step with the new administration, the story of taking on McCarthy, while also relevant to our current moment, is really just the stage for the one behind the scenes that impacts what we see or don’t see on our screens of so many sizes.
This isn’t some moment of nostalgia for a time gone by. It is a recognition that where we are now is a place we’ve been before. This time around those that control the media and messaging have, for the moment, much more control than they did in Murrow’s day. Make no mistake, they had some control then, but now it’s more pervasive and the Murrow’s, Friendly’s and Paley’s are fewer in number.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Some festive fare, and some not quite so for this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.
Christmas and Hanukkah are almost upon us. There’s that traditional feeling of magic in the air, but it’s tempered a bit by apprehension about what may come in the New Year. But it’s Sunday and it’s before all of that, so it’s time to share some Sunday Morning Reading.
Follow that up with Olivia Jordan’sA Christmas Carol in Context: Dickens’ Beloved Festive Fable. Having directed many a production of ‘The Carol,’ I’m always amazed that its story of goodwill and redemption is at once so popular, yet always so quickly forgotten. It’s a puzzler. But then the great messages told around Christmas typically lose their resonance once we move away from the season.
Speaking of puzzlers, Generative AI is still on everyone’s mind and Gary Marcus thinks Generative AI Still Needs To Prove It’s Usefulness. Yes, he means beyond the hype it’s generated that has made some fabulously wealthy.
Journalism is having a moment and not a good one in today’s political climate. Most of that is of its own making and a good deal of it is by the owners. Podcaster and tech journalist Kara Swisher might be fed up enough to try and do something about it. She is seeking to round up investors to fund a bid to buy The Washington Post, after Jeff Bezo’s weak capitulation to the incoming Trump regime. I hope she succeeds. Meanwhile, John Gruber has written a terrific piece on this titled Journalism Requires Owners Committed To The Cause. He’s spot on.
Meanwhile Om Malik takes a look at the just how dark things may be for traditional media in these dark days in Musings On Media In The Age of AI. Here’s a quote:
None of the media business models will work in the future — neither advertising nor paywalls. Today’s content deals, like the one The Atlantic signed with OpenAI, are akin to the sugar high you get from soda. The sugar high is followed by the inevitable crash.
Folks seek validation in many ways. Climbing mountains and overcoming obstacles can be a part of that game. So too is recognizing that “not everything in life needs to be conquered.” Check out Ain’t No Mountain High Enough from NatashaMH.
And to close out this week’s Sunday Morning Reading with a bit of grace, check out The Laundromat On Sixth Avenue by Grace 🎶 @notesofgrace
May whatever holiday you celebrate this time of the year bring you some peace and perhaps some joy. Here’s hoping we all can find that comfort surrounded by the company of family and good friends.
If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.
Kudos to Nilay Patel and his team at The Verge. In an era when many businesses, including those in media and journalism, are working overtime to hedge their bets in the event of a victory by the decaying orange convicted felon/child rapist, who promises to exact retribution on his enemies, The Verge is producing some outstanding and unflinching political content.
Donald Trump is a dangerous maniac who can barely complete a sentence, and it is lunacy to believe he can even recognize the existentially threatening collective action problems facing our nation, let alone actually solve them.
In an age when we’re seeing the former top dogs of the journalism profession tuck tail and retreat into their dog houses and not issue endorsements, this one is not only worth a read it is worth sharing.
Legal observers understood at the time the enormity and lasting impact of what was happening, but few clocked that the problem was about to become exacerbated by a recursive power grab.
Again, well done and well worth your time as are each of the posts on the blog.
I say posts, because The Verge has resumed a blogging format for its work. Don’t let that fool you. There’s real quality journalism happening on that blog. Much better, much more thorough than what we’re seeing in what used to be called the Main Stream Media.
Certainly we can’t say we weren’t warned.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Deadlock an Election Story doesn’t quite achieve its aim.
Last night I watched Deadlock: An Election Story on the PBS YouTube channel. It’s a worthwhile viewing of a worthy exercise in trying to simulate how foes of different political allegiances might try to resolve an election dispute. That said, it feels more than a little academic and the mere event nature of the moment I’m sure restricted some (not all) viewpoints, given what we know of some of the participants’ history in the 2020 election.
It also has what I found to be a somewhat forced introduction from Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Sonia Sotomayor. Actions speak louder than words in a scripted intro. I also found much of the framework of the simulation (making up place names and assigned role playing), designed to remove the discussion beyond the real-time circumstances we all know that are at play, distancing in a way that I don’t think was intended.
