Category Archives: media news

media news

Not a normal Sunday for me

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On a normal Sunday evening in North Texas, I would be settling down for an hour of news analysis from “60 Minutes,” the heralded CBS News program that until this past week was a staple in my home for as long as I can remember.

No more, man. Not since the MAGA morons who run the network fired “60 Minutes” reporter Scott Pelley for telling the truth about what could be happening in this great country because of the whims and machinations of Donald Trump.

I’m going to have to figure out another way to spend the next hour or so. “60 Minutes” used to educate me on the story behind the story. It offered clear and unambiguous information on why these things mattered to us.

I’ve been treating myself to watching Pelley explain his view of what went down when he got word he was being canned. Trump called Pelley a “stiff” and a “low-IQ journalist” who “doesn’t care for his country.” Pelley told the interviewer he could buy the stiff description or the term Trump used to challenge the journalist’s smarts. He challenged Trump’s view that Pelley doesn’t love his country.

Pelleu said he’s “never worn the uniform, but I’ve been in combat” while covering war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait. “I’ve had people shoot at me,” he said, adding that he isn’t aware that Trump could make that assertion for himself.

He said journalists “love their country,” and declared that “democracy cannot exist without journalism.”

I am proud of Scott Pelley and I hope with all I have within me that he stays in the game of reporting our nation’s on-going story.

media news

Simple life gets even simpler

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Some of you might recall that I blogged about my life becoming simpler, less complicated than before.

Well gang, I’ve discovered that a simple life can get even simpler. I don’t have much to say today about what’s going on in the world of hard news.

Yep. Simplicity is a good thing. At least it is for me.

I get to devote blog topics to, oh let’s see, about blogging. This particular avocation does require a certain devotion to the news. I follow it some, but not so much these days in newspapers, or in standard commercial broadcast media.

The foolishness at CBS News recently has driven me away from that network’s news team. Yes, I know it still has dedicated professional journalists who risk their lives each day reporting on warfare and street crime. The shitty termination of Stephan Colbert from late-night TV and Scott Pelley from “60 Minutes” is too much to swallow. Even for me.

So … the simple life beckons. I hear its siren call. I’m in all the way.

media news

Trump has ‘murdered’ ’60 Minutes’

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At this very moment I am thinking of some of the titans of American broadcast journalism, men and women who sought the truth and told it to us without fear of recrimination.

You know who they are: Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Leslie Stahl, Bob Simon, Harry Reasoner, Morley Safer, Diane Sawyer, Dan Rather and now … Scott Pelley.

They all worked for “60 Minutes,” the premier TV news show that exposed everything — good and bad — about the government for which we pay. Pelley, a West Texas native, recently spoke aloud about the dangers of censorship and government overreach being inflicted by the Donald J. Trump administration, which seeks to control the news that’s being reported.

Pelley has lost his job at “60 Minutes,” along with reporters Cecelia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. This is a dark time for American journalism.

Pelley’s ouster hits me in a vaguely visceral way. I don’t know him, but I am good friends with a fellow West Texan who attended Texas Tech University with Pelley. My friend is now retired from journalism and he has told me a story or two about Pelley’s journey into the spotlight.

The First Amendment is supposed to guarantee a free and unfettered press. Congress “shall make no law” that seeks to control the media, the amendment declares. Trump has engineered the takeover of CBS News by MAGA-friendly execs. They have executed the removal of journalists they deem as threats to the POTUS. We are witnessing a disgraceful flouting of the very rights the First Amendment guarantees to maintin our representative democracy.

I just might join that movement to boycott CBS News.

local news, media news

Trump’s mind is officially a goner

You might want to write this down if you’re inclined,  but just keep it in mind as you ponder the future of Donald J. Trump’s political career.

It’s now as clear as it gets that the 45th and 47th POTUS has lost what used to pass as what was left of his mind. Why? Because the dimwit in chief wants to unilaterally pull the broadcast license of ABC News because it has the temerity to broadcast “negative news” about his administration.

Holy … moly, man!

Scott Pelley, a West Texan known as the voice of “60 Minutes,” a CBS News program, spoke recently in quoting one of our nation’s founders, James Madison. The fourth president said in 1800, Pelley recalled, that a “free press guarantees the rights of all the civil liberties we enjoy.” That is why the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the existence of a “free press.”

