Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Political feud sinks to a new low

Politicians in Washington are now arguing about when the President of the United States can address Congress.

Unbelievable.

Not only does the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, continue to disrespect Barack Obama the man, he is now disrespecting the office, and one could even argue he's trashing the country with his latest obstructionist behavior.

Democrats hated George W. Bush, but they didn't try to tear down the entire executive branch. For the good of the country, certain traditions were respected despite major political differences, even while Bush was attacking countries that didn't attack us and neglecting an economy that was in a free fall. For some reason, Republicans haven't been able to show that same respect for this president. Wonder why?

Despite the garbage spun by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Tea Party lunatics, Obama isn't a particularly radical president as far as presidents go. He's actually fairly moderate -- much more so than liberals wanted. In some ways, he's more Republican than Ronald Reagan was. So why the hate from the right? Hate that has made Republicans so insanely petty that one has to wonder what's in the filtered water at their country clubs.

The president wanted to give an address about jobs on Sept. 7 -- something we've been waiting three years to hear. However, Republicans didn't want their candidates' debate (scheduled for the same night) to be overshadowed by something as "trivial" as a major jobs address from the leader of the free world. The debate is one of many and will be filled with nothing but idiotic rhetoric from a field of candidates so weak that they make most fair-minded, thinking human beings cringe just to hear the nonsense that flows from their mouths.

Sure, Obama's jobs speech is way overdue and could turn into a campaign moment, but that's the privilege we give to sitting presidents. We give them the benefit of the doubt in hopes that what they are proposing is a real solution to what ails us. Or at least that was the perk given to every president prior to this one.

Well, Obama relented and moved his speech to Sept. 8. Again, this is just stunning that a president has to back down from a handful of fringe nuts in Congress over something as routine as scheduling a talk to the nation about our No. 1 problem.

Given a choice between listening to Michelle Bachmann drone on about subjects she knows nothing about or listening to whatever glimmer of hope the president might offer to the unemployed, I will tune into the latter, probably like most Americans. The Republicans knew that and successfully blocked it in an unprecedented and disrespectful manner, similar to the debt ceiling fiasco that they created and that led to our credit rating being downgraded for the first time in our history.

Despite pleas from the public for politicians to work together, it seems the GOP refuses to listen and is picking fights over the silliest issues that are leading us into total paralysis and worse. These are fights that were never fights before. Fights that only bring me to one conclusion about these renegade, unpatriotic Republicans. Destroying a black president is more important than saving a country. That's not playing the race card, it's just calling a duck a duck.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Damage done by Irene coverage

Media hype was at a fever pitch last week. It would be easy to blame an uncooperative Hurricane Irene or the forecasters who misread the storm, but once again the fault lies within the newsrooms and corporate offices of America, particularly on the East Coast -- the center of the universe for big media.

While the storm certainly created some nasty weather and flooding, it didn't warrant the closing down of New York City more than 24 hours ahead of the first drop of rain. Imagine the damage that did to the local economy.

By the time the storm reached Washington, it was barely a Category 1. Damage where I live, about 20 miles west of D.C. and over 100 miles away from the Atlantic Ocean, was practically non-existent. Didn't even need to reset a single blinking clock in my house. I know others are suffering without power, but with the way the media was warning us, you would have thought the entire electrical grid was going to collapse.

While I can forgive forecasters for erring on the side of caution, I am not so understanding of media outlets that produced around-the-clock coverage of a storm that was clearly, even to a layman's eyes, no Katrina in strength or in the angle of approach. It lost steam as it traveled up the coast, partially over land that zapped its energy long before it hit NYC.

Politicians were falling all over each other to appear like they were the most-concerned public officials, offering tough-love warnings into any TV camera they could find. But in this case, was all that tough love genuine, or were they using the storm to gain much-needed points in this increasingly combative political environment?

I was particularly bothered by the panic in New York. When I was growing up in and around the Big Apple, New Yorkers prided themselves on being tough and not reacting to every storm like it was the end of the world. Yes, unlike people in Washington, we went to school or work when it snowed. We knew how to drive in the rain and didn't freak out whenever storm clouds gathered. We didn't cancel Woodstock because it rained for three days. We laughed at the rest of the country that seemed soft.

But this is a different time, even for New Yorkers. This is an era of media hype that is driven by news organizations' struggle to survive. This is an era where politicians are desperate for more favorable poll numbers and where lawyers are lined up to sue any state or municipality that appears negligent in preparing citizens for an attack by Mother Nature.

