Category Archives: media news

Awaiting Trump 2.0

OK, I’ll have to be candid about the arrival of Donald Trump to the national political scene.

Your friendly blogger is going to seek to exercise some self-control when it comes to commenting on Trump as he assumes the presidency … yet again!

He no doubt is going to blather statements swathed in stupidity. He will display his ignorance of government time and again. He will insult his enemies, heap praise on his pals. My task as a blogger with a keen interest in politics and policy will be … to remain silent on most of that idiocy.

It sounds like a tall order. It has been easy for me to rant, rave and rail against the stupidity that flows from this guy’s pie hole. I have decided to follow a time-honored mantra: What the man does is more important than what he says.

I will just have to accept that he will say a lot of nonsensical things while sitting in the Oval Office. That’s just kinda par for this guy’s way of getting our attention.

When he acts on his idiocy, well, that’s another matter. His first day as a self-proclaimed “dictator” might give me ample grist on which to comment. I’ll be ready for that. Afterward? I intend to keep my powder dry for the things the numbskull in chief actually does.

Oh, it’s going to be a fun four years.

Facebook goes off the rails

What to do about Facebook, the once ever-popular social media platform that has been prostituted by its zillionaire owner, Mark Zuckerberg?

I guess it’s time to announce a couple of command decisions I have made about the medium.

I am no longer going to purchase anything from it. I did purchase a t-shirt once showing Nolan Ryan pummeling Robin Ventura in that notorious mound-charging incident that Ventura regretted immediately after running into Ryan’s fist.

Nor am I going to engage in anyone purporting to support a political cause.

Zuckerberg announced recently he is doing away with
“fact-checkers,” relying instead on some sort of community watchdog panel. Furthermore, Zuckerberg has sidled up to Donald Trump, joining his cult cabal of MAGAites. Sheesh!

I will use Facebook to distribute High Plains Blogger. I will do so with this post. Facebook does perform a valuable service for me by allowing me to send my blog entries to the 750 or so friends and (mostly) acquaintances I have acquired along the way. Some of them are kind enough to distribute these entries to their friend network.

I joined Facebook around 2009, so I am pretty familiar with how it works.

The truth is, Facebook does allow me to stay in touch with actual friends and family members. I value that part of it, but I find little else of it appealing in any meaningful way.

Remembering final big move

Thirty years ago this week, I piled most of my worldly possessions into a 1987 Honda Civic and set out for what would be the final stop on my fun-filled career in print journalism.

I had spent nearly 11 years pursuing my craft in Beaumont, Texas, but then an opportunity presented itself in a community far from the Gulf Coast … but still part of this vast state of ours.

I moved to Amarillo. People have asked me over the years when I moved to the Panhandle, and I have been able to tell them the precise date. I reported for work at the Amarillo Globe-News on Jan. 9, 1995. I departed Beaumont on Jan. 6; it took a while to drive from the swamp to the High Plains.

I made one overnight stop in Fort Worth to see some dear friends before trudging northwest along U.S. 287.

But I got to Amarillo. I would learn later of a quip I adopted and have used many times: It is so flat in the Panhandle that if you stand on your tiptoes, you can see the back of your own head. 

It helps, too, that the region is so barren that there’s little tall timber to block that view.

The point of this brief blog? It’s to highlight the flexibility and adaptability I didn’t realize I possessed when I decided to move from my native Oregon to Texas in 1984.

They used to run a tourism ad that called Texas a “whole other country.” How true it is. Beaumont not only is a lengthy mileage distance from the Panhandle, the Gulf Coast possesses a whole other culture. Whereas the Panhandle prides itself on its cowboy tradition, the Golden Triangle takes pride in its Cajun southern culture. Both places appeal to me greatly.

Life took another huge turn in March 2013 when my granddaughter came into this world. My bride and I set about preparing to move from the Panhandle to the Metroplex. It took a while, but we got here.

I guess I want simply to salute the journey my career enabled me to take. Kathy Anne and I saw much of this country and a good part of world on that trek. Texas gave us the opportunity to live a wonderful life.

We have been blessed beyond all measure. My journey continues.

Sharpton goes too far

I have remained silent about Al Sharpton for too long … therefore, recent disclosures about him compel me to speak out.

