Are We "Mad As Hell" Forever?

Lots of media commentators and writers have been making predictions about the new year, and the new decade. While it can be fun to read them, history shows that most such predictions turn out to be wrong. This morning I read that Fortune magazine’s Top Ten Stock list for the last decade, published in 2000, was down 44%. Two of the companies on the list went bankrupt.

With most predictions being so far off, I have a lot of respect for those who seem to have insight into our direction--whether that direction is positive or negative. One such prediction was made by Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote the screenplay for the 1976 movie Network.

At the time it came out, Network was considered an outrageous satire of the TV business. Indeed, it is entertainingly over-the-top in places. But, sadly, a basic premise of the film has come true over the last ten years.

In the film, a TV network discovers the power of anger to entertain people and hold their attention. At one point Faye Dunaway, who plays the network’s chief programmer, screams at her staff that she wants “programs about anger.” At another point she takes control of the network’s news division.

I don’t know about you, but I often find it distressing that I can tune up and down the AM radio dial, or across several cable TV channels, and hear angry, irrational voices at any hour of the day or night. The reason these voices are on the air is that they attract listeners and viewers. We listen to them and watch them.

Maybe all this is harmless. I certainly hope so. But I keep getting the nagging thought that anger is being celebrated, rather than information being shared.

In 2010, I hope for a new birth of solution-finding, justice-serving and peace-making, in the media, our communities and our governments.

No News is Good News

For the last few months, I've read very little news. The only reason this means anything is that for the previous 35 years I was a voracious reader of at least one newspaper a day, and often two or three. Part of this goes back to my days as a journalism major in college, when newspaper reading was required. And another part of it goes back to my parents, who faithfully read the newspaper every single day.

Maybe it's just my perception, but it seems that most of what passes for daily news these days is incessant nattering about very narrow and short-lived subjects. There is so little truly insightful and, more important, original reporting and analysis--at least it seems that way to me.

What I'm relying on is online daily headlines from several newspapers, mostly to be reassured that there has not been a catastrophe somewhere. Much more valuable than this is the time I spend with a handful of thinkers who bring a wealth of intelligence and perspective to things--Hendrick Hertzberg in The New Yorker, Frank Rich in The New York Times and Lewis Lapham in Harper's (sadly, he writes there only occasionally these days). The only TV personality who seems to be thinking originally, non-pompously and with great perspective is Rachel Maddow. When I tune in most others all I can hear the are the axes grinding, and the personal promotional machines going ka-ching!

Now that I've said all that, be sure to read Frank Rich's column this week. He casts a shining light on the resentment we hear expressed in the guise of "commentary" or even "reporting" these days. Think people like Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Rich brings to bear the long-term shift in the demographics of America, and how so many really don't like what they're seeing.

Time for a Media Colonic

We are hearing gobs and gobs and gobs and gobs about how the Republican party might reconstitute itself and even come back to power. I'm somewhat interested in this, but can we PLEASE give it a rest for a while?

My theory is that many excellent reporters did their job well over the last eight years. And their job was to carefully develop sources in power and connected to power. In the last eight years, power was strongly centralized in the White House. This power was usually unaffected and unchanged by new facts, data or circumstances--wherever they came from. If the media reported information contradicting a White House statement or policy, it meant nothing. So reporters were rewarded for sticking to the company line.

The result was a dysfunctional dependency on dribblings from the White House and those connected to the White House, such as neoconservative commentators (who had an Oval Office IV) and very conservative think tanks. Over the last eight years, the more ravenously you ate the scraps, the more successful you were as a reporter.

These reporters are still showing up to be fed at the same places a week after the election, and they're hearing all kinds of stuff. But the scraps don't mean what they used to.

So it's time for the media to stop feeding and have a colonic. Then they need to start over, diligently and creatively reporting what's happening from a wide variety of sources never heard from before.

Please.

A New News Show Actually Worth Watching

It's been a long, long, long, long, long time since I have found a TV news show I can watch and enjoy regularly. Sure, I catch Jim Lehrer once in a while--especially if something serious is going on. I may also surf to one of the network newscasts from time to time. I like Jon Stewart, though he's on a bit late for me--and the reruns seem stale the next day.

I also really like NPR's All Things Considered, Marketplace and Weekend Edition. Morning Edition is too much for my fragile disposition first thing in the morning.

My TV staple for a long time has been a few minutes with CNN, which is a hit-or-miss proposition.