The other large missing link is side stepping the simple fact that in this election we’re dealing with a convicted felon who will do anything to rig the system to keep himself out of jail. Call me crazy, but I just don’t think you can ignore that reality in any discussion about the upcoming election in November, and what will happen following it.
All of that said, it is worthwhile viewing to see that at least under the glare of the spotlight, there are those who believe integrity and civility, while perhaps lost virtues in American politics these days, are something worth attempting to regain.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Close but no cigar, James Risen almost provides and answer.
James Risen, an excellent journalist, dances right up to the point of winning, but then quits dancing instead of leaving it all on the floor in an terrific piece, Why The Media Won’t Report the Truth About Trump.
Decrying the “horse race journalism” of political campaigns, he hits his marks early on saying the deplorable coverage of the twice impeached, four time indicted, once already convicted conmen fronting the GOP party feels like the press has amnesia. He wonders why the crimes and behavior everyone is aware of get such short shrift.
But then he falls back into discussing the history of political coverage from the 1960’s onward through our digital age and media business model pressures. You know that argument, the system is at fault. All of what he lays out so very well is true, especially the part about how the candidates and the campaign professionals take advantage of a the news media’s continued failings.
What he leaves out is a simple truth. The media likes it this way. Regardless of why and how the traditional news media remains stuck in a rut of its own making, it is a choice. An exhausting one surely, but a devastatingly addictive one.
All choices have consequences. As Risen points out there are and will be consequences on the media dance floor when the music stops, especially when you think you’re the one making the music. But there are also deadly dangerous ones for those of us who once thought we could rely on them.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
I didn’t realize just how much the chattering class dislikes middle America. I also didn’t realize how many of them would be trying to figure out where Minnesota is. Listening and reading most of the media deal with the fact that Kamala Harris pulled a fast one and named Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate, it feels like they are all looking for the floor after someone pulled the lever on a trap door.
Apparently the nattering nabobs were all in for Josh Shapiro to be the choice. According to one friend I have in one large newsroom they were already deep into preparing the pros and cons articles on the pick and hadn’t even gotten anything going on Tim Walz.
Who knows how the pick of Walz will help beyond the initital enthusiasm bounce. Certainly he will in some quarters. I happen to like the guy and imagine quite a few others do as well. No one knows how Shapiro or any of the other good choices would have helped or hurt either.
Face it, we’re very much still in unchartered waters with the MAGAt’s thinking beyond election day to how they can rig this election into the House of Representatives or the Supreme Court. Keep in mind that’s the real threat.
Perhaps, just perhaps, given the opponents and the hateful and vindictive agenda they are pushing, the Harris/Walz campaign might just succeed in not only winning enough votes to make it an argument in November and December, but changing the conversation in ways that can get us out of the slop our politics have become in this century.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Pick your metaphor. Pick your favorite song lyric from Hamilton. Pick your poison. The U.S. political and media world is nothing short of a mess as the GOP Coronation, excuse me, Convention, continues in Milwaukee.
I’m not watching the event, but have seen enough highlights (lowlights?) to know that bending the knee has leapt beyond typical humiliating political expediency into something that absurdist playwrights, much less contemporary fiction authors, couldn’t possibly imagine. Public ass kissing may not be an Olympic sport, but if it was, America could field one helluva team based on the competition in Milwaukee.
It’s really not fair to blame the media for coverage of the event. They seem to know no better than a child sticking their hand in a fire and there’s nothing normal or predictable about this election cycle. There used to be journalists who would call things as they saw them. There also used to be dinosaurs.
Watching the watchers cover what looks like the closest thing we’ve seen to a Nazi rally in this country for several generations and not calling it what it is pisses me off. The media’s problem is that this is a playbook that’s been plagiarized from the 1930’s in ways that large language models must envy. But the media capitulated then and so here we are. Again. It may not be new, but it’s damn dangerous and they are trying to shoehorn that into an old world model that failed then and will fail again. Things may not be normal but they are too damn predictable. Guess what? That’s the damn story.
Set aside the clichés about not presenting both sides when one side says it’s raining and the other doesn’t. We’re witnessing a complete capitulation to something that’s beyond my understanding. If the red hat brigade takes power, most of those currently sucking up will be in line for internment camps once they’ve reported on how many migrant families have been separated. At least they will be credentialed.
Granted the media isn’t getting much help from the Democrats. That helpless bunch wants to play fair. Again. Thinking the high road will get them there, while the other side is tunneling out the ground underneath them is simply shrinking from the real challenge while grasping at straw men. The only fight they can seem to muster is one against themselves. Hell, they don’t even have the guts to really have that fight, much less finish it. But go ahead. Play nice.