Sharpton, an MSNBC commentator, has been revealed to have received $500,000 for the National Action Network — an organization he leads — in advance of an interview he conducted with Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris just days before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

I’ll get to the point, which is that I do not accept the description of Sharpton as a “civil rights champion” or “activist.” He burst onto the national scene in the late 1980s when he led a crusade on behalf of a young Black woman who claimed to have been beaten and raped by several white New York City police officers.

The case eventually was tossed when authorities learned the woman made it up. The cops didn’t beat and rape her. Yet Sharpton continued to accuse the officers of this egregious conduct. The cops eventually sued Sharpton for defamation and slander … and won!

Has Sharpton ever apologized to the officers? Hell no! He’s gone on to pad his notoriety by forming the NAN and landing the gig on MSNBC.

Sharpton is a strong Democratic partisan. I am fine with that. I favor Democratic policies as well. However, his failure to disclose the payment to NAN from the Harris campaign only demonstrates the fraudulent nature of his standing as a “civil rights champion.”

He is a loudmouth who does not deserve the phony respect he has harvested over these many years.

I am going to catch hell for these remarks. I don’t mind. Just know that I stand on the principle that public figures must earn the public’s trust. Al Sharpton, in my view, fails to meet that standard.

 

Trump can declare a form of victory

Win or lose when they count the presidential election ballots on Tuesday, Donald J. Trump can declare an important victory in one of the side battles waged in this campaign.

I believe the Republican nominee has managed to bully major newspapers into forgoing a presidential endorsement in this most consequential election.

The Washington Post will be quiet on who it prefers to see elected. So will the New York Times. So will Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain. Major metropolitan daily news across the land have made the same decision.

Why is that? I believe that the GOP nominee’s insistence that the media are the “enemy of the people ” has managed to sink in. Publishers and senior editors have sought to explain themselves. No explanation is necessary.

They have been cowed into fearing how readers might react were they to recommend the election of Democrats Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. This election, though, cries out for some media leadership, particularly when we have a major-party presidential nominee who is so demonstrably unfit to serve in the office he seeks.

I take no joy in recognizing what I believe is a tactical victory for Trump. I’ll just have to swallow hard.

Coverage is maddening, confusing

The horse-race coverage of the 2024 campaign for the U.S. presidency carries many adjectives, none of which that come to mind are positive.

It is confusing, maddening, contradictory, chaotic.

I see headlines on the news services I read each day that tell me “Harris surges with new poll,” and then I see where “Trump is looking at a blowout win.” I am careful, of course, to check the source of these “news” items. Leftie organizations generally will tout Harris successes, while rightie outlets sing the praises of Trump’s efforts.

Even the mainstream outlets send confusing messages hither and yon, confusing the daylights out of folks like me.

All of this, I suppose, is to confirm that the contest is a dead heat. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump well might cross the finish line on Nov. 5 shoulder to shoulder.

Or … there’s a hidden vote out there that is waiting to awaken and put one of these candidates into the Oval Office. One theory believes that the hidden mass of voters comprises suburban women who want to protect their reproductive rights but who have been reluctant to tell pollsters of their desire. Another theory suggests another wave of Americans who aren’t yet ready to elect a woman as POTUS.

I’ll go with the former theory. That’s my hope … but you knew that.

Profiles in cowardice!

John F. Kennedy is doing somersaults in his grave at Arlington National Cemetery, given the news that has come out this week about the Washington Post.

The Post has declared that it will not issue an endorsement in this year’s presidential election. That’s right, the newspaper that once exposed the Watergate scandal to the world and which has prided itself on providing editorial page leadership on key issues and the people who make policy decisions has decided to sit this election out.

JFK, who wrote “Profiles in Courage” — and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his work — would be a profoundly unhappy man.

The Post has just become a poster child for a profile in cowardice.

The Post isn’t alone. The New York Times is turning its back on this formerly essential duty that print journalists used to cherish. And … I am sure that there are many others out there that have been cowed by the blathering of Donald Trump and other blowhards who have persuaded millions of gullible Americans that the free press is the “enemy of the people.”

It isn’t. A free press keeps its eye on those who make policy decisions for all Americans. It serves as a watchdog on the alert for corruption. It also helps provide leadership in recommending who it believes is best suited to seize the reins of power.

No one really believes editorial endorsements determine electoral outcomes these days … if they ever have. What they do is put newspapers’ thoughts on the record and they leaven the discourse.

This election in particular cries out for leadership and for leading newspaper editorials to forgo that responsibility is an act of cowardice.