Over the last few weeks, I've been very pleased to find something new, refreshing, thoughtful, articulate, witty and non-bombastic--The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. She's kind of like Terry Gross after a triple espresso. In her interviews, she asks the questions that I always seem to be asking (with the possible exception of "why do so many people choose to be so stupid?")

She pays attention and is respectful to her interview subjects, and usually provides new information about much-covered news items. She has a very rational way of viewing events and their possible impact on us. I don't know how she does it, but, even though she's only 36, she has none of the copycat smarminess of so many of her peers. She may be the most mature program host on MSNBC.

Her program is a gift to my understanding of the world.

Thrills, Dread and High Ratings

What should pop up on Google News this morning but this headline from boston.com: "Obama Poised for Landslide?." This incites thrills in fervent Obama supporters and dread in fervent McCain supporters. Among everyone else, there is much more interest than usual.

Tuesday night's election coverage will have the biggest TV audience of any news programming this year. Indeed, since 9/11.

Three Words Heard Only in the Media

Which is More Valid: Information or Shouting?

Oh No, I'm Part of a Trend

Quote of the day:
“It's like some vast aerial city with people walking briskly to and fro on catwalks, carrying picnic baskets full of nutritious snacks.”
--Nicholson Baker, talking about Wikipedia

A funny thing has been happening to me the last few weeks. I have barely read the newspaper.

The daily paper has been an integral part of my life since college, where we were assigned The Washington Post as part of the journalism program. For many years Merrie and I subscribed to four newpapers--The Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Now we’re down to just two--the Southern California ones. Very few days have ever gone by when I haven’t read through at least one paper.

But a while back I began spending my morning newspaper time online, mostly reading from a variety of news sources. The best news sources online tend to be the newspaper sites--many of them are very good indeed.

Like you I’ve been reading for years about the decline of newspapers. The fall in daily circulation accelerated just over the last 12 months. Fewer than 30% of those under 30 read a daily paper.

I never, never imagined myself to be part of this decline. I guess I have always held on to the tradition and romance of print journalism.

I’m not sure I’m jettisoning this tradition just yet. We’ll see. But it sure is fun to travel among newspapers and other sources every morning--and maybe catch up on some other things too.

Video: Cogent Analysis of How the Media Covers Politics

Both Spitzer and Reason Have Left Us

Quote of the day:
“Torture, unlike paid sex, doesn't have legs as a news story.”
--Robert Scheer, referring to the Eliot Spitzer story, at thenation.com

Another week, another wacko feeding frenzy. Target: Eliot Spitzer.

Yes, what he did was tawdry, hypocritical and wrong. But why exactly has every sense of scale and proportion left the building?

It’s easy to blame the media, as Scheer does in his excellent piece quoted above. He’s right.

I’ve always defended the news industry, saying that media were just telling the story, and giving the public what it wants.

What it wants is defined very simply as what it always pays lots of attention to. Sex. Especially when it is combined with bringing the powerful down to our level.

Challenge of the day: click on this link to one of the BBC’s news sites. Spend five minutes looking at some news stories.

Question of the day: aren’t a few of these stories significantly more important than what Eliot Spitzer has done?

It Changed Everything

Quote of the day:
“In Mainz, Germany, on this day in 1455 began the mass printing of the Gutenberg Bible, the first manuscript in Europe to be printed by movable type. About 180 copies were produced, the Bible contained more than 1,280 pages, and on each page the text was laid out in two 42-line columns. Up until that time, manuscripts were usually copied by scribes, and a handwritten Bible could take one scribe more than a year to prepare. Sometimes woodblock printing was used, but it was also an expensive and time-consuming process. The movable type printing press featured individual blocks with a single character that could be rearranged endlessly. Passages of text would be covered in ink and used to make repeated impressions on paper. The printing press that Johann Gutenberg built was based on the design of presses for wine and paper. It's estimated that more books were produced in the 50 years after the movable type printing press was built than in the 1,000 years before it. Gutenberg's invention is credited with making the Renaissance possible: it allowed classical Greek and Latin texts to be distributed widely. It also made books affordable to lower classes.”
--The Writer’s Almanac

A strong candidate for biggest understatement of all time is that the printing press changed everything.

Until then, writing and reading was mostly for ceremonial recording, recollecting and passing along tradition. These tasks were done by learned clerics. Essentially, almost no one on earth could read beyond a few symbols.