I have written about media hype several times in this blog. I believe the lack of seasoned journalists in newsrooms is contributing to the loss of perspective in how the news of the day is played. Ultimately, this will hurt readership or viewership, but the empty suits don't see it that way right now. They pretend to be long-range thinkers, but their vision is often clouded by falling profits. The corporate types that run big media are not making news decisions based on anything other than money. Many of them have never worked in a newsroom in their lives. They often come from the business side or advertising ranks of TV or print journalism. That was all fine and well when newspapers and evening news broadcasts had big profit margins and the suits didn't interfere in editorial operations.

Then came the recession.

When I was a young reporter and editor, I always had to make a strong case to get a story on the front page. Inevitably, there was a veteran news and/or managing editor who acted as gatekeepers. Truly big stories with proper attribution, facts and significance to the general public went out front, lesser stories went inside. It was the editor's call, not mine, not the circulation director's or even the publisher's. Period. Regardless of my whining, it was their choice where my story was played, and I respected that and learned a great deal about news judgment from their decision-making process. We didn't ignore less important stories. We just didn't waste a lot of time or prominent newsprint on them.

We didn't panic the public just to sell newspapers, and we certainly didn't buy into what politicians or so-called "experts" were telling us if it couldn't be backed up with relevant facts that checked out. But the gatekeepers are mostly gone now -- retired, laid off or dead -- and the rules of the game have changed. Now it's all about quantity versus quality. More news delivered faster trumps a objectivity and accuracy in the minds of the business leaders running news organizations.

The age of tabloid journalism and 24-hour news channels changed the profession even before the recession hit. Everything became "breaking news" even if it wasn't fresh or particularly significant. Now, with the web, it's all about speed and flash, which is why typos are so abundant online.

A Category 1 hurricane isn't anything to take lightly, particularly if you are in the path of it, but it isn't worthy of the coverage Irene received. Ditto on the East Coast earthquake last week. If the media continues to hype these kinds of stories, one has to wonder what news coverage will look like if we experience a real catastrophe.

As the media chases the low-hanging fruit and eye candy (I can't look at another TV reporter standing in the rain with a microphone or a toppled gas station canopy), more significant stories and investigative pieces are being overlooked. Budget cutbacks and layoffs have gutted newsrooms and practically done away with watchdog journalism. The checks and balances that existed in most newsrooms are pretty much gone. The game is now to bombard viewers and readers with trivial information, air the same video footage over and over, and dial up a fancy Flash graphic or two in order to drive web traffic.

This is what for-profit journalism has become during bad economic times. This is, in part, the reason we got the non-stop garbage coverage of a relatively weak hurricane. It wasn't just that the media hyped the coverage, it also gave us nonsensical tips about how to pass the time if the power goes out in our homes or what to do if a tree falls on our cars. It was just ridiculous fluff. But it probably kept people tuned in.

As reporters stand outside in the middle of a storm preaching to us how dangerous it would be not to listen to their warnings (does something seem odd about that that you?) they are not digging through documents in city hall or chasing down tips about corruption in government. While they show close-ups of some fallen bricks after a minor earthquake, they neglect to do the type of journalism that can improve society.

I came out of the post-Watergate era, when people went into journalism in order to make a positive difference, expose injustice and inform the public in a manner that wasn't influenced by dollars. Heck, just talking to someone from our own advertising department was taboo back in the day. The newsroom was separate from all revenue departments for a reason.

I wasn't interested in sensationalizing rain. I was more driven to expose the truth about corruption on the board of education. I wanted to shine a light on problems like homelessness and animal abuse. I sought out the underdogs in society and tried to bring their stories to the front page. I tried to entertain people with columns, features and sports stories. For me, it wasn't about what the executive offices wanted. It was about what I thought our readership wanted or needed to know. If I and everyone else in the newsroom did our jobs, circulation would increase. But that wasn't our primary goal or only focus.

So what I am seeing now in the mainstream media sickens me because I know that without the mass media fighting the good fight, it will be much easier for crooks to hide and for an already apathetic public to stick its head into the sand even deeper. The media resources spent on the quake and Irene last week did not serve journalism or the public very well. Perhaps TV ratings and news website traffic spiked, but what was really accomplished other than creating hysteria at the grocery stores and panic from ailing seniors in New York being transferred from hospitals in preparation for storm surge that never came. In fact, as the media continues to cry wolf in order to boost profits, I wonder if the public will become dangerously skeptical about future storms with much more merit than Irene.