Category Archives: media news

media news, political news, State news

Communications director quits at TDA … here’s why

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They go by any number of terms.

Public information officer; spokesperson; communications director; press secretary; media representative.

A less-flattering term is flack.

Whatever they’re called, these individuals — particularly when they work for a government agency — fulfill an important task. It is to communicate accurately what’s being said to the public. After all, it’s the public’s business, given that these agencies spend the public’s money.

Are we clear … so far?

Lucy Nashed has just quit her job as communications director for the Texas Department of Agriculture. Here’s the kicker: She left without having another job.

Seems that her boss, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, kept sending out mixed signals to the public. He couldn’t keep his story straight, it appears, about a trip he took to take part in a rodeo.

Did he spend public money to rope and rassle cattle … or did he reimburse the public?

Here’s part of the Texas Tribune’s account of what happened:

“The Houston Chronicle reported over the weekend that Miller took a state-paid trip to Mississippi to participate in the National Dixie Rodeo but later repaid the state with campaign and personal funds. He told the Chronicle that the intent of the trip was to meet with agriculture officials there, making it a legitimate state-covered business trip. Miller said after those meetings fell through, he repaid the state for the trip.

“More than a week before the Chronicle story, Nashed told the Tribune that the Mississippi trip — which was always designed to be a personal trip — was mistakenly booked by a staffer as a business trip. Once the staffer realized the trip was personal, Nashed said, Miller repaid the state for the trip. Nashed said Monday that was the information she was originally given.”

Miller has become something of a loose cannon since taking over as head of the state agriculture department. He’s a bit of a showman, bragging about his good ol’ boy appeal and his ability and willingness to toss aside policies just because he can.

Nashed had a tough job working for the Republican officeholder. Her task was to make sure his thoughts and statements were communicated accurately. However, she complained about a “tremendous lack of communication” within the TDA, a condition she acknowledged made it difficult for her to do her job.

The fact that Nashed quit without having a place to land speaks loudly and clearly as well.

There’s no misunderstanding — or miscommunication — there. She wanted out. Now!

media news, national news, political news

Boston Globe crawls under Trump’s skin

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Donald J. Trump’s thin skin causes some hysterical reaction.

Take his response to a satirical front page the Boston Globe published today that imagines a Trump presidency.

The paper’s front page screamed with headlines about deportation of illegal immigrants, a tripling of immigration enforcement personnel and the filing of libel lawsuits against the media.

Trump called the Globe “worthless” and launched into a tirade in which he said the paper wrote a “dishonest story.”

It was a joke, Mr. Trump. I get that he wouldn’t find it funny. I also get that he dislikes any media outlet that criticizes him for the statements he has made while campaigning for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

But the Globe’s editorial page laid down the predicate for the bogus front page. There was no secret agenda involved here. The paper’s view of Trump is well-known. The editors of the Globe do not want the real estate mogul to become president. So, they engaged in a bit of satire to illustrate their point.

In the highly unlikely event that Donald Trump ever were to be elected president, he would certainly face a torrent of criticism for the statements he would make and for the policies he would enact. Sure, he also would get praise from some quarters.

This kind of critical analysis, though, simply goes with the territory.

The man needs to toughen up his skin.

 

media news, national news, political news

Win or lose, Trump’s impact has been ‘y-u-u-u-u-ge!’

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Americans ought to perhaps prepare themselves for a major shock at the end of this year.

I’m talking about Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign.

No, I do not mean to suggest that Trump is going to win the election and start preparing himself to settle into the chair behind that big ol’ desk in the Oval Office. He won’t ever get to do that — in my humble view.

What I mean is that Trump’s presence on the campaign scene has had an impact far, far beyond anyone’s expectations when he entered it this past summer.

Yes, America, this man well could become Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2016.

I don’t know how the Time editors are going to process this election. The winner of the campaign assuredly should be the logical choice for the esteemed honor. If it turns out to be Hillary Rodham Clinton, well, she will have made history as the first woman ever elected, just as Barack Hussein Obama made history by becoming the first African-American ever elected president.