Before Gutenberg, we lived in stratified oral cultures in which information, knowledge and tradition were passed along in groups through speeches, recitations and storytelling.

With the printing press came the gradual shift to an individualistic culture, as ordinary people learned to read and began to learn about the world through internal one-on-one communication with authors and writers.

Simultaneously with the settlement of Jamestown came the King James bible in 1611. As the immigrant population in America grew over the next 200+ years, this book was a fixture in almost every American home.

Its ubiquity made it a sort of early American equivalent to TV.

Speaking of which, the next tectonic communications/culture shift occurred in the 20th century with the advent of broadcast radio and TV. Broadcast radio initially resembled pre-Gutenberg oral culture, except that listening was done primarily individually and within families. Also, there was no interaction.

TV added passivity to individualism as we began to fixate on flickering images transmitted to our homes. Our eyes and ears became fully engaged, if not always our minds.

Then, of course, in the 1990s there’s the spread of the internet....

Best Informed, Worst Informed

Quote of the day:
“I intend to live forever. So far, so good.”
--Steven Wright

Here are a couple of thought-provoking excerpts from a recent column by the Washington Post’s Jim Hoagland.

“Access to the internet gives the generations living today the choice to be the best informed, or the worst informed, human beings in the history of the world--but we will never be able to claim that we were the least informed. Celebrity, slime and crude polemics pour from the electronic faucets as easily as high-minded exegeses.”

Referring to HBO’s “The Wire”:

“This magnificent dramatization of life in Baltimore’s violent ghettoes has systematically shown the failure of the city’s police, schools, unions and politicians to deal with a modern urban crisis.

“This final season focuses on a newsroom in turmoil and the broad failure of the city’s media to reflect the corruption of the institutions they are supposed to cover. The grim results of that inattention show how power unused by the media is just as destructive as its misuse.”

William F. Buckley

Quote of the day:
“When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.”
--Gracie Allen

Daily Observations returns after a brief interregnum. Now that William F. Buckley is gone, someone has to use the word. And it might as well be me.

I think his public TV show was on Thursday nights. Somehow, I got hooked. Usually I found myself disagreeing with what he was saying, but “Firing Line” was entertaining, informative and substantial.

It might be hard to imagine William F. Buckley as entertaining, but he was, in so many ways. He was loaded with idiosyncrasies, including the tendency to lean back in his chair at an angle that was mighty odd to see on TV. No interviewer before or since has been as unconcerned with how he looked on camera.

I remember many times being absorbed in his conversation and then suddenly realizing that he might at any moment fall out of his chair if he leaned just a little more.

He always used notes and had a pen in hand throughout the show. His eyebrows were fascinating to watch. And the sound of the carefully-measured, long words drawling out of his mouth always had me coming back for more.

Most important was the meticulous and intellectually rigorous way he handled every subject. Buckley was always well prepared. More important, he always understood current issues in the context of history.

It was extraordinarily refreshing. It’s too bad that this kind of conversation is completely missing on TV or radio. Instead, conservative radio and TV political conversation has become, at its best, character assassination. At its worst it’s some variation of “moronic and immoral liberals pddgghh ditto ditto ditto.”

Who's Got the News?

Quote of the day:
“Many people feel guilty about things they shouldn’t feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.”
--Sydney J. Harris

Who will be the ultimate news source?

Newspapers have filled this role since the beginning of the news business. While TV networks, NPR and news websites foster an image as “sources,” ultimately they rely primarily on newspapers for their ideas.

Newspapers remain the primary news gatherers, and mostly they do the job well and responsibly. Now, this news gathering is threatened as newspapers continually shrink.

The editor of the Los Angeles Times just resigned over a disagreement about cuts in the newsroom.

Rupert Murdoch is in the process of remaking the Wall Street Journal into a more “zippy” newspaper, with fewer in-depth stories.

We’ve heard dozens of examples of these kinds of changes over the last ten years. There are two specific problems with this. And they are not just internal, industry problems. They are problems with far-reaching impact on our culture.

One problem is the reduction of longer-term investigative coverage, and any other reporting that takes time, care and extra resources. How are we going to put what is happening in our world into perspective without some extended attention to events and trends?

If newspapers reduce in-depth reporting, does anyone take up the slack? I haven’t noticed any other media stepping up, and I’m not sure they could. Responsible long-term reporting takes resources, experience and top-notch writing and editing as well as gathering. These things don’t just appear. They are cultivated over time.

