Category Archives: media news

media news

Conversation (continued) …

I’ve told you already about a fellow I met the other morning. We covered a lot of ground in the 10 or 12 minutes we chatted.

It centered mostly on the congressional hearing involving FBI agent Peter Strzok and his role in the Robert Mueller investigation into the “Russia thing.”

He mentioned he has been retired for 20 years. Then he asked me if I was retired. “Yes,” I said. “I’m a retired journalist. I was a member of the ‘Mainstream Media,'” I added.

He nodded. “Ahhh, that explains why you’re a liberal,” he said.

I stopped him. “No, sir. My job didn’t define me. My inherent bias is what informs my world view,” I told him.

He had described himself as a “libertarian,” who wasn’t aligned with Democrats or Republicans.

It dawned on me a long time ago, but his assumption that my more progressive/liberal tendencies are a result of my occupation drives home a key point.

Conservatives are winning the war of ideologies. They have succeeded in tarring media representatives and outlets as inherently “liberal.” The “liberal media” get blamed for all that is wrong with journalism.

My own view of the term “mainstream media,” though takes a different approach. I long have considered the “mainstream media” to be a much more diverse bunch than the way conservatives label them. I include many conservative-leaning outlets among members of the “mainstream media”: Fox News, The Weekly Standard, The National Review all belong to the MSM; I also might throw in Breitbart News just to get folks’ pulse to race a bit.

Indeed, I worked for three newspaper groups with ownership that was decidedly not liberal in its outlook. Scripps League Newspapers was run by an elderly scion from the E.W. Scripps newspaper empire; then I went to work for the Hearst Corp., another right-leaning outfit; my career ended while working for Morris Communications, which was a far-right-leaning organization led by a man who is the product of the “old South,” if you get my drift.

The media are as diverse as any other craft.

The gentleman with whom I had this exchange over the weekend likely didn’t intend to paint us all with such a broad brush … but he did.

I don’t yet know if I’ll see him again. If I do, I might take the time to inform him of my own view of what comprises the “mainstream media.”

I suppose I could ask him: If the “liberal mainstream media” are so powerful and pervasive, how do all those conservatives keep getting elected to public office?

legal news, media news

Journalistic jewel shines brightly

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I will get right to the point.

The Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News is about to lose a superstar. He is a jewel to the craft he pursued for nearly four decades and to the community he served with wit, compassion, empathy, wisdom and occasionally with bite.

Jon Mark Beilue has let the cat out of the bag. He spilled the beans. He rolled over and squealed.

Jon Mark is retiring at the end of the week. He is walking away from the Globe-News and heading for some unknown future. He isn’t worried. He has earned whatever rewards await him. Jon Mark decided to tell the world via Facebook prior to signing off on his farewell column for the paper.

Beilue was sports editor of the G-N when I arrived there in January 1995, but it became evident almost immediately that his world view extended far beyond balls and strikes, touchdowns, three-point shots. He would make a move to newspaper columnist, where he managed to chronicle the community’s stories through the eyes and the voices of those who live in the Panhandle.

He wasn’t a Pollyanna. On occasion, Jon Mark was known to unsheathe his rhetorical dagger. If the moment presented itself, he was unafraid to take on the establishment, or to go after individuals or political groups that he thought, um, needed a whuppin’.

He built his reputation through a lifetime in West Texas, starting in Groom, where he grew up and came of age, to Texas Tech University, where he got his post-secondary education and then at the Globe-News, where he spent his entire professional career.

Jon Mark has seen a lot of change over the years. He has been through a lot of the tumult and turmoil that has plagued the media industry, particularly in recent years — and has continued to thrive.

He saw a lot of colleagues come and go during his time at the Globe-News. I am just one of them. I’ll just say that I am proud of my professional association with this man. He is a consummate pro, a man with a huge heart, and someone who possesses a rare rhetorical gift of expression.

I don’t know, of course, what he’ll say in his farewell piece that will see print in a few days. I am absolutely certain he will say it with customary class and wit.

Well done, my friend.

media news

Let’s hear it for Twitter!

OK, I’ve made fun of Twitter. I have criticized the president of the United States for his Twitter fetish.

I want to say a good word about it.

I recently posted my 19,000th message via Twitter. I don’t like using the verb “tweet,” given that it reminds me of Tweetie Bird, the Looney Tunes character whose voice came from the late Mel Blanc.

Whatever. I use Twitter extensively. It is one of the social media platforms I use to distribute this blog. I don’t have a gigantic Twitter audience. It hovers at just a bit less than 950 at the moment. I haven’t yet been able to crack the 1,000-follower threshold. I hope to get there someday. Maybe soon.

I do enjoy the tweets I get from those I do follow. Yes, I follow @realDonaldTrump, whose tweets show up continually on my Twitter feed. Do I “enjoy” the president’s blatherings? Not really. But they are instructive, to say the least.

