OPINION — Why Give Absurdities Ink & Prominence?

Elon Musk owns a communications company (and so much more), and if he wants to promote an idea, surely he is free to do so. That’s the epitome of free speech…. Unchecked, unregulated, and uncensored.

And when he suggests that a media company’s employees deserve a “long prison sentence” for a story that he disagrees with, again, he is free to shout that from his platform and bask in the glow of his X echo chamber, maganified by the Prince of Mar-a-Lago.

Musk has long criticized CBS for a Kamala Harris interview during the November election. Most recently, following a critical story about Musk’s closure of USAID, the DOGE boss wrote, “60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world! They engaged in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election. They deserve a long prison sentence.”

Seriously… “a long prison sentence” for? What would be the legal charge? What is the offense? What is the rationale, other than perhaps currying favor with prominent politicians? Evidently, Musk didn’t learn about the American value of free speech in his South African school system.

While Musk can and should be allowed to say anything, why does other media give him any credence by repeating his nonsensical mutterings?

Deciding what to include on any media platform is the province of editors who, one hopes, make their decisions based on what is newsworthy, the prominence of the person speaking, and the likelihood that what’s said will be impactful.

On any responsible calculus, in my nearly 50-year experience in media, I believe even repeating silly ideas or promoting individuals who are so out of touch with inherent American values is, in itself, irresponsible.

The Media is the Last Bulwark Against Ignorance

The effects of restructuring the government with a crowbar and jackhammer are tumultuous, akin to feeling as if we are trapped riding on a roller coaster with the wheels teetering and about to fly off.

It is far easier to break and destroy something wholesale than to preserve what works strategically, reform what doesn’t, and refine what needs to be fixed.
Based on polls, some people joyfully embrace this upheaval as long overdue and is a good thing. Time, and history, will decide that.

As there seems to be no loyal opposition to this administration, it must fall to the media to offer guidance and caution, and to raise objection.

The media is the only bulwark remaining, even as it comes under assault.

Take into consideration two recent foreign policy ideas: reclaiming the Panama Canal and the resettlement of Gaza.

Our starting point? Remember George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Take the assertion that the U.S. must reclaim its Panama Canal. First, it is not ours. It never was. We built and managed it, but it was not owned.

While beating up Panama is a wonderful political rallying cry affirming North American superiority, remember the Panamanians threw out the United States Army in nationalist anti-imperialist and anti-American riots.
History recorded that. You can look it up.

And we think they are going to welcome us back? In what universe? Maybe some file footage of those pitched battles between Panamanians and the U.S. military would be worth replaying as a reminder of reality?

Two other salient facts ought to be reported. First, the U.S. built, trained, and equipped the Panamanian armed forces (army, navy & air force) with highly sophisticated weapons. What would a war cost in terms of lives and resources – theirs and ours? And what would a war with a nation in the Southern Hemisphere portend for our allies? And enemies?
Second, just imagine the impossible if the U.S. prevailed? How would the United States preserve and protect the hundreds of miles of waterways, roads, access points, and territory? Have we already forgotten how difficult it was to govern our recent military conquests in the Middle East? And our failures?

And then there’s Gaza.
Even apart from the mounting global outrage over this idea, its proposed cost and the unrealistic, Herculean challenge of moving an entire nation – there is history here too to offer guidance. For instance, the Partition of India in 1947 is worth recalling, as was its death roll, estimated at about 2 million lives lost. History recorded that too. You can look it up.

And recent expressions of Pax Americana throughout the world have been met with armed resistance, political upheaval, unrivaled financial losses, and ultimately failure.

And there’s even a suggestion to try this again? That it might work, now?

Look – these ideas seem aimed for headlines in a news cycle. They are trial balloons for an adoring crowd on social media.

The media has a responsibility not just to report today’s news but to offer context and perspective, especially to an audience that seems to be ether too young or disconnected from history to remember it on their own.
Even when these wild ideas seem as if we are playing whack-a-mole.

Mr. Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote, “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”

Paraphrasing his 1913 essay, publicity and notoriety stemming from media scrutiny are essential to light and expose flaws, offer alternatives to identifiable faults, bolster the backbone of critics in opposition, and offer navigational corrections through turbulent waters.

The media’s job is not going to be welcomed by many; yet, it is essential for our country and its future.

Is the Fentanyl Crisis a Red Herring?

Is U.S. drug treatment both so insufficient and inefficient that higher guacamole prices are the only solution to the Fentanyl crisis?

President Trump has claimed 3-hundred thousand (300,000) Americans die of fentanyl overdoses annually.

But – huh? A question: Where is this mountain of corpses? Is this certified by any coroner, anywhere?

The official number of deaths (73,654 in 2022) reportedly dropped in 2023, and the data from 2024 is not yet available.

