Category Archives: media news

media news, national news

To tweet or not to tweet …

William Shakespeare likely wouldn’t ponder that notion if he were around today.

But we’re going to give it a shot here briefly.

Twitter is emerging as the social medium of choice for some high-powered individuals. Members of Congress use it. Journalists, too. Same for assorted entertainment celebrities.

And, of course, the president of the United States. That brings me to the subject of this blog post: Should the president keep using Twitter?

I’m torn by the notion of Donald John Trump Sr. continuing to use Twitter. On one hand, the manner in which he uses it is troubling in the extreme. He fires off these 140-character messages in the wee hours of the morning. I don’t object to him doing so per se. The troubling aspect comes in the consequences of those messages.

Don’t get me wrong. I use Twitter too. This blog is distributed on Twitter, along with Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. I use the medium to advance my own commentary on “politics, public policy and life experience.” It helps me expand my audience, which is every blogger’s mission. Twitter has helped me build my daily blog “hits”; while my audience has expanded manifold since I founded High Plains Blogger, it’s still not enough. Hey, it’s never enough!

I also send out tweets that comment by themselves on current policy matters and this and/or that other stuff. I’ve done so more than 16,000 times since signing up on Twitter while I was still working for the Amarillo Globe-News. I got into the game right away and have enjoyed using Twitter to convey pithy comments.

But I’m just a chump former print journalist who lives out here in the middle of Flyover Country. The consequences of my tweets pale in comparison to what occurs when the president of the United States fires them into cyberspace.

Trump on occasion has abused the medium, such as when he tweeted a policy change regarding transgender Americans serving in the military. That is far more than just a comment on news of the day. It signaled a fundamental policy shift: that the president had declared that transgender citizens no longer could serve in the armed forces. What’s more, he sent the tweet without consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Department or his senior White House staff.

That’s abuse of social media, dear reader.

Do I wish the president would cease and desist on Twitter? No. If it’s used properly, it can be a useful tool to communicate — even for the president. The trouble with Trump is that he lacks any impulse control and cannot discern prudent use of the medium from imprudent use of it.

I’ve heard many folks say they want Trump to continue using Twitter. I do, too. However, my wish for the president is that he use it with wisdom and discernment.

Is he capable of such a thing? Oh … probably not.

media news

Internet can be addictive … you know?

SALLISAW, Okla. — My name is John and I am addicted to the Internet.

There. I said it. I admitted it. Is that the first step toward a cure? I have no earthly idea if that puts me on my way. I’ll deal with it.

We came to this place near the end of our latest two-week sojourn in our pickup with fifth wheel in tow. We had spent a miserable previous day getting a major repair done to our RV, so we decided to pull up to a municipal park just north of this quaint eastern Oklahoma community.

We wound our way back into the woods, found Brushy Lake Park. Set up our RV site. Paid the fee. Then I sought to open up my laptop to write a blog about, oh, this and/or that.

Oops! No cell phone service. No service means no Internet. No Internet means so surfing the universe of information and opinion for grist upon which to comment.

For the briefest of moments, I felt — how do I say it? — a bit lost. I love writing this blog. I love doing so from different locations where my wife and I end up. I was unable to do so for an entire evening.

I got over my Internet separation anxiety fairly quickly. I figured, “What the hey?” I’ll get back into The Game as soon as we depart and return to within some cell phone service network — and I’ll reconnect with the Big Ol’ World of Internet.

I’m savvy enough about the Internet to know that I should take every single thing I read on it to the proverbial bank. I know a lot of it is merely someone else’s opinion.

However … I did experience a bit of withdrawal until I was able to return to what passes in this day and time as The World.

Oh, the park where we spent the night? It was beautiful, quiet and full of peace.

media news

New WH comm director sends chilling message

For those of us who navigate through ideological waters to the left of Breitbart News, the word from new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci makes our skin shiver.

Scaramucci praised Brietbart editor Matt Boyle for “capturing the spirit of what is going on in the country.”