My preference for using Twitter is to retweet items I see and then add a pithy comment along with the item that I am sending back out there.

Almost daily I do offer my own comments via Twitter. I also like sending earlier posts from High Plains Blogger back into cyberspace via that platform.

All of this brief post is to tell you that I have adopted this social medium for my own purposes. I am not in a position to use it to make public policy pronouncements. I do like to use it to comment on others who do use it for that purpose.

I’ll use this post to make another request. If you get these musings via Twitter, feel free to share them. I am not too high-falutin’ to ask for help in distributing these blog posts.

Therein lies the beauty of Twitter.

media news

Newspaper pushes back against POTUS

The Annapolis (Md.) Capital Gazette has laid it on the line.

In a letter made public this weekend, the newspaper said it won’t forget that Donald J. Trump has continually labeled the media “the enemy of the American people.”

“We won’t forget being called an enemy of the people,” the staff wrote. “No, we won’t forget that. Because exposing evil, shining light on wrongs and fighting injustice is what we do.”

A gunman armed with a shotgun walked into the Capital Gazette newsroom this past week and killed five employees. Four of them were journalists; the fifth was a sales assistant.

The suspect isn’t cooperating with the police who arrested him. Thus, we don’t yet know with absolute certainty what motivated him to open fire on the Capital Gazette. Yes, he lost a defamation lawsuit he had filed against the newspaper.

But the Capital Gazette has leveled a thinly veiled response to Trump’s continual verbal assault on the media.

Yes, the president issued appropriate remarks condemning the attack against the newspaper, saying that journalists “like all Americans” deserve the right to do their jobs without being “violently attacked.”

But according to The Hill: CNN’s John Berman called the president out on air for using the phrase “violently attacked,” saying that he “clearly has no problem at all verbally attacking journalists.”

It is long past time to tone down the anti-media rhetoric. Are you up to the challenge, Mr. President?

media news

Are you softening toward the media, Mr. POTUS?

Donald J. Trump said this in reaction to the Annapolis Capital-Gazette massacre of five newspaper employees: “Journalists, like all Americans should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job.”

Indeed, Mr. President. Thank you for those words. This former journalist appreciates your (possible) newfound respect for the work that journalists do in service to their communities and to the country.

But they come so soon after yet another full-on assault by the president himself on the media. He continues to call the media the nation’s top “enemy,” and calls them the “enemy of the American people.”

Which is it, Mr. President? Are the media the enemy? Or are they just like all Americans who are doing the work they are trained to do?

I’ll hold out hope that it’s the latter and that the president finally might dial back the vicious rhetoric he spews against the media.

media news

Sharing a cherished memory of a life in journalism

I want to re-share a memory I posted on High Plains Blogger four years ago.

It involves my abrupt departure from a craft I enjoyed pursuing for nearly four decades. It also involves a memento I packed around for a good portion of that time.

I found it this morning just as I posted an item about the shooting in Annapolis, Md. It seems oddly poetic at this time of national grief.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/03/memento-returns-home/

 

media news

‘The enemy of the people’?

Let’s not pussyfoot around this one, dear reader.

The president of the United States needs to cease using the kind of inflammatory rhetoric he has been using against members of the media.

Americans are awakening today trying to digest the impact of a mass shooting at the Annapolis (Md.) Capital-Gazette. Five people were gunned down by a man with a shotgun. He allegedly had a grievance against the newspaper, stemming from a defamation lawsuit he had filed; the judge tossed his suit.

It is fair to ask at this moment, in this overheated time of discord and dispute, whether Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric might be at the very least partially responsible for the tragedy that befell the Capital-Gazette.

The newspaper’s editorial page this morning declared that the staff is “speechless” and urges Americans to seek to become better as a result.

The president immediately offered his “thoughts and prayers” for the victims. He thanked the first responders for the rapid reaction to the tragedy.

Now, let’s get to the rest of it, Mr. President. None of us can know with absolute certainty whether this shooter was driven by the intense anti-media rhetoric that has come from the president, who has labeled the media to be the “enemy of the American people.”

The juxtaposition, however, of the shooting and the backdrop of the intense hatred of the media that has boiled up in some political circles make many of us wonder.

It’s time to dial it back, Mr. President.

As CNN.com reported: The newspaper, which was reeling from the attack, defiantly tweeted on Thursday: “Yes, we’re putting out a damn paper tomorrow.”

Its mission continues.

God bless them.

media news

Twitter emerges as No. 1 purveyor of … everything?

Am I the only American who has become  astonished, amazed and somewhat aghast at how Twitter has become the No. 1 purveyor of public policy?

Or, for that matter, damn near everything else?

Probably not.

I don’t know precisely when it achieved its preeminence. I have o believe it began with the presidency of Donald John Trump Sr.

