Category: Television

MAGAnifying the News

Donald J. Trump to Anchor Nightly News Program MAGAnifying What Americans Need to Know

The White House Office of Publicity (WHOP) will soon announce the production and distribution of the Evening News with Donald J. Trump, (ENDJT), a 7-night-a-week strip show featuring America’s favorite President, Donald J. Trump, presenting the day’s news.

Mr. Trump will be both the Anchor and Managing Editor of the program that, like its closest model время (Vreyma), will run at varying lengths as determined by Mr. Trump in his personal assessment of the most important news of his administration.

Appearing as the most trusted man in America and the most successful media personality ever in his own right, Donald Trump delivering the news personally, and with his customary authenticity and empathy, is following in the footsteps of other iconic politicians whose distinctive voices penetrated deeply into the homes and lives of Americans at other times in our history. In eras past, the Little Flower and King Franklin informed, entertained, and delighted Americans with their radio programs providing humor, comfort, and reassurance during previous dark days in our history.

The Evening News with Donald J. Trump will MAGAnify the news of the day in a carefully curated program to explain and educate Americans about the important accomplishments of this administration. Even before its debut, it is already acclaimed as a WHOPping success and model for successive administrations.

There will be days when Mr. Trump will simultaneously appear as the nation’s cheerleader, advocate, blame assessor, and even the consoler-in-chief. When necessary, he will FIRE on-camera those who have failed their assignments (real or perceived) in his administration. When there is a gap in real news but still plenty of room for fake news, alternative facts, and speculation, audiences can count on the ENDJT to fill any silence with entertaining asides, especially whenever he goes off TelePrompTer, offering insights and opinions which are second to none.

Few personalities are more suited to presenting the complex News of The Day, much less giving commentary and perspective.

Few men have the clout of Mr. Trump, whose personal love for and friendship with world leaders, including Kim Jong Un, Bibi Netanyahu, Viktor Orbán, and ‘Uncle Vlad’ Putin, all of whom have repeatedly expressed such admiration for this American President. It’s expected that world leaders will clamor to take President Trump’s perfect phone calls live, responding jovially, and following his extemporaneous instructions for their domestic policies.

Domestically, the men and women of the Republican Party, from cabinet secretaries to congressmen (no longer woke-gender-corrected to include congresswomen) and even governors, who demonstrate over-the-top fealty to their President, will appear nightly to obsequiously offer eerie prayer and praise.

Nightly features on the faults and foibles of previous Democratic administrations, including Barack Hussein, Crooked Hillary, and Sleepy Joe, among so many others in state and local governments, will be highlighted.

Weather reports will be presented with Sharpie pens. Governor of Canada, and its former prime minister, Justin Trudeau, will report on lake-effect snowstorms and the Arctic Express.

Traffic will be reported by an avatar looking suspiciously like a Pete Buttigieg piñata.

Business news will feature real estate, hotel, and hospitality items.

Segments on cryptocurrency will feature reports from the President’s son, Barron.

A nightly special segment for hunting enthusiasts will tabulate the number of immigrant ICE roundups and deportations, presented using 3D colored graphics for both nationality and racial identification, and enabling audiences to see accomplishments of the administration’s #1 priority.

Also – in the wide world of sports and especially on multiple weekends each month, golf will delight duffers watching the President report from his links. Special offer coupons to selected courses owned by the Trump organization will be auctioned live to raise money for green maintenance.

Dr. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (who has received a medical doctorate from Trump University and was awarded by Presidential Order) will take viewer call-ins on vaccines as well as a wide range of medical topics several nights each week. His segment will be sponsored by major pharmaceutical companies.

Style, beauty, and entertainment, as determined solely by Mr. Trump on the attractiveness of featured individuals (as compared to himself) and the measure of their anatomies, will delight and rivet audiences with their comparisons.

Social media posts will include specially created segments using the subscription model of OnlyFans.

The Evening News with Donald J. Trump may be expected to debut soon on selected broadcast and streaming platforms.

Quick! Multiple Choice Quiz

CNN management told their top journalists not to editorialize or ‘express outrage’ during the inauguration coverage.

What’s MOST wrong with this?

  1. CNN management had so little faith in the reporting skills of their journalists to be impartial observers and reporters that they needed to be muzzled by the bosses?
  2. CNN’s stable of journalists is so unprofessional and unskilled expecting to wax poetic and share their opinions under the guise of news coverage, and they didn’t know that’s not their responsibility?
  3. CNN ‘leaked’ their instructions from a presumably, professional and private meeting to curry favor with the new administration watchdogs, eager to pounce on any misstep or misdeed by a bona fide news organization?

