Category Archives: media news

media news

Public radio, TV under attack

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Right-wingers’ vendetta against public radio and television would be laughable … if the consequences of this battle weren’t so frightening.

They want to defund National Public Radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service. Why? Because they contend erroneously that it’s all “fake,” that it’s biased against conservatives and that the right-wing cabal just won’t tolerate it any longer.

Good fu**ing grief!

In in the interest of full disclosure, I will say I have some experience working for both public media. I freelanced for Panhandle PBS and for High Plains Public Radio for a time after leaving print journalism in 2012. And I worked for a time for KETR-FM public radio in Commerce, Texas, for a while after my wife and I moved to the Metroplex.

I have seen their work up close and I can attest to the absolute professionalism I witnessed while working for them.

I long have held the view that bias rests in the hearts and minds of news consumers, not necessarily in those who deliver it.

I recall a conversation I had with an NPR news director once who explained to me the rules that the broadcast network places on those who deliver the news over the air. They must avoid terms, he said, that connote a point of view. One of those words, he explained, is “reform.”

When discussing legislation aimed at changing current public policy, NPR journalists were told to use the term “overhaul” policy, not “reform” it, as reformation means it would be an improvement.

My friend was quite adamant in telling me that public radio takes its responsibility to be fair, neutral and unbiased quite seriously.

What’s more, I have to point out that the founders protected a “free press” from government interference. They set those protections for the only industry functioning then  — and now — in the Constitution.

The right-wing cabal needs to get a grip and perhaps look inward to determine the source of the bias it seeks to eliminate.

local news, media news

Blog decision looms

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A possible decision might be looming for High Plains Blogger … that would be yours truly.

The decision involves whether I want to keep pursuing this daily goal of posting commentaries,. Yes, the daily goal. I have been writing blogs each day since The Flood, or so it seems. I have had good spells and slow spells.

I am deep in the midst of a slow spell. I have plenty of topics on which to comment. The response has been, well, rather sparse. As in very sparse. I’m in a slump.

I am unsure if my audience, such as it is, has grown weary of my rants. Maybe I’m not as sharp as I once claimed to be.

I believe I’ll know what to do soon after I post this particular item on Highs Plains Blogger. If the comments pour in from readers saying they want me to keep going, well, then I’ll respond accordingly.

If it remains quiet out there in Blog Land, I think that will tell me something, too. Maybe I can monkey around with the blog platform I use to get more response.

Just know that I truly enjoy sharing my world view with you. It’s my view only. I know it has its friends and its foes. Critics are welcome to offer their negative responses. I am a grownup and I can take it. I’ll be honest, I prefer to hear words of support.

I have sought to broaden the subject matter, to include more slice of life entries, rather than just relying on politics and policy.

I’ll know in due course what my decision will be. I’ll keep you posted on what I decide.

Meanwhile … have a great day.

media news

End of war … under dispute

It was 50 years ago this week when a war we thought might never end actually concluded.

The end of the shooting in Vietnam occurred on Aptil 30, 1975 when Bui Tin reportedly accepted the surrender of forces commanded by Durong Van Minh, also known as “Big Minh.” I guess the gentleman was much larger than your average Vietnamese man.

Why bring this up? Well, in November 1989, I had the high honor of meeting Bui Tin in a dingy Hanoi conference room. I was touring Vietnam with fellow journalists and we arranged for a meeting with Bui Tin and heard his first-hand account of what happened the day North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, captured the enemy government, renamed the city after “Uncle Ho” Chi Minh and began to rebuild the nation torn asunder by decades of war against the Japanese, the French and, finally, the Americans.

Bui Tin eventually fled Vietnam and lived in France for the rest of his life. He died there on Aug. 11, 2018.

He was an unpretentious man, as I recall. He spoke matter-of-factly — through an interpreter — of when he accepted Big Minh’s surrender. His version of events has been disputed by the Vietnamese government in the decades since the end of the war.

For me? I’ll go along with Bui Tin’s story. I recall at the time that he sounded credible and I don’t recall any of my colleagues questioning the veracity of the story he told us.

Many of us among the journalists who made that journey are Vietnam War veterans and for those of us who returned to Vietnam after serving there during war, the whole return was an event that changed many of our lives.

It damn sure changed mine!

The U.S. war effort had ended in January 1973. We brought our remaning troops home, left the embassy in Saigon under fire and began to rebuild our own nation’s life once American blood stopped flowing.

Vietnamese continued to suffer from what we left behind. It’s been quiet there since 1975 and Vietnam is now an ally … of sorts. Yes, even the bitterest of enemies can make it right between them.

media news, national news

How did ‘woke’ become an epithet?