The other problem is the virtual elimination of certain kinds of coverage. An example is the closing of news bureaus around the world. There are dozens of population centers around the world--especially in China, India and Africa--which have no English-language news presence.

And many of the major centers--Paris, London, Beijing among them--don’t have nearly the variety of coverage they had several years ago. In a time of growing interdependence, this all seems illogical.

Yes, newspapers are a business. I understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. I’m not really interested in blaming them.

What I am concerned about is who is going to step in and fill this need? Or have we decided that this isn’t a need at all--that all we want are endlessly-repeating sensational headlines from Washington, Hollywood, the real estate industry and the small town where the latest personal tragedy has happened?

Two Democrats, Five Republicans

Quote of the day:
“Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.”
--Katharine Hepburn

Right now, no one is really in the lead for either the Republican or Democratic presidential nomination. It’s a tossup between Clinton and Obama, and among the Republicans the race is wide open--at this point the nominee could be any one of five candidates.

It’s been a long time since there was this much uncertainty and excitement about a national election. Isn’t it great?

We are already seeing the very sly use of sophisticated marketing operations. It’s clear they’re sly because the sources of quotes and “information” about candidates are virtually invisible.

I like to think that the only people who take these quotes and “information” seriously are those who already believe them anyway. But it’s not that simple.

There are ways to implant a suggestion or a phrase--true or not, fair or not--in the minds of reporters and commentators who don’t realize or admit that they’re being manipulated.

Due to the voracious appetite of news channels and talk shows for anything to talk about, these things begin to spread and be repeated--sometimes obviously, sometimes subtly over time. They become part of the fabric of a candidate’s story.

They cannot be reversed. No amount of clarity or logic matters.

We may not realize that we hear these things and then begin believing them. Yet these beliefs are what shape elections. Not truth, facts or argument.

Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Romney, Huckabee, McCain

Quote of the day:
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race."
--H.G. Wells

There are final actual results in the Presidential election campaign. It’s a fairly slow news time, so there is seemingly unending reporting, analysis, punditry and prognostication about it.

Is there anything about the candidates, campaigns, processes and polls we haven’t heard about? Is there any “expert” who hasn’t given his or her opinion?

We are ten months away from the election and already the candidates have had more exposure than most presidential candidates in our history.

I won’t repeat the oft-heard complaint “is there anything about them we don’t already know?” There actually is a lot about the individual candidates we don’t know.

This is an especially interesting election year, for a number of reasons. One is that California and New York will vote earlier, and it looks like our votes will count for something this year.

In coverage of the campaign, what we mostly hear are variations on narrow weekly themes. Right now the themes are:

1. Horse race. Huckabee and Obama leading coming out of the gate. Can Romney/McCain and Clinton/Edwards catch up before the first turn?

2. What tactics will each of them use to win the race?

3. Are voters more interested in change/inspiration, or experience/pragmatism?

This is not a week about issues, plans, policy or programs. The differences among candidates in each party is fairly small. So most of the issues reporting so far has focused on small differences in positions.

Is the primary campaign going to effectively end on February 5th, when 22 states vote? That would leave nine months of general campaigning.

For a four-year job. Yikes.

Is the Internet Democratizing Journalism?

Quote of the day:
“’It was 20 years ago today,’ the Beatles sang 40 years ago today.”
--Mark Steyn

Andrew Keen is causing quite a ruckus. He’s the guy who wrote “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture.”

Even though his book immediately annoys me because its title contains a colon, he has some interesting ideas.

The common wisdom these days is that the internet is transformative and salvational. The only discussion appears to be about how salvational it is, and how the transformation might play out.

One point that is chanted by those who parrot each other rather than actually asking questions and thinking for themselves is that the internet is democratizing the flow of opinions and culture.

Keen is quick to say that he is not a Luddite, but that he is concerned that the inferior work of legions of internet amateurs is displacing professional journalists and creative people.

He echoes the founders of our government when he talks about democracy on the internet:

“Pure democracy doesn’t work. It results in chaos and the development of new elites. And the problem with the internet is that the new elites are anonymous. So you have this rise of what I would call an anonymous oligarchy on the internet.”

He also points out research done at the Yahoo Research Center that shows that when a site is “reliably authored by people where everybody knows who they are... the quality of the content is significantly higher.”

It reminds me of the exasperating moment years ago when someone on a clergy e-mail list was criticizing something I had written, and he wouldn’t say who he was.