From the NYPost story, “During the meeting, Thompson “made it clear that he did not want the coverage to relitigate the past,” according to Status reporter Oliver Darcy — an allusion to CNN’s historically hostile relationship with Trump.” (Italics mine)

What’s wrong with a historically hostile relationship between politics and the press? Did mean reporters hurt the feelings of the Trump 45? Did those nasties in the press room cause him a boo-boo for challenging his words and deeds?

And continuing from the Post, “Instead, he urged CNN staffers to focus on Trump’s second term and to be “open-minded” about the next four years.” Is that code for playing lovey-dovey or footsie from a corporate viewpoint?

It seems to me that a new cautiousness, perhaps a fear or threat of reprisal, and a growing timidity is setting the course for the next 4 years.

If the public prefers unchecked, unvarnished, unfiltered propaganda over the truth… that’s a dark choice.

Sun Zhu was right…

The following post is making the rounds…

“Help make history, Boycott Inauguration Day, by turning your TV off at 12 o’clock ET on January 20. Make this inauguration the least-watched live event in the history of television. What an incredible message to the new administration. And for someone who loves to talk about crowd size, this is not going to make him very happy. It will put him on notice That we, the people, also have power! What a wonderful way to make Martin Luther King proud with an old-school approach to change. So tell your friends and tell your friends to tell their friends. Don’t presume people are not going to watch let’s make sure everyone doesn’t. Turn the TV to PBS so all the civil rights documentaries will get the ratings.”

My response is, what absolute poppycock.

In the days of Neilsen ratings, when that was all that was available, measuring a TV audience was the prime way to gauge a media event. That was then. It’s not today.

This week’s Trump inauguration will be available to a global audience on television, cable, audio, social media, and countless internet streams. It is potentially going to be the most watched inauguration simply in terms of its distribution and availability.
The TV numbers will be a pittance.

So – you don’t want to watch? Good on you.

Good luck to you.

And PBS should be so lucky to see a surge in their ratings.

Does anyone think that the sycophants who surround this president would ever be so bold as to tell that narcissist about a campaign to boycott his remarks?

Take it a second step, if told, would he care? How would we know?

On a larger plane, I find it risible to think the next 4 years will be better tolerated by being an ostrich. For anyone who disagreed with the President-elect or voted for his opposition, I might offer, “Get over it.”

Mr. Trump won, perhaps not with the mandate he has claimed, but with sufficient numbers in the popular vote and with a Congress prepped to do his bidding.

Is the answer not to watch, listen, or react to them too? For 4 years?

As for the line, “What a wonderful way to make Martin Luther King proud with an old-school approach to change” the perpetrator of this campaign forgets that Dr. King was all about publicity for the cause of racial justice. And more, he was a fighter… lest you forget the arrests, injuries, and deaths suffered by those who chose to stand by him. “Old-school approach…” seems like looking at history through a colored lens that has been distorted by memories of a gentler day.

These days are not gentle, dear reader.

If one disagrees with policies or positions, it’s far braver to speak up than to remain mute. If you think the country is on the wrong path, then speak up and be heard.
Sun Zhu tells us the path to victory begins with ourselves.“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Vigilantism Against the Media… Maybe the media should correct the narrative?

The recent attack on a news reporter in Colorado by a man screaming epithets at him for not appearing to be a white, Anglo-Saxon American really should not surprise anyone.

What’s perhaps more surprising is how these racial or ethnic attacks have been perpetuated (and tolerated?) in this burgeoning era of “I hate anyone who doesn’t agree with or look like me.” When did Trump’s America become a battlecry for racial hate?

What prompts anyone to think they are doing a civilized act by randomly chasing another human being and beating them for their looks or a presumption of their inherent evil? Who gets to decide this? What sort of person animal has that chutzpah?

We can wring our hands over recent political diatribes glorifying vigilantism. We can decry bravado which promotes the superiority of some and the inferiority of others whom we dislike (or fear), but when did vigilantism become acceptable?

The media is the fall guy for a host of problems, real and manufactured. The media is allowing itself to be pilloried. The adults (owners, publishers, editors, statesmen) in the media must speak up as influencers, critically and urgently to set the record straight about the generally outstanding job being performed every day.

Audiences must not be allowed to randomly assume or equate cable talk-TV with responsible reporting; audiences must be corrected when they make assumptions or fall for a diet of propaganda; knowledge stems from bonafide news (sourced, double-checked, and most important of all: presented without emotion or adverbs). Noise is not to be confused with “news.”

At least that is what I believe and taught my students.

A media double standard or is ISIS a name too juicy to omit?

Once upon a time not so long ago, crime victims and their perpetrators were routinely headlined and included in the narrative of news stories.

Then, in a more sensitive and enlightened decision, many in the media decided not to name victims of sexual assault, or molestation, among other crimes to protect what might remain of their privacy. The same rule of not naming juveniles remains a standard.

So why is the perpetrator of the horrific crime in New Orleans being bantered about with his association with ISIS?