Cruz goes 0 for four

US Sen. Ted Cruz cannot count on the support of four of Texas’s largest newspapers, as the Dallas Morning News this past weekend joined the three other media giants in backing US Rep. Coln Allred in the men’s fight for Cruz’s Senate seat.

I know what many of you might be thinking: Is this a big … deal, given newspapers’ dismal standing these days of media-hating?

I’ll hold onto the notion that it kind of is a big deal. But you have to read what the newspaper editorials are saying.

The DMN joined the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News in backing Allred over Cruz.

The Morning News noted: Cruz “could have supported the peaceful transfer of power in the 2020 presidential election,” it said. “He instead was the first senator to rise in objection to certifying the electoral vote and one of just six to do so. His actions were a catalyst for what became one of the worst days in our nation’s history.”

I might just toss this endorsement off as a home-town guy winning favor from his local newspaper. Except that Cruz now calls Houston home and the Chronicle went with his opponent.

I am acutely aware that newspaper editorial pages no longer possess the clout they once had. Readers are far less inclined to be influenced by high-falutin’ newspaper editors and publishers. I used to make endorsements as part of my job as an opinion journalist over the course of my print journalism career.

Moreover, I am far from high-falutin’. So, there’s that.

I did my homework when our endorsement season rolled around.  I considered myself to be reasonably well-informed on the candidates, their policies and whether they would be a good fit for the office they sought. My friends at the DMN know their way around the public policy pea patch.

Therefore, I am going to heed their words carefully.

Yes on ward politics!

This won’t surprise many readers of this blog, but there was a time when I wrote editorials for daily newspapers that I penned opinions with which I disagreed personally.

Hey, I was getting paid to speak for the newspaper and my voice wasn’t the only one to be heard. I had bosses and I answered to them!

You want an example? I once wrote editorials endorsing Amarillo’s at-large voting plan for its five-member city council. I disagreed with that notion, but I sucked it up and spoke for the Globe-News.

I left the paper in August 2012 and wrote on this blog that I actually endorse the idea of creating single-member districts for Amarillo’s five-member council.

Well, the city is putting a proposal on its ballot next month that expand the council by two seats, and the two seats will be elected at-large along with the rest of the council.

Amarillo’s population has grown past 200,000 residents. It is a diverse collection of residents, comprising a growing Latino base, an expanding Black base, more immigrants are moving in. Residents have a wide variety of interests, ethnicities, creeds and values.

Why not divide the council into, say, four ward seats, two at-large seats and the mayor? I’ve seen such a system work in other Texas cities. Beaumont, where I first lived in this state from 1984 to 1995, operates on a hybrid system. It works well.

Yes, a ward system can go too far. I visited Charleston, W. Va., this past summer and learned that the city of fewer than 50,000 residents is governed by a council comprising more than 20 members, all of whom represent wards. Talk about tiny constituencies!

Amarillo, though, remains wedded to a system that worked well when the community was much smaller and much more homogenous than it is today.

Truth be told, I still wonder how a city can govern when the entire governing body — including the mayor — answers to the same citywide constituency.

Feeling like a dinosaur

Some days come and go but while they’re around, I am feeling like the dinosaur I have become.

Today is one of those days. Nothing precisely triggered this ancient feeling. I survey the political landscape daily. Sometimes, in fact, for several hours on a given day.

I feel compelled to comment on issues of the day. Then I stop. What’s the point? I figure no one is going to care about the thoughts of a washed-up newspaper reporter and editor.

Then it occurs to me that younger versions of myself are still toiling away, studying the issues of the day and chronicling what they learn each day on various media platforms.

Then I don’t feel like a retread.

At a certain level, though, my nearly 37 years as a print journalist make me feel older than I am. I turn 75 in a couple of months, which is many more years than either my Mom and Dad were able to celebrate. Dad’s death at 59 in a boating accident shocked us to our core. Mom’s slow decline over many years to Alzheimer’s disease was impossible to stop, but no less tragic when she finally let go at age 61.

The career I pursue with gusto and vigor bears little resemblance today than what it looked like when I began. Then again, the career I started in the late 1970s already was undergoing massive change. My journalism forebears no doubt felt like prehistoric creatures when we young punks took over.

So, what goes around surely comes around.

You know what? I don’t feel so old right now as I did when I began this message.

Who knew?