Sure thing, Mr. Communications Director. If you’re a right-wing fanatic who hangs on the words spewed by Breitbart, the outfit once run by Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser who used Breitbart to promote views seen by many Americans as anti-Semitic and anti-minority in its tone.

How might conservatives react if a president would sing the praises of a far left-wing organ? How would GOP watchdogs like to hear a progressive communications director speak well of the work done by The Nation, to cite one example? It would go over like a f**t in a spacesuit.

Scaramucci is setting a frightening tone as he takes over as White House communications chief. He will report directly to the president and not White House chief of staff Reince Priebus; indeed, custom dictates that the chief of staff has oversight on the message coming from the White House.

Not with Scaramucci. He’s getting his marching orders director from the tweeter in chief.

Do you feel better now? I … um … didn’t think so.

media news

Aw, c’mon Sean, those ‘SNL’ skits are funny, man

OK, I’ll stipulate that I’ve never been parodied by a major TV network comedy show, which means I don’t truly understand how former White House press secretary Sean Spicer feels these days.

There. Having made that stipulation, I guess I can say that Spicer needs to lighten up. Melissa McCarthy’s parody of him on “Saturday Night Live” became an instant comedy classic. She had the nation rolling with laughter.

Oh, but Spicer didn’t see it that way. He calls the skits “stupid” and “malicious.”

Well, he’s entitled to his opinion, just as Donald J. Trump is entitled to say that Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of the president is, um, “sad,” “not funny” and “pathetic.”

I’ll just beg to differ with the president, too.

Look, this kind of thing goes with the territory. Did these guys ever see Phil Hartman’s spoof of Bill Clinton wolfing down the Big Mac while jogging? Did they ever catch Dana Carvey’s hilarious mimicking of George H.W. Bush or Jon Lovitz’s equally funny spoof of Michael Dukakis? How about Will Ferrell’s uproarious skits about George W. Bush?

And how can you forget the time the actual Sarah Palin appeared on “SNL” alongside the Tina Fey faux Palin, or the time Hillary Clinton joked with Amy Poehler’s “Hillary”?

This is political humor, Sean. I’m just sad now — in the wake of your resignation as White House press flack — that you’ve taken Melissa McCarthy out of the game.

media news, national news, political news

Spicer quits, chaos continues

The longest-running open secret came to fruition today with the resignation of Sean Spicer as White House press secretary.

Spicer was thought to be on his way out long ago. He sealed the deal today when Donald J. Trump announced that Anthony Scaramucci would become the new White House communications director.

That meant curtains for Spicer, who reportedly disagreed vehemently with the choice.

To be candid, I am left with decidedly mixed feelings about Spicer’s departure. At one level, I had some sympathy for a press flack who was charged with defending presidential policies in front of the White House press corps. The president, though, made that job even more difficult — indeed, damn near impossible — by contradicting his own messages hourly. Spicer then was left to fend for himself as he sought to explain what the president meant to say or do.

At another level, I was dismayed that Spicer — the former press spokesman for the Republican National Committee — continued in the role for as long as he did.

Consider, too, the strange — to my ears, at least — statement by Scaramucci about Spicer’s departure. “I hope he goes on to make a tremendous amount of money,” he said. Huh? What about saluting his service to the country? Or to the president?

Then, of course, this came from the president himself, who said in a statement that Spicer will succeed, adding, “Just look at this ratings.” What the … ?

I suppose we’ll all just wait for Spicer to tell us what really went on behind the scenes in a White House known above and beyond anything else for its confusion and chaos.

Do you expect the new press flack, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the new communications boss, to assuage media concerns about the White House’s ability to administer anything?

Neither do I.

media news

Fox host makes ridiculous assertion … surprise!

Good grief. Just after I offered a word of praise about Fox News anchor Shepard Smith — extolling the virtue of his speaking the truth on the “unfair and unbalanced” network — one of his colleagues spews some idiotic tripe.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/07/this-guy-speaks-the-truth-at-fox/

Lisa Boothe is a co-host on the Fox show “The Five.” What did this person say? She called Hillary Rodham Clinton the “most soulless woman on the planet” and asserted she would “sell” her only child to become president.