Trump’s influence on this election, though, has been overarching.

He has redefined how the media cover these events.

Think of it: The guy has no government experience of any kind whatsoever. He is known as a reality TV celebrity and real estate mogul. He has lived a life of excess — and boasts about his extramarital sexual conquests. He begins his campaign by insulting Mexican immigrants who come here illegally by lumping all of them together as rapists, murderers and drug dealers.

Then it got worse.

Still, the man remains the frontrunner for the Republican Party presidential nomination. The media cannot stop reporting on his utterances. Why is that? Because the public is infatuated with them. Even those of us who cannot stomach the sight of him or the sound of his voice can’t stop writing about him.

Trust me on this: If there wasn’t a public appetite for this guy, the media wouldn’t report on him. The media respond to what the public demands.

The Time editors have made much of the criteria they use for these selections. The person they put on the magazine’s cover are there because of what they contributed for “good or ill.” The publication has put some pretty hideous characters on its cover: Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and the Ayatollah Khomeini come to mind immediately.

Donald J. Trump ain’t in their league.

However, he’s had a gigantic impact on the political process that selects the person who becomes president of the United States.

media news, national news, political news

Polls, polls … and more polls

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Is it me or have the media become more obsessed with poll coverage in this presidential election cycle than ever before in the history of mass media in this country?

Of particular interest to me are a certain type of intraparty poll that measures candidates’ relative strength against each other.

These surveys drive me nuts. Bonkers, man!

Why? They’re meaningless.

Here’s the latest: NBC says Hillary Rodham Clinton holds a nine-point lead over Democratic Party primary rival U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. That’s nationally.

What, I ask, does that mean? Does that mean if we had a national political primary that Clinton would beat Sanders by nine percentage points?

Maybe. Except that we aren’t going through a national primary election cycle. Candidates are trudging through these primaries state by bloody state, where the voters in each state have different perspectives, different worries and concerns, different philosophies.

Wisconsin is going to have its Democratic and Republican primaries today. Sanders is favored at this moment to win the Democratic primary; U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is favored to win the GOP primary.

Still, the media keep reporting that Donald J. Trump holds a diminishing national lead over Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich in a national poll of Republican voters.

I’m running out of ways to say this: I do not care about national intraparty polls. They are not relevant to anything.

Some TV pundits the other evening were saying that they perceive fewer “horse-race” questions coming from the media as the primary campaigns head toward the home stretch. They say they’re hearing more “policy-driven” questions … allegedly.

More policy and fewer polls, please.

 

local news, media news

This is how you trick ’em

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My pal Jon Mark Beilue has established an April Fool’s Day tradition at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for 17-plus years.

This man is a master of putting one over on readers.

He does it intentionally once each year. He did so again today with this masterpiece about a proposed location for the Barack H. Obama Presidential Library.

He once spun a yarn about film star/heartthrob Matthew McConaughey moving to Amarillo; he once told a tall tale about the late Stanley Marsh 3 establishing an art museum inside an abandoned grocery store building next to Interstate 40. There have been others; those are two of my personal favorites.

I’ll just add this point before asking you to enjoy it as I have done already today.

The beauty of this kind of writing, which Jon Mark does better than anyone else I know, is that it tempts you to suspend your disbelief when you read it. You actually start to believe it could happen that, somehow, it’s not a prank.

Well, obviously it is.

Most of us in this part of the Texas surely are glad that it’s all a joke.

Others of us, well, might think differently.

Still, this is brilliant.

Enjoy.

media news, national news, political news

Speaking of polls, take a look at this

PollingFundamentals

Now that public opinion polls have become a staple of American political coverage, it’s good to look at the latest survey of Americans’ views of the job the president is doing.

RealClearPolitics posts a national average of polls daily.

The numbers are instructive.

President Obama now stands at 2.7 percent approval-over-disapproval in the average of polls that RCP posts.

Why is this important? It’s important because most of the remaining candidates for president — Republican and Democrat — keep talking about polls and their relative standing among them.