So. Today is my birthday. Given family history I never thought I’d make it this far. But I have. I have two birthday wishes. Here’s the first: I’d love to see some Democratic politician when confronted with some MAGAt gish galloping their well rehearsed rhetoric say directly “take your white supremacist, fascist, misogynistic bullshit and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.” Hell. Don’t even wait to do it to their face, just do it in front of a camera. Often. Call them on their bullshit hourly. Make them defend against the comment.
For the uninitiated, that’s called politics.
The second wish is that I’d love to see a headline somewhere that says, “The GOP has nominated a convicted felon to run for president.” The lede should read: “The party once proud to wrap itself in the mantle of law and order has now disrobed and re-draped itself as the party that welcomes and supports criminality.” Tell me, what’s not factual about that?
I won’t get either of those wishes. I’m pissed about that. And I’m pissed that it looks like I’m going to be around to watch what this country stood for during the six plus decades of my life rapidly decline and disintegrate during what’s left of it.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Well this is a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. The media/political party industrial complex has put us right where they want us to be. Spinning, Whirling, Scared. Confused. Befuddled. Pissed Off.
As I watch my grandson propel himself around his surroundings this weekend with the reckless abandon of innocence, I can’t help but wonder at the wonder of it all. Watching him realize the consequences of waving an ice cream cone around in the heat of a summer night was a heartbreaking humorus lesson in beginning to see the light. The whirling and spinning only stop when gravity takes over and it all ends up a mess on the sidewalk.
Meanwhile back in the world of knowledge and supposed wisdom, it seems those of us in the rareifed air of adulthood who know better have become unconcerned if not unmoored from the law of physics.
After Joe Biden’s interview on ABC last night it seems we’re completely at the mercy of upcoming news cycles, whether we tune in or tune out. It’s starting to feel like it’s going to be an endless summer, fall and beyond. It’s an unending episode of Lost, where confusion reigns at the expense of narrative and plot. At some point it has to end, but there doesn’t need to be an end, just an endless supply of Special Features.
Sadly, whenver this spins to an end that end that will only help the party of convicted felons and child rapists help us end it all. But that can be spun up and away too.
I’m heartsick that the Democrats have fallen into depths beyond disarray, with new depths still to be plummed apparently. I’m pissed off that what used to be the GOP is happily using this ramapaging forest fire as cover to run and hide from Project 2025, while they continue to scan for more to burn.
The world feels like it’s caught in a lyric somewhere between Tommy Roe’s Dizzy and Stealers Wheel’s Stuck in the Middle With You, with some sort of AI generated click track back beat played by a boy band wearing Supreme Court robes, pretending they understand Hip Hop.
Goodness knows when this will all fall down. But then goodness has nothing much to do with any of it.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Our judicial system has been exposed as corrupt beyond repair, much like our political systems. Neither is going to save us from a deranged orange tinged rapist who is willing to blow anything and everything up. Regardless of how the election turns out.
Destroying musical instruments for advertising purposes is apparently a sin against nature.
There are bears in the woods.
There are no answers for the problems in the Middle East. Too many prayers. Not enough thoughts.
“Good media is the Fourth Estate.” says Joe Kahn, the executive editor of The New York Times. He continues with “it’s another pillar of democracy.” All well and good. As far as it goes. It doesn’t even come close to going far enough apparently for the folks at the Times. This interview in Semafor certainly proves Kahn and his publisher A. G.Sulzberger are missing the story, the point, and the knife at their own throats.
Here’s the quote that opens up the window on their self-centered delusion:
It’s also true that Trump could win this election in a popular vote. Given that Trump’s not in office, it will probably be fair. And there’s a very good chance, based on our polling and other independent polling, that he will win that election in a popular vote. So there are people out there in the world who may decide, based on their democratic rights, to elect Donald Trump as president. It is not the job of the news media to prevent that from happening. It’s the job of Biden and the people around Biden to prevent that from happening.
Again, as far as it goes it makes sense AND what I think many of us believed about how journalism should work in our political system. But that political system doesn’t exist anymore. You have to have some powerful blinders to not see that. Either that or be far too comfortable living within a myth of mostly your own making.
The very political system that guarantees The Times it’s right to think, write, and publish that way is being threatened by someone and a party that aren’t shy about abandoning the constitution that guarantees Kahn the ability to do his job as he sees it.
As I say far too often the media will cover its own funeral until the last shovel of dirt is tossed into the grave. If you think I’m being hyperbolic, you aren’t paying attention.
You can read the entire interview here. Photo by Olkesandr_U
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 