So, a discrepancy prompts this question: Is the media buying and perpetuating this crisis without raising proper doubt and inquiry?

The second question?

And so, it is worth asking again: Is raising the cost of an avocado, much less disrupting world trade, sufficient to stem this epidemic?

Maybe a third question?

Is U.S. drug treatment both so insufficient and inefficient that higher guacamole prices are the only solution to the Fentanyl crisis?

It is an indisputable fact: There have been catastrophic drug epidemics in the United States dating back to the Civil War, featuring a rotating menu of morphine, heroin, cocaine, barbiturates, and marijuana, again and again, over and over.

Another fact, courtesy of AI: “The U.S. federal government spends significant amounts annually on drug treatment and substance abuse programs. Key figures include:
Federal Substance Use Treatment Spending: The federal government allocates over $1.1 billion annually for drug treatment programs, excluding spending by the Department of Veterans Affairs1.
Opioid Epidemic Funding: Congress has approved $10.6 billion in discretionary spending between 2017 and 2028 to combat the opioid epidemic, with $1.5 billion allocated in 2023 alone for the State Opioid Response program to expand treatment and recovery services3.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): In FY 2022, SAMHSA received $6.6 billion for substance use prevention and treatment activities, including $3.5 billion for block grants to states and territories7.
These figures highlight the multifaceted approach to addressing substance abuse through healthcare, prevention, and justice system initiatives.”

Let’s take a deeper dive into the avocado dip: Is the assertion that the only way to stave off the fentanyl crisis is to change world tariffs?

Is the fentanyl crisis being hyped for political gain?

Is there no better alternative to helping addicts than to penalize everyone’s wallets?

Is the administration selling a fear – and the media not investigating that sufficiently?

Those seem to be questions worth asking.

Tiffany Network At Risk of Losing Its Luster

It is being reported that CBS News is entering negotiations with the F.C.C. because a settlement with the Trump administration is politically expedient.

Expedient for the parent organization, Paramount? Apparently.

As reported in the NY Times, “But in the wake of Mr. Trump’s election, CBS’s parent company, Paramount, has begun settlement discussions with representatives of Mr. Trump, according to several people with knowledge of the talks. Many executives at Paramount believe that settling the suit could help pave the way for the F.C.C. to approve Paramount’s planned multibillion-dollar merger with another company.”

Expedient also to avoiding any negative relations or a loss of access with the Trump White House? Perhaps true, but most likely a calculated decision based on fear of retribution from the press office.

The proposed settlement stems from a $10 billion lawsuit from President Trump over allegations of misleading editing in a CBS News 60 Minutes story from October 7, 2024.

Business settlements and political decisions based on real or imagined ramifications are one thing. But it is quite another for a major broadcaster to cave so willingly and early in the legal process. More alarming to veteran news people is the apparent surrender and kow tow to a personality.

If a story has been properly produced, vetted by experienced and senior editors, and scrubbed for accuracy, then the network should stand by the work. Stand by your reporters and editorial team. One presumes the experienced team at CBS 60 Minutes, the premier news magazine show on CBS, did their jobs properly and professionally. It would be a sad thing for risk-averse managers at the television network to scuttle the work and settle for the expedience of a new business deal.

Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it Was Right

Over the last 36 hours, much of the cable-verse has been unremarkably predictable. MSNBC grieves, Newsmax and Fox gloat, and CNN searches to strike a moderate tune, whatever that might be.

Each media entity is frantically and fanatically preaching to its choir. That’s what their audience wants and believes. That’s where their commercial success lies.

While I seriously doubt there has been any audience transference from its well-entrenched political ideology of choice, therein lies the problem.

They are squandering our future, and we are succumbing to their pabulum. Former New Mexico Governor and US Ambassador Bill Richardson promoted collaboration and compromise, “We cannot accomplish all that we need to do without working together.”

Instead, too many of us hear a story and mutter, “Geez, what a bitch!” Or dismiss some politician or businessman bemoaning, “What a rich bastard they are, what do they know about…?”
We pit one another against each other for short-term political gain. Congressperson Majorie Taylor Greene has announced her intention to hold hearings on the leftist-leaning PBS for insinuating that Elon Musk’s raised salute was an endorsement of either fascism or Nazism. Hearings? Really?

To quote one of America’s great orators, Bugs Bunny, “Heh. What a maroon!”

See, I did it there!

But I must also recognize that on the other side of the aisle, statements by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez routinely boil the blood of many conservatives.

We are seduced and reduced to embracing (liking?) a diet of bromides and broadsides from one side to the other and back again. We toss around words like liberty and freedom and define them solely and judgmentally in our terms… and if you disagree, you’re disloyal, un-American, and wrong.