Donald J. Trump bellows constantly when the polls show him beating fellow Republicans Ted Cruz or John Kasich. Cruz counters with favorable poll reports when they suit his cause. Kasich keeps saying the polls show him as the only GOP candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton.

Oh yes. Bernie Sanders keeps talking about the polls that show him “closing the gap” for the Democratic nomination with Clinton.

Polls, polls, polls …

Remember when pols said “the only poll that counts is on Election Day”? Not only longer. They keep yapping about the polls and the media keep reporting it.

Thus, they have become important.

Back to the RCP poll average.

President Obama’s poll ratings had been in the tank for most of his second term. They weren’t necessarily horrible; just flat, lingering in the mid-40 percent range. What’s most interesting is that his favorable ratings were usually significantly less than his unfavorable ratings.

Today, though, it’s different. His favorability rating, according to the RCP average, stands at 49 percent, nearly 3 percent greater than his unfavorable rating.

Two more quick points.

One is that the RCP average takes into account all the major polling results done. Conservative polling outfits are measured, along with liberal polling companies. They’re tossed in altogether and you get the average of all the polls.

The second point is that RCP’s average of polls about the job Congress is doing shows a 14 percent job approval rating.

 

 

media news, national news, political news

Media should challenge pols? Sure, except for one thing …

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President Obama has thrown down on the national media, which he said aren’t doing their job properly.

The current political climate, the president said, is due partly because the media haven’t challenged presidential candidates’ falsehoods, outrageousness and manipulation.

Obama spoke to a media gathering and said the rest of the world is dumbfounded at what’s happening to the “crazy politics” that has infected the United States.

Hold ’em accountable

Here’s part of what the president said: “A job well done is about more than just handing someone a microphone. It’s to probe and to question and to dig deeper and to demand more. The electorate would be better served if that happened. It would be better served if billions of dollars in free media came with serious accountability, especially when politicians issue unworkable plans or make promises they cannot keep.”

Got it, Mr. President.

But here’s the catch. The media are considered part of what’s ticking off much of the electorate.

The media have sought to hold the candidates “accountable,” as you suggest. They have challenge absurd assertions by a number of the candidates, only to be outshouted by the angry legions of voters who continue to stand by their candidates’ original absurd assertion.

As someone who’s still associated with the media, I happen to believe the president is correct to assert that the media need to do better. We always can do more to provide context and to check all the facts before running with them.

It’s the suggestion, though, that greater media scrutiny — in this particular climate — is going to flip the switch on in voters’ minds and make them see the light, the truth and the way.

Instead, they’re increasingly likely these days to “double down” on what the candidate says and then blast the media for “lying” about their guy’s message.

I believe we are in a classic “Catch-22” situation.

Thanks anyway for the advice, Mr. President.

local news, media news, political news

Feeling unchained these days

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I had a marvelous opportunity this evening to speak to some nice folks about the state of play in media, politics, and the world in general.

The Potter/Randall Democratic Club asked me to offer some observations about this and that.

They figured I needed something to do now that I’ve been kinda/sorta retired for more than three years. A number of the folks there are acquaintances of mine. A couple of them were contributors to the Amarillo Globe-News opinion pages over the years, writing letters and sending in guest columns for my consideration.

I truly enjoyed meeting new folks and getting reacquainted with old friends and sharing some thoughts about the condition of our political and public policy world.

It occurred to me as I began my remarks that one of the true joys about being able to speak for myself is that I no longer represent someone or something else. I no longer am on a media outlet’s payroll, which enables me to speak my mind and to offer thoughts on this blog.

Sure, I do write for a couple of broadcast outlets these days; I write part time as a freelancer for KFDA NewsChannel 10 and Panhandle PBS, which means that I am not counted as being employed by them.

It occurred to me as I began my remarks that I am officially unfettered, untethered, unencumbered, unleashed, unbound, unrestricted, uninhibited … well, you get the idea. I get to speak my mind — whether I’m standing at a podium or offering comments through this blog.

Sure, my career as a full-time print journalist ended unhappily for me back in August 2012