Isn’t that connection and publicity precisely what he was seeking? Isn’t that why he chose to attack a public place instead of harming his own family?

If the decision is not to name individuals to deprive them of their notoriety, an argument could be made to repeatedly or redundantly decline to trumpet ISIS in conjunction with the horrific events in New Orleans.

His association (no name needed as we all know the subject of this story can be found in a web search) is a legitimate fact worthy of being included for the record. Once, maybe twice. But I get a feeling of almost glee in the intonation of some anchors who nod soberly as they do more for propaganda than any soldiers of ISIS might ever hope for.

Just a thought… Moderation can be a good thing, and editorial judgment can be too.

A Stark Reminder that all Social Media is NOT Journalism

A strain of social media appears to be legitimizing the NY insurance CEO’s assassin as a hero; he’s a Don Quixote character striking a revenge-blow against the establishment of big insurance.

But… free speech is great, of course, but do we now turn or subscribe to social media to affirm – as judge and jury – what price should be paid for a company’s conduct?

Is this legitimate media? Is this even civilized discourse?
Is assassination in the street a new form of justice that should be considered, much less praised?

Social media has a value, but some of these posts more closely resemble the revenge-seeking, blood-thirsty crowd at the Roman coliseum signaling their cavalier preference for some one else’s life with a thumbs down.

When is enough babbling enough? I don’t see this as a blow to the insurance titans that will in some way compel them to review their policies to be more human. Is a slaughter in the streets in any way a more human approach to life…

This company might be horrible.. their leadership culture avaricious… but can you legitimately ascribe a multitude of business decisions to just one man?

I’d remind these new media writers who seek to be opinion leaders to also consider that he was a husband, a father… he didn’t deserve to die like a dog in the gutter.
How can any one accept this as legitimate media and not just decry it as malicious and unworthy gossip? At what point… do we decide that garnering clicks for saying outrageous things are just wrong?

Causing Trauma on Live TV; NBC Makes a Child Cry

A New Low on Live TV

It’s not permissible for any adult to make a child cry — anywhere, and especially not by a professional team of journalists on live, network television and stay on the shot, continuing the interview even as the guest breaks down.

Shame on the TODAY show. Shame on the hosts, the field producers, and the control room because they should have known better.

NBC’s TODAY Show interviewed a survivor of yesterday’s shooting at a Florida high school beginning by asking the condition of her best friend who was shot next to her.
The young woman, just a junior of perhaps 15 or 16 years, softly answered, “she didn’t make it.”

As any one would, her lips quivered. Her eyes watered. She wiped her face with the sleeve of he sweatshirt.

Yet NBC chose to stay on a single picture of her for an interminable several seconds before going to double boxes showing the hosts in Korea along side the student as she broke down and tried to regain composure.

Rather than simply end the interview, NBC chose to continue. It felt more exploitative than journalistic inquiry.

Rather than say, “we’ll be back in a moment” with the decency to allow her to recover her composure, NBC stayed on their shot to continue the interview. Whether the young girl wanted to stay or go, as a child she was given no choice, the adults offered her no option.

Would it have been reasonable for her to know she had a choice?
Would it be defensible for the network to say, “well, she could have asked to end it?”

To her credit, the young woman did recover but had to do so before millions of the audience.
To her credit, the young woman was an eye witness who had valuable insight to share. And she did.

It’s just not to NBC’s credit that it risked causing her trauma and embarrassment in order to save their interview. They continued the interview while professing “their sorrow for her loss,” but the fact is, they continued.

An unanswered question? Why didn’t the producer in Florida tell the control room and anchors in New York NOT to ask about her friend, that “the friend had died.”

Or worse, did they know and chose to ask the question? Whenever I produced network live shots, and I was responsible for hundreds over 30+ years, I made it my responsibility to tell the program when/if there were ‘hot buttons’ to be aware of, mindful for, and how to handle lest we trespass over someone’s emotional line.

An unanswered question? Was there any consideration of changing the program as it played across other time zones? A thought that perhaps if this was a bit raw when aired live in the East, it ought to be edited or deleted or framed with a new introduction before it played in the Central, Mountain or Pacific time zones?
And for any who might say this is fair game, that “we need to see the faces of victims” and “understand the horror of a school shooting, in order to appreciate the damage.” Phooey.

There is never an excuse for professional journalists to add to a victim’s pain.

There is never a sufficient apology for “not knowing” what someone is about to say, especially on live TV.
There is a higher duty for all professional journalists to make their coverage as immersive as possible, but always within the boundaries of human decency.

Sadly it seems that NBC’s TODAY show plumbed new depths of what appears to be exploitative television.

 

The Missing Story: Maybe the fact is – if there is a nuclear attack, there may be nothing the public can do to save itself. Maybe that’s the story no one wants to really look at.