No matter their political party — be they Democratic-Federalist, Whig, Republican, Democrat — every U.S. president has accepted the role of a free press in holding our government accountable to the people they serve.

That’s every president until this one.

No president likes all the coverage they get from the free press. No matter their party affiliation, they hve griped aloud that the media are unfair. One could argue, indeed, that the media went too far in covering President Clinton’s impeachment, or that it labeled President George W. Bush a dim bulb during his time in the White House. Did any of our presidents seek openly to revoke the license of a media outlet just becausse they don’t shade the news coverage to suit their shallow-skinned egos? Nope!

Trump is an idiot disguised as a martyr for the MAGA movement he created and is now leading toward history’s trash heap.

local news, media news

Honoring my favorite Mom

You have said it. Surely you have thought it. Maybe many of you are thinking of it today.

It goes like this: Where would we be without our mothers? The one answer is obvious, in that we wouldn’t be anywhere without them.

My bride and I brought two boys into his goofy world of ours. I cannot tell you where they would be without Kathy Anne there to guide them through life’s trials I can assert, though, that they wouldn’t be the two finest men in the world. My pride in them is real, it is visceral, it is — to whatever degree one should ascribe to it — my legacy.

But none of this is about me. It is about Kathy Anne.

I lost her to glioblastoma a little more than three years ago. Her fight against this aggressive brain cancer was brief, but it was savage. I lost her six weeks after getting the diagnosis of a mass on the right side of her brain.

We were married for more than ever 51 years. She was 71 when she took her final breath.

God put her on this Earth to be a Mom. She was a natural. Her mothering instincts were virtually perfect. She always could comfort them when they hurt. She knew how to tease them without damaging their emotions. She always couched her advice into phrases that reminded our sons to trust their own instincts … and that no matter their decision, they would have their parents’ backing.

Kathy Anne taught them to be respectful to adults. She imbued in them a sense of humility. She laughed and cried with them.

And the moment she and I learned we were going to be grandparents was one for the ages. She shrieked, giggled and cried all at once.

Mother’s Day is not the same without my bride. I am continuing to build on the life she and I started. One of the key results of that life-building has been that my family and I are closer than ever.

That is how she would want it.

local news, media news, political news

Voter turnout sinks into the crapper

Hey, fellow Princeton residents, we had an election this past weekend … although hardly anyone took part.

And when I say “hardly anyone,” I mean precisely that. Election Day came and went and the entire city didn’t give a crap. What an absolute disgrace!

Check out these stats: Princeton is home to 18,923 registered voters. Of that total, only 476 residents bothered to vote. That gives us a municipal turnout of 2.52%. Roll that around for a moment.

Two point five-two fu***** percent of registered voters cast ballots in the election to find a replacement for Place 4 City Councilman Ryan Gerfers, who resigned because of health concerns. Here’s some more grist for you to gnaw on: That total dismisses the eligible residents who are registered to vote, but they haven’t even bothered to register with election officials.

The city will conduct a runoff election to determine whether Planning & Zoning Commissioner Jan Goria or Home Rule Committee Chair Jaisen Rutledge — the top two finishers in the May 3 election will succeed Gerfers.

Princeton Mayor Eugene Escobar Jr. expressed disappointment in the turnout. “I want to improve how we engage with the community and increase participation in our elections so we can actually bring the changes you are wanting,” Escobar told the Princeton Herald. I agree that the city needs to do much better.

Here’s an idea for the mayor to consider. Conduct a series of town hall meetings around our growing city. Explain to residents the importance of casting ballots in municipal election. Do we really want to cede the decision to how much we pay for services we say we want to our neighbors? We are a city on the move. We are adding new residents almost daily. It falls on City Hall to reach out to our new neighbors to tell them about our city and the process we use to keep it functioning.

City Hall, meanwhile, needs to deploy social media messaging services to tell us about the election and explain why deciding these contests keeps us involved in the process of local governance.

A turnout of 2.52% cannot be allowed to stand!

local news, media news

Once towering presence has vanished

You know some things are inevitable, but when it happens, well … you’re still stunned.

I ventured to Amarillo this week to see some friends and take care of a little personal business. Then it hit me like a punch in the puss. The newspaper where I worked for 18-plus years no longer exists. The Amarillo Globe-News, whose owner once committed to serving the community for as long as he walked this Earth, has vanished. It now operates — kinda/sorta — out of Lubbock.