I have many acquaintances, many of whom have hooked up with me via social media … and I have a precious few actual friends.

Some of the actual friendships have carried over from my years as a journalist, when I cultivated sources who would later become my friends. The deepest friendships, though, go back to my childhood. I have some of those, too … people I’ve known since I was a boy.

One of them is my oldest friend. We go back to the seventh grade together. We became friends in our junior high school home-room class and we have remained close over the course of 63 years.

Lately, though, he has taken a dramatic turn from the man I once knew as a fairly progressive fellow. Indeed, our shared world view drew us closer as we would comiserate over the state of the political world. Those days of shared angst are gone, possibly forever.

My friend — who I still love dearly — has gone on an anti-woke binge. His criticism of progressives is steeped in his loathing of their “woke” view of the world.

I had to look up the word “woke” to understand what it means. I found this: The term has its roots as a Black adjective meant to describe racism, but has since been broadened to call attention to sexism and gay rights. Those on the political right have used the term in recent years as an epithet to criticize those who champion progressive causes.

Wikipedia says this: Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), originally meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination. It is synonymous with the General American English word awake.

Sadly, the term has become a four-letter word.

Woke isn’t a dirty word. It’s not a corrupt philosophy. All it suggests to me is a desire to do right by everyone. Yet the 2024 Republican presidential field before it culled itself down to one clown, the nominee, kept hammering against “woke” policies. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis became the lead vocalist in the GOP amen choir blasting those damn woke-minded politicians.

I don’t get any of it.

I dislike the term woke because it sounds kinda foreign to me. However, if you’re going to call me “woke” because I oppose discriminating against people because of their skin color, their sexual orientation or their immigrant status, well, then fine.

Call me “woke.” I stand tall and proud … and I will always love my friend.

media news

Obama: What if I did this?

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Barack Hussein Obama, speaking to a crowd of college students the other day, raised a fascinating subject out loud.

The 44th president of the United States wondered, “What if I did any of this?” He explained himself. “What if I had banned Fox News” from the White House briefing room? The outcry from the right, he said, would be vociferous.

He is correct. What’s more, the right would have been justified in expressing anger at a president banning a media organization from access it was giving to other such media outlets.

Then he went on. He noted how Donald Trump has banned some news outlets that have been critical of his policies from access to White House sources. “It’s not a partisan issue,” President Obama said. “It’s about who we are as a culture,” he added.

Indeed, the very people who would be angry as hell at a Democratic president doing such an outrageous thing have grown silent as their guy, Trump, seeks to silence The Associated Press, CNN and MSNBC as they seek to cover the events dictated by the current president.

Obama also noted that “a good many of my predecessors” would be aghast at what is transpiring these days within the White House now run by Trump, the MAGA morons who back him and Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth.

Trump has declared his desire to see MSNBC taken apart. By whom or what, he doesn’t say. The implication, though, is clear. He wants to sic the government on the left-leaning network. Trump, who is astonishingly ignorant of the Constitution, seemingly doesn’t know that the First Amendment declares that a “free press” must be kept free of any government interference.

President Obama was spot on in delivering his rhetorical question. He is right to question aloud where we are as a culture that allows people to accept as normal the machinations of a wildly out-of-control chief executive who exhibits every sign imaginable of wanting to run this country as a dictator.

media news

News boycott continues

Hey, boys and girls, I have an announcement to make, which is that my daytime news boycott is continuing with no sign of letting up.

I mentioned some weeks back that I was turning the TV off for the forseeable future for a number of reasons.

One is that I am sick of hearing Donald Trump’s name mentioned. Two, the news talking heads aren’t telling me anything I don’t already know about or expect to know about him. Three,  I am enjoying the quiet in my North Texas home, with just my puppy Sabol and me making noise.

Truthfully, I have no interest in turning on the Fox Propaganda Channel and listen to those talking heads make excuses for Trump’s behavior or Elon Musk’s bullying of federal employees.

As for CNN and MSBNC, channels I normally tune into to learn the latest and the greatest news of the world, well, those folks are boring me with their repetitious recitals of what I already know about how those folks feel about POTUS No. 47 and his hired gun.

I am able to learn the important news as it develops. For instance, I learned of former heavyweight champion George Foreman’s death online. I learned about the wildfires in the Texas Hill Country and the savage wind that blew in the Panhandle.

So, the news that matters to me the most is getting through. I just don’t have the noise of voices blathering the same ol’-same ol’ through my house.