Classy, yes? Actually, no!

Boothe’s idiocy drew a sharp rebuke from Hillary Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, who stood foursquare behind her mother. Chelsea responded via Twitter: “No, she wouldn’t. I’ve never doubted & always known I was the most important part of her life,” Chelsea Clinton said. “Now as a mom I’m even more grateful to my mom.”

Why won’t these talking heads ever learn to keep family out of political debates?

business news, media news, national news, political news

This guy speaks the truth … at Fox!

It’s become a cliché of sorts that “only Nixon could go to China.”

The communist-hating U.S. president was the man in 1972 to open the door to the People’s Republic of China and that remains one of President Nixon’s everlasting legacies.

So, then, it might be said that “only Shepard Smith at Fox can speak the truth” about Donald J. Trump’s “mind-boggling deception.”

I single out Smith because of the network he works for. Fox News Channel is known far and wide — and beyond — as being quite friendly to the president of the United States. Trump is a frequent guest on “Fox and Friends,” and Fox commentator Sean Hannity is quite fond of extolling the president’s virtues while overlooking some of the other, um, non-virtuous qualities of the man and the team with which he has surrounded himself.

Smith isn’t part of that cadre of Trump acolytes.

He took aim at the controversy swirling around Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with that Russian lawyer and the ever-changing reasons/excuses/dodges he keeps offering for why he accepted a meeting he thought would produce some dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2016 campaign.

“If there’s nothing there, and that’s what they tell us, why all these lies?” Smith told fellow Fox anchor Chris Wallace. “The deception is mind-boggling and there are still people out there who think we’re making it up. And one day they are going to realize we are not.”

You all know that I don’t watch Fox News regularly. My own bias forces me to wrestle with the notion that the network that once called itself “fair and balanced” has been neither “fair” or “balanced” in its coverage of U.S. politics.

Read The Hill’s report here.

Every now and then, one of the on-air folks at Fox shows us that journalistic integrity presents itself in a media organization well-known for the policies that come from the top of its chain of command.

Shepard Smith, I suppose, has become an “enemy of the American people” because he dares offer us a view that doesn’t comport with the president’s way events should be reported.

Welcome to the club, Shep.

media news

Do political endorsements still matter?

Not quite a year ago, I posted an item on this blog that wondered how my local newspaper would call its endorsement for president of the United States.

How would the Amarillo Globe-News endorse Donald J. Trump, which, to my mind seemed like a done deal, given the company’s corporate loathing of Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Here’s what I wrote a year ago:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/07/now-who-will-get-my-local-papers-endorsement/

The paper did endorse Trump, even though it appears to me to have been a sort of “canned” endorsement, written by someone in Augusta, Ga., headquarters of Morris Communications, the paper’s corporate owner.

It does beg the question: Do newspaper endorsements really matter in this day and age? I’m beginning to think they don’t, which I consider to be a shame.

I keep circling back to the 2010 campaign for Texas governor. The incumbent, Rick Perry, announced that he wouldn’t sit down with editorial boards to make his case for re-election. He wanted to speak “directly to Texans,” he said. Virtually every newspaper in Texas ended up that year endorsing the Democratic challenger, Bill White, the former Houston mayor.

We did at the Globe-News. We might as well have endorsed Satan himself, given the response from our readership.

Well, Perry won handily. He stuck in the eyes of newspaper editors and publishers.

Donald Trump had much the same hurdle to clear. A lot of formerly traditional Republican-leaning editorial pages endorsed Hillary Clinton. Did they sway anyone? Probably not.

Which brings me to a final point. One of the great lies that newspaper executives keep foisting on their readers is that they don’t intend to change people’s minds. Actually, though, they do.

A newspaper that expresses its opinions seeks to shape their communities. How else do they want communities to follow their lead if they don’t intend to persuade readers to think as they do?