The most alarming picture Sunday from Hawaii experiencing an incoming ballistic missile wasn’t the highway billboards or chyron crawl over a sport program on local TV, but rather the panic in the streets. People were running for their lives, hiding in bathrooms or closets, and saying “good byes” to their families. Why or where were they running, or simply – in a nuclear attack – would it have mattered?

And why isn’t that the most prominent question for Day 2 of this story?

While the cause of Sunday’s false missile alarm in Hawaii needs to be investigated, even more shocking is the fact that no one seems to have known what to do, where to go, or how to react.

And that confusion and panic is frighteningly still unaddressed in news coverage.

It is knee-jerk to point fingers and decry the accident. And goodness knows there are been countless ‘national security consultants’ who have flooded the airwaves wringing their hands offering arm chair speculation about the accident safely from Washington, a distance of 4,826 miles from Honolulu. But their emotionally delivered insight hasn’t shed any light on the larger question… in this day and age of ever-larger nuclear buttons on desktops, what is left for the rest of us to actually do?

Many in the news business will recall the hackneyed phrase oft-spoken when there is a screw up on air, “Broadcasting will stop while we assess the damage and assign the blame.”
Today we are witnessing the mea culpa, the governor taking responsibility, the President assuring us “we’re going to get involved” in the inquiry, but really. So what?

The recent wildfires in California, the hurricanes in Puerto Rico and Houston and more remind us of the necessity of having an escape route from imminent danger along with packed bags of our most important papers. But in a nuclear attack… escape where? And will there be any one left to inspect our papers.

Anyone growing up in the 50’s and 60’s will remember Bert the Turtle and “Duck and Cover.” Many of us remember practicing in our classrooms hiding under desks while being shooed away from the windows. As if, now looking back on that, would it have mattered in the least? There was a day when the yellow and black nuclear fallout shelter signs adorned buildings on every block… today, I wouldn’t know where to even look for a shelter in my community.

Once again, a lot of media is focused on the ‘what happened,’ or the ‘how did it happen”? Both are important questions but fall short of the more important — so what do we do?

Absent the distraction of politics or personality in either Washington or Pyongyang, Sunday’s incident in Hawaii proves that we may have early warning detection systems… even notification protocols… but what is it the public is supposed to do to save itself?

And why isn’t that prominently included in today’s media coverage?

As an old assignment managing editor, I’m just asking…

Why does the public think media misbehavior is new? Or is the media to blame?

Lauren McGaughy has written a thoughtful story in the Dallas Morning News about how the media’s onslaught on a story can be as traumatizing as the tragedy they’re covering.

A town, even a neighborhood is transformed by a media scrum, and as a consequence the media often gets a black eye in the aftermath.

Sure stories like this are often true, or have an element of truth to them. More true now by electronic media than even 30 years ago when there were just 3 networks and a handful of local affiliates, contrasted now to 5 major English language networks (6 if you include the Associate Press’ TV service), 2 Spanish language domestic networks, and literally scores of stations reporting in multiple languages to a global audience.

Plus radio… plus wire services… plus newspapers.

It is easy to criticize all this. The din of the media is overwhelming. The press of the pack is as unrelenting as their deadlines.

Live shots, exclusives, TV bookers clicking along the sidewalks searching for and enticing victims and their families with free trips to New York to sit on the set of morning talk shows where anchors can profess their emotion and sorrow, sometimes even offered on behalf of “all of us” in TV land.

We do live in an era where the technology has altered the way stories are covered. What used to be a more measured, even methodical pace has been transformed into an unimaginable pressure cooker of competition for the infamous and unrelenting 24/7 news cycle.

The audience expects, partly because we in the media have created this expectation, that entire stories from crime to investigation to resolution can be completed in a day, or perhaps as quickly as a 48 minute episode of Law and Order.

But Ms. McGaughy, criticism of the media is not new. The earliest reference to press-misbehavior (that I can remember) stems from Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s The Front Page. But in this single graph it reminds us that we should keep check on our behavior with an eye to the larger picture of life.

“Bunch of crazy buttinskies with dandruff on their shoulders and holes in their
pants.
Peeking through keyholes, waking people up in the middle of the night to ask them
what they think about Aimee Semple McPherson.
Stealing pictures off old ladies of their daughters that get raped in Oak Park.
And for what?
So a million shop girls and motormen’s wives can get their jollies.
And the next day, somebody wraps the front page around a dead mackerel.”

The people of Sutherland Springs certainly did not ask for the spotlight on their community. They deserved to be treated fairly and professionally, their stories shared but their grief not exploited.

Ethics classes and discussions can prepare this intellectually, but some of that seems to be bent and challenged in real world applications. We’d like to see all this in Manichean terms but we live out lives in the nuance of grey, and can only do our best to do it well in every respect.