I’m going to keep it quiet around here for a good while longer.

media news

House turns quiet

This is difficult for me to admit, but the lack of TV noise has served to settle my emotions and provide me needed peace.

I am thinking of keeping the TV off during the day and most of the evening … except to watch an occasional movie on one of the several streaming channels for which I already am paying.

I once was an avid TV watcher. I turned the damn thing on first thing in the morning and kept it on throughout the day. After a time, it got to where I hardly could hear the noise emanating from what Dad called the “boob tube.” Dad had a weird sense about TVs. He sold them for a living, made a lot of money peddling boob tubes to dealers throughout Oregon and much of Washington.

I guess I didn’t inherit his peculiar devotion to an appliance that has become something of a distraction.

We had one of the first TVs in Portland in the early 1950s. Then Mom and Dad acquired one of the first color TVs in the later 1950s. My sister and I would welcome our friends over to watch TV shows “in living color.” We marveled at it.

The climate today has changed dramatically from what I remember as a boy.

These days, I don’t miss the chatter. I don’t miss the background noise. I don’t miss the annoying commercials that seem to be never-ending. I don’t miss, in particular, those ads pushing all those prescription drugs — with names that sound like they’re from another planet — designed to cure everything from diabetes to erectile dysfunction.

I am enjoying the quiet time. Now comes a test to see how long the enjoyment lasts. I am hoping for a long hiatus.

media news

Spared the news of the day

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Times like today fill me with a mixed blessing of sadness and relief.

Sadness arrived about 9 a.m.  when I learned my sister died this morning of heart failure brought on by the acute COPD she suffered. I wasn’t surprised when the call came. It still saddens me beyond all I dare seek to measure.

The blessing? I have zero interest in what’s happening in the world. I have kept my TV quiet and dark all day as I have gone about my personal business here in Princeton.

I do not give a sh** what Elon Musk, the de facto POTJS, wants to slash from the government. Nor do I give a rat’s royal red ass what Donald Trump is bloviating about today. I don’t care about the Democratic response. I don’t give a sh** about the political consequences of all this mayhem.

I care instead about my brother-in-law and the loss I know he is feeling. His best friend has left this good Earth. I am going to worry only about him and I will let the other crap just fester without me.

media news

Media war is a loser

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Presidents of the United States, almost to a man, have acknowledged publicly the value that an independent press brings to the world government.

Many of them have not always liked the coverage they get from the media — be it broadcast, cable, print, radio or Internet — but they accept it as part of governance. The media keep the pols on their toes.

In the age of Donald Trump, though, the media have become the “enemy of the people.” They become targets of the president, of the Department of Justice, of politicians at every level. Trump now seeks to ban The Associated Press from White House press briefings because the AP refuses to describe the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Trump also has banned from the White House all media outlets that report issues with a critical eye. He wants to shutter networks such as MSNBC and CNN. He wants the public to receive only coverage he deems favorable to his policies.

This is one of the more frightening aspects of Trump’s return to the pinnacle of power. He is unhinged, unfettered, unbound and unambiguous about his disdain for the media.

The nation’s founders sought to provide press protection among the civil liberties they wrote into the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment guarantees that the government “shall make no law” that impinges on a free and untethered press.

Donald Trump, the ignoramus in chief, needs to understand that a truly conservative government respects what it has identified as the founders’ “original intent.”

And the president should take his lumps just like his predecessors have done. That’s how democracy works.

media news

Trump’s ‘ratings’ are tanking

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Donald J. Trump, when campaigning for the presidency, often has referred to “ratings” in assessing the success he is having with the public.

You’ve heard him boast about the “ratings” he allegedly scored at campaign rallies, or TV appearances, or whatever he did while campaigning.

Well, it appears — if reports are accurate — that the ratings game is petering out for Trump. Some recent polling suggests his approval/disapproval rating is the worst of any POTUS at this stage of his term. It’s good to keep that in a bit of perspective. He wasn’t exactly a newbie when he took office in January. He did an earlier term in which he got impeached twice and got indicted on multiple felonies.

Americans knew what they were getting when they elected this dumbass a second time in November.

Since taking office a little over a month ago, Trump has managed to:

  • Seek to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
  • Discussed openly purchasing Greenland from Denmark.
  • Talked about Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state.
  • Pledged to seize back the Panama Canal.
  • Discussed taking possession of the Gaza Strip and turning it into a Middle East Riviera.
  • Appointed a cast of clowns and crackpots to his Cabinet.

Americans simply cannot believe the nonsense that flows from this individual’s overfed pie hole.

But it does. And polling suggests Americans have had their fill … already. Oh, the fun is just beginning.