Ronald Reagan reminded us to be more careful with what we say and what’s at stake. “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

We expect MSNBC to interview guests aligned with a left-of-center ideology, just as Newsmax or Fox celebrates the right. Name-calling predominates the headlines. Guests appear especially for their vitriol and the cleverness that predominate the airwaves.

Are media power brokers and gatekeepers so committed to being an echo chamber of their audience’s ideologies and so terrified of losing market share that they cannot present another idea?

Dare we suggest we deserve better?

Anchors and hosts giggle, make snarky editorial remarks, and castigate anyone who disagrees with their political line. Listen to the adjectives. Count the adverbs.

Admittedly, it’s so easy to sit in judgment. And the view ain’t bad either!

It is as unreasonable as it is unlikely that the media will change, and certainly not willingly, if ever. They will continue to pander to their perceptions of this divided and discordant mob of viewers.

Audiences respond to two distinct emotions. Anger and fear. Only. The more that fear is stoked, the angrier audiences become. The more that anger intensifies, the fear grows more profound.

What’s wrong with challenging audiences – not from opposite poles – but from a single theme articulated by Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it (Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce), “We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe.”

Would you listen and watch? Or is that theme too frightening for you? Is there any media company or talent with courage which is willing to try?

I, for one, would be proud to produce a show like that.

From CNN’s Reliable Sources – Media & Trump Day 1

AN insightful window in to how people see their news coverage

Media Mayhem – The LA fires bring out the best and worst in reporting

This week’s fires in and around Los Angeles resemble an apocalypse.

Families lost loved ones; thousands more lost property accumulated over a lifetime.

The media coverage has been extensive on land and in the air. Anchors have raced from the safety and comfort of New York studios to appear earnestly reporting on the fire line.

 Snarky tabloid stories poked at anchors who tailored their Nomex fire retardant suits to appear fitted (more dashing?). In a holocaust, I suppose some news heavyweights think it best to look good while reporting on other’s suffering… before returning to the comfort of 4-star hotels for the night.

As my friend and colleague Bob Sirkin posed in an email today, “I am tired of watching network anchors trying to squeeze out the very last drops of emotion from victims. How much more do you want to ask the same banal questions to people who are left with nothing?”

The So California fires are a tragedy of unfathomable scope. Of course.

But dare we compare this natural destruction to human-caused misery in Gaza, the Ukraine, and Russia where cities have been leveled, buildings pancaked on residents asleep in their beds, and debris fields stretch for miles and miles – entire communities obliterated back to the stone age?

The media coverage and public interest in these stories has largely waned. Field reporters file stories about a horrific bombing or a gun battle, characterized by the news term “bang-bang.” But the rest of the story – about people…the losses they have sustained is largely sanitized from US media.

It’s absolutely as tragic, but if I may suggest, few if any of these victims likely have Go-Fund-Me pages.

The old bromide that all news is local is true, and the fires in California have greater resonance to fellow Americans than something happening thousands of miles away in a foreign country to people who are not “us.”

I get it.

Soon the fires will be contained. Even this weekend there will be less coverage as audiences over Saturday and Sunday decline and the newspapers shrink their page count. Anchors will return to their studios, where it is less expensive to sustain coverage.

The audience will tell pollsters that they’ve had enough, or feel overwhelmed, or worse yet, that the devastation is all beginning to look the same. And we’ll largely move on.

Newsroom cynics used to keep tally of what scope of devastation warranted network television news interest… hundreds of thousands of victims in a sub-continent typhoon barely earned a mention. Several thousand war casualties in Africa or several hundred killed in a South American earthquake might earn a flicker of acknowledgment. Scores in a domestic tragedy certainly earned a slot in the news window… but then, so too did a 2 car accident in New York’s Times Square so long as it was reported in the New York Post or Times.

I guess it’s all a matter of perspective after all.

A Natural Crisis Becomes a Political Firestorm & Media Crisis

We’re watching a natural disaster become a media crisis develop in real time before our eyes.

From the LA Mayor… we’re being treated to a master class in missed opportunities… Stone-Cold silence… A failure to show empathy…

The list goes on… and on

https://nypost.com/2025/01/08/us-news/stone-faced-la-mayor-karen-bass-refuses-to-answer-questions-about-absence-as-wildfires-rage-across-her-city/

Here’s tip #1 – In the face of any crisis, be human.

2 – Pretend to care. Mourn the dead. Reach out to the injured.

3 – Offer reassurance that we’re all in this together and will pull through, again, together.

4 – Thank first responders. Once, twice, and again for their bravery and skill.

5 – Make it abundantly clear, “I’m on my way – I’m absolutely in communication – I am in this fight with you.”