He began using Twitter to make pronouncements, to hurl insults, to foment his many lies. Then he got elected. He has continued to tweet these messages at a dizzying pace — even though he promised (if that’s the correct verb) to curtail his tweet storms once he took the presidential oath.

A day doesn’t go by now where I don’t read something on my various news outlets about this or that public official tweeting some statement. They respond to others’ statements — which also are tweeted; they make grand pronouncements of their own; they make snarky comments; they tell jokes.

Oh, but them we hear from entertainment celebrities and literary giants, also via Twitter. They all have thoughts — deep or shallow — to share with the rest of the world.

And, yes … I use Twitter as a platform to share musings from High Plains Blogger. I am not alone in that regard, either. Other bloggers seek to increase their audience by distributing their pearls of wisdom via Twitter. Good for them! We’re a social media community.

I suppose Twitter will retain its top ranking as a social media purveyor until something else comes along. I don’t know what that might be; I doubt you know what will emerge.

I do have difficulty using the verb “tweet,” however, to describe this method of communicating. The very sound of the word just kind of grates on me. I hear the word “tweet” and I think immediately of the Looney Tunes cartoon character Tweetie Bird.

Wherever he is, my guess is that the late Mel Blanc — Tweetie Bird’s voice — is laughing out loud.

I trust you get my drift.

Meanwhile, off we go, tweeting every single thought — big or small, profound or trivial — that pops into our noggin.

media news

It’s official: Hell has frozen over

I know I have said this before, so forgive me for repeating myself.

Except this time I am sure of what I am about to say: It’s official. Hell has frozen over. Completely.

How do I know that? Because one of the deans of conservative commentary, George Will — a man who for years was associated with the Republican Party — is urging voters to cast their ballots for (gulp!) Democrats.

Will leads his latest column this way: Amid the carnage of Republican misrule in Washington, there is this glimmer of good news: The family-shredding policy along the southern border, the most telegenic recent example of misrule, clarified something. Occurring less than 140 days before elections that can reshape Congress, the policy has given independents and temperate Republicans — these are probably expanding and contracting cohorts, respectively — fresh if redundant evidence for the principle by which they should vote.

Not long ago, Will decided to leave the Republican Party. He is now an “independent” voter. He was a Fox News contributor. Since leaving the GOP, he has gravitated toward other broadcast and cable news networks, where he also contributes to their commentary.

Will dislikes Donald J. Trump. His description of “Republican misrule in Washington” is a direct condemnation of the leadership provided by the president.

Read Will’s column here.

Will wants voters to cast their ballots for Democrats in the 2018 midterm election. He wants congressional power to swing back to Democrats, hoping that they can act as a bulwark against the “carnage” that Trump has created in Washington.

Will writes: In today’s GOP, which is the president’s plaything, he is the mainstream. So, to vote against his party’s cowering congressional caucuses is to affirm the nation’s honor while quarantining him.

Granted, the idea of a Democratically controlled Capitol Hill doesn’t thrill the columnist. He refers to that possibility this way: A Democratic-controlled Congress would be a basket of deplorables, but there would be enough Republicans to gum up the Senate’s machinery, keeping the institution as peripheral as it has been under their control and asphyxiating mischief from a Democratic House.

Still, the very idea that George Will, of all people, would advocate such a rebellion means only one thing: Hell has frozen over.

media news, national news

‘Easier to judge quickly than to take time to understand’

Philip Rucker is a first-class reporter for The Washington Post. He posted a Twitter item that stated:

First Lady Melania Trump in speech tonight: “Kindness, compassion, and positivity are very important traits in life. It is far easier to say nothing than it is to speak words of kindness. It is easier to judge quickly than to take time to understand.”

I am blown away by part of what the first lady said.

“It is easier to judge quickly than to take time to understand.”

That’s what she said, according to Rucker. She is correct. Spot on. However, as with most matters involving the first lady, one must feel a bit of pain for her, given that she is married to someone who is too damn eager to “judge quickly” and is so very reluctant to “take time to understand.”

Illegal immigrants, anyone?

Consider what the president of the United States keeps saying about those who enter this country without the proper immigration documents. He is labeling them all with the same epithet. They’re criminals intent on doing serious harm to Americans, he keeps telling us.

The president refuses to “take time to understand” why they’re coming here. Refugees? Escaping crime? Fleeing persecution? In search of a better life for them and their families?

Who needs to “take time” to realize that not all illegal immigrants are motivated by evil intent? They aren’t all coming here for nefarious reasons.

The president is exhibiting a shameful prejudice toward all illegal immigrants and, by implication, almost all of those who come to this country.

If only the first lady’s wisdom could get through to her husband, who remains blind and deaf to the pleas of those who admonish him to cease the cruelty of his views toward immigrants.

It’s a lost cause. A president who makes public policy pronouncements via Twitter isn’t going to heed anyone’s advice. Not even his wife.