My first reaction? Wow, man!

The newspaper once was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service in 1961 for exposing public corruption in government. The public service award is the highest honor given to print journalists. Well, gang, the newspaper didn’t maintain that level of admiration. It was a solid paper when I joined it in January 1995 and we did good work there. Then the shit hit the fan. The Internet took over. The group to which the G-N belonged began bleeding money. Advertisers pulled out. Circulation plummeted. Staff members were sent packing.

The newspaper group that bought the paper in 1972 surrendered to the inexorable tide of change and sold the entire group for next to nothing.

Now it’s gone.

I lament the demise of a once-grand institution. No, it’s worse than that. I feel at times — like right now — like crying.

local news, media news

Who gets the next insult?

Do you remember a time when you cast your eyes on the president of the United States? You felt good about whom you were seeing … is that right?

I want that feeling to return to me. Honest. I do!

I also remember expecting the president to be better than the people he leads. These days? We’re getting much worse. It comes in the form of an insult to the person asking the question. He or she is not a messenger for the “worst people” of the media world.

These are just a few of the qualities I want in the next POTUS.

I used to believe we produced the best among us at election time. I have been profoundly disappointed and saddened by the results of two of the past three election cycles. In 2016, we elected a guy through a fluke in our system that enables a candidate to win with fewer votes than his opponent. We fired that candidate in 2020 … only to bring him back four years later after swallowing a gut full of lies and promises he made.

And it has gotten worse the second time.

Don’t label me a “snowflake.” I have seen my share of scoundrels over many years covering these events.

The current POTUS, I have to concede, is the worst among them.

media news

No more bitching about Trump’s behavior

Once, a long time ago, when my sons were teenagers, I pledged to them I wouldn’t offer them unsolicited advice. I made the declaration for two reasons.

One was that I was tired of repeating myself, as I would tell them the same thing over and over; it did no good. Second, I said that if they wanted advice they would have to ask for it and if I gave it I wanted them to take my advice seriously and act on it.

I have more or less found myself in the same position these days with the president of the United States. I am on the verge of declaring I am finished complaining about his boorish behavior. Two reasons stand out.

One is that he is unlikely to read the comments of a chump blogger in North Texas who has been saying for more than a decade that Donald Trump is unfit to be POTUS. He is unfit morally, temperamentally, and experience-wise. What’s the point? Second, even if he were to read my blog posts, he is highly unlikely to act on anything I have to say.

I more than likely have said more than I need to say about Trump’s hideous reaction to the death of former FBI director Robert Mueller. I likely also have repeated myself a bit. What’s the point, therefore, in stating the obvious about Donald Trump. Most of us know he’s a slug, that he lacks humanity.

I suppose I’ll have to concentrate on the POTUS’s deeds. Or his misdeeds … you know?

Then again, someone without a scintilla of shame won’t be moved by anything anyone would say about the actions he takes.

media news, national news

Trump’s words have zero value

Once, long ago when I was a much younger man, I used to hang on the president of the United States’ every word. When he spoke them, I just knew he was telling me at least his version of the truth.

Was he shading the truth a little to make himself sound better and feel better? Oh, probably. It didn’t matter as long as the fundementals of his statement were based in fact.

The current president? The guy we’ve got in power for the next three years? I have turned 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

I believe nothing that comes from Donald Trump’s overfed pie hole. Zero. Nothing he says means anything to me at this stage of his time in office or in my life as an American patriot.

Please understand that I take no joy in harboring this cynical view. I am not a cynic by nature, unlike some of my former journalism colleagues who actually used to boast about their cynicism. A cynical approach to covering the news or commenting on it is as unhealthy as being gullible enough to believe every single word that comes from a politician.

The current White House occupant, however, has filled even me with cynicism that I find uncomfortable. How can that be? His lying over any issue imaginable — from the epic to the trivial — has become the stuff of legend. The Washington Post counted something like 30,000 instances of lying during Trump’s first term in office from January 2027 until January 2021. No telling how many more thousands of lies he has told just in the first year of his second term.

I will stipulate one more time that I do revere the office of president. It is noble, grand and powerful. Donald Trump has done all he can do to diminish the office in my own mind’s standing. He’s done so by lying whenever he has something to say.