As Keen says, “why would we go online to be insulted? Why would we go online and listen to crazy people scream at each other and not even know who they are?”

Summary of Annoying Phrases

Quote of the day:
“’Hate the sin and not the sinner’ is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.”
--Mohandas Gandhi

Today we have a recap of bogglingly overused, misused and unbelievably annoying words and phrases.

I continue to hear these on a daily basis. Please spread the word, and do you part to improve life as we know it. Thanks.

“First and foremost.” (I suppose many people consider themselves orators, or perhaps poets. Please stop it.)

“Step foot.” (Hey gang, the correct phrase is “set foot.” It’s not possible to step your foot.)

“Going forward.” (As is “Going forward, we expect 2008 sales to increase by 20%.” I guess some people think that we might assume this meant going backward, unless they say “going forward.”)

“Space.” (As in “sleeping space,” “cooking space,” or “consumer software space.”)

“Absolutely.” (As a permanent substitute for “yes,” which evidently to some people doesn’t seem affirmative enough anymore.)

“Plummeting” and “plunging.” (As permanent substitutes for “going down.”)

“Soaring,” “spiking,” “skyrocketing.” (As permanent substitutes for “going up.”)

Linear and Circular Reading

Quote of the day:
“Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home.”
--Arcade Fire, from the song “Intervention.”

Yesterday’s post about the changing role of newspapers got me to thinking about the impact of seeking news online.

It’s been fashionable for a very long time to decry the decline of newspaper readership. The often-expressed concern is that this contributes to lower reading levels.

The more-often-expressed concern is that it exacerbates an already-low understanding of what is going on in our communities and the world.

But many folks are keeping up with the news, they’re just doing it in a different way. I’m not sure that overall news readership (or “consumption,” if you will) is lower than it was 20 years ago.

Having the internet available is a huge gift when I want news about something specific. A search will bring up several reliable sources. (How we know they’re reliable or not is another story--that’s why I depend on newspapers with excellent reputations to maintain.)

When I go to a newspaper site to browse, I scan the first page and click on something that interests me. From there I click on something else that interests me, and again and again. After four or five stops, I usually leave the site and go somewhere else.

I call it “directed” or “linear” reading. I find a subject or an idea that interests me and then move from that into something related and so forth. The journey is more or less in straight lines, to destinations.

Newspaper browsing is very different. I look over the headlines on each page, sometimes stopping to read more. When I get to the end of the paper--or my time is up, I stop.

It might be called “exploratory” or “circular” reading. This journey is more of a wandering, with the direction constantly shifting.

There is a certain serendipity to newspaper reading. I am constantly discovering things I didn’t know I’d be interested in. This is a good thing.

This does happen online. But it isn’t how the online experience is defined. The internet is used for searching and finding things, and then pursuing related things.

My suggestion to not lose the sense of serendipity is to sometimes deliberately wander when we’re online.

And then sing “Serendipity Do-Dah.”

Real News on the Internet

Quote of the day:
“By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.”
--Ian McEwan

Statistic of the day:
51 percent.
--the amount more stale popcorn participants ate when it was served in a large bucket rather than a medium one. The participants had just had lunch. From a study by Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab

Our local newspaper, “The San Diego Union-Tribune,” has been irritating various readers recently by cutting some features. Gone are things like tables of stock market statistics and a detailed chart of results in many less-popular local sports.

The routine of reading a newspaper is considered sacred ground by many readers. It is thus quite an affront when anything is summarily changed or, worse, discontinued.

The ongoing business reality of newspapers is pretty clear. The number of people who say they read a daily paper continues to decline, and is at its lowest level ever.

As a result, circulation is down and advertising revenue is down. Budgets must therefore be cut, and that involves shrinking the newspaper. Newspapers are thinner and smaller than ever.

Online, the story is different. Many newspapers are finding success on the internet, though the business model is quite different from the printed paper.

Three observations about online newspapers, in no particular order:

First, newspaper sites have become much, much more user-friendly and attractive over the last several years.

Second, the online news business is extremely competitive, and it is very difficult to make the kind of revenue that newspapers have come to expect.

Third, newspaper sites are the most reliable and trustworthy news sources on the internet.

This reliability and trustworthiness is a godsend in the online world. The number of pseudo-news sources on the internet is huge and grows hourly.

At the same time, our need and desire for substantial, authoritative, exhaustively-reported and well-written content also grows.

This is good news for the best newspapers, and for those of us who depend on them.