6 – Demand all local, state and federal resources, open checkbooks and manpower by made available immediately. Set a timetable… A clue? Like as soon as yesterday.

7 – Don’t stare down a microphone. It’s not the enemy. Embrace every opportunity to speak (not talk at) with your constituents. The microphone is your bestie…

8 – Repeat: be human. Show empathy. Be authentic. Be a friend.

You’d think the LA Mayor’s Office would be media savvy.
From some of the early evidence to date, you appear to be mistaken.

And your mother wears combat boots!!

Nah-Nah-Nah

Are Lofty Thoughts Lost in American Politics, and Beyond?

This NYTimes story presents an interesting and disconcerting story that past Presidents have been better orators than those to whom we have become accustomed in recent administrations.

Compared to what has become a standard diet of bravado, braggadocio, self-serving “I told you so” and outright propaganda, not to mention tens of thousands of falsifications, the old days seem pretty darn different.

This chasm of lost oratory prompted me to think: who and what’s responsible for the dearth of great communicators?

Can we attribute this to speech writers and consultants who master-manage and maul every message?  What about the corruption of money? Do politicians and executives fear that saying anything of substance will cause a break in the money chain or stock market?
What about religious leaders and influencers? Are they still believable, as so few seem to hold much sway anyway?
Or, is over-exposure by the media that which diminishes (even extinguishes) everyone’s light before it can gain more than a glimmer?
Have we lost the art of speaking and persuasion in place of 280-character social media posts?
Are we impatient, turning off after less than: 30 because we are too busy to press on to our next conversation or encounter?

What seems missing most to me is honesty and authenticity.
In multimedia, in the past and still today, to become trusted and believable, one must start with being liked. People judge one another in nanoseconds, making quick, knee-jerk judgments based on appearance, intonation, articulation, and whether they feel the speaker actually believes what they’re saying.

Does your audience like you? What is even likable about you?

In speaking, achieving success and impact is as simple as using clear words, being concise, and sounding conversational.

Too many of my students struggled to find a more complicated word in the thesaurus to sound authoritative at the expense of being understandable. They complicated a simple message by searching for bigger, polysyllabic words in a futile hope of sounding impressive.

In short, they thought too much and didn’t write as they most naturally spoke.

I taught writing for 15+ years. So many students struggled due to years of teachers who valued volume instead of quality. So many students struggled to write what they wanted to say for fear of criticism when all they had to do was write as they spoke and speak from the heart.

Great writing is the product of a good first draft, terrific editing, a better second draft, and repeat.

Great speaking can and should motivate and inspire — but it isn’t just about big words but the speaker’s use of all their inherent, personal strengths – and their belief in what they have to communicate.

The Times story is interesting as it highlights what we have lost.

PASTEURIZING MEDIA

Countering “media fallout”

{{This was written by my friend, teacher, and colleague Marty Perlmutter and first appeared on his substack today.It is thought provoking, and I felt worth sharing

Marshall McLuhan had a central idea he termed “media fallout.” He knew the only way to avoid the mind-manipulation of media was awareness of how these modes of consciousness envelopment work on our brains. In the absence of awareness, you have media fallout. He explained this to advertising and broadcast executives of the time — half a century ago. He said that he felt a lot like Louis Pasteur in 1860. He was aware of pervasive and invisible forces that caused disease and spread infection. But all around were individuals, doctors along with patients, oblivious to imperceptible but all-too-real microbes that were killing them.

To become conscious of how balkanized, corrupted, disinforming and ever-more-pathetic media are shaping our minds and behaviors requires a quantum leap in awareness of invisible forces. Sinclair Broadcasting and Fox News are the easiest of the “cavorting beasties” (as the inventor of the microscope termed single-cell organisms) to detect, and begin to disinfect. Social media, fragmented attention, cell phone dopamine addiction — these will take more time to elucidate and defang.

Our plight seems more fraught than simply entertaining ourselves to death. As McLuhan taught, what we’re not aware of will have its way with our delicate cerebra. A lot of what we’re dealing with now barely makes it to the cortex. This is the age of the medulla oblongata, the brain stem where fear and rage abide. While we are distracted, addicted, disinformed and terrorized, what hope is there that we’ll grok how this enveloping miasma operates?

Another teaching gives me hope. A peerless penetrator of the loom of passions and persuasions, Friedrich Nietzsche, taught, “Understanding stops action.” When you comprehend how something triggers you, when you grasp the roots of your convictions, there’s no heat, no drive to act. There is only a tranquility that passeth manipulation.

So spread the word: Cavorting beasties are abroad in the land. We cannot see or sense this stuff til we surface the mechanisms by which they reach into us. By slowly becoming aware of how these forces massage our senses, impact our feeling and thinking, we can disabuse ourselves of thralldom and become, truly and at last, free.