Newspapers that backed Clinton wanted their readers to vote in a like manner, just as those that endorsed Trump. Given that the overwhelming majority of U.S. papers backed Clinton — and she still lost — I am left to wonder: Do these endorsements really matter?

I’m open for discussion on this one. Talk to me.

media news

‘Fair and balanced?’ Yes on fair, no balanced

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I have plenty of friends who follow this blog, right along with plenty of foes and critics.

Many of my critics happen to be friends. Some of them are good friends, too. One of those friendly critics has chided me because my blog isn’t “fair and balanced.” I’ll answer my longtime good pal here.

High Plains Blogger strives for fairness in its criticism. Whether it achieves fairness, I suppose, depends largely on who’s reading it. As you know, a huge chunk of the criticism of late has centered on Donald J. Trump, the nation’s 45th president. I detest the idea of this man representing the nation I love dearly. I am unapologetic in my harsh feelings toward him.

My friend thinks I should be more “fair and balanced.”

I’ll ponder that for a moment. OK. I’ve pondered it. This blog will continue to strive for fairness in its criticism of any public official. However, the balance isn’t part of the equation. I wear my bias proudly and do not shy away from it. It’s a blog intended to comment on public policy and politics.

Still, I have pledged to compliment the president when opportunities present themselves.

I can think off hand of two such occurrences: the president’s decision to launch missiles at Syria in response to Bashar al Assad’s use of chemical weapons; and the president’s signing of a veterans administration reform bill into law that protects whistleblowers who tattle on VA officials who mistreat veterans.

I should add here, I suppose, that not a single regular or frequent critic congratulated this blog for its complimentary tone on those instances. Hey, no worries. It goes with the territory. I believe that’s what I’ve cautioned the president as he rails against critics of his public policy.

So … the beat — and the criticism goes on.

media news, national news

When did ‘fake news’ become what it’s become?

Once upon a lifetime or two ago, back before the Internet or even before the rise of some of current contemporary politicians, I used to think of “fake news” as something that bears little resemblance to what it means today.

That was before we even coined the term “fake news” as it has come to be known these days.

If someone were to present an item as “news,” but it turns out to be false, you’d just call it what it was: a fabrication, a prevarication, a lie. Thanks, though, to an adroit politician — who hates to be called one, even though that is what he is — many of us toss the term “fake news” around recklessly. If it’s negative, it’s “fake.” Even if it tells the truth, it’s “fake” in the eyes of those aligned with the target of such truth-telling.

Donald John Trump, the nation’s 45th president, has now turned the term into something of a rallying cry for the shrinking — but still substantial — base of Americans who still believe what he says.

The president’s standing among Americans is around 38 percent — give or take a point or two — who think he’s doing a good job. The rest of us, um, think a lot less of him. The Trumpkins of this nation glom onto the “fake news” mantra to discredit any news report seen as critical of their guy.

They don’t get the irony, though, of what they say about the media. If you want any clearer example of what I used to think of as “fake news,” you need look no further than the man who’s made it the rallying cry it has become.

Donald Trump is the king of fake news. Call him King Donald the Faker. To wit:

He perpetrated the lie that Barack Obama was constitutionally unqualified to hold the office of president; he cited a phony instance of “thousands of Muslims cheering” the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11; he said President Obama bugged his campaign office after the election; he said “millions of illegal immigrants” voted for Hillary Clinton and gave her the 3 million popular vote plurality she scored over Trump, despite losing the Electoral College vote; he implied there might be White House recordings of conversations he had with fired FBI Director James Comey.

What, I ask, do all these instances have in common? They’re all demonstrably false. They’re lies. They are made up events.

They are “fake news”!

Still, the president gets away with it in the minds of those who stand by their man.

I get that Donald Trump changed the rules of politics when he ran for and won the presidency in 2016. Brother, do I ever get it.

What continues to boggle my mind, though, is the very idea that this guy gets away with hanging the “fake news” label on media and news reports while being cheered on by those who ignore his own tawdry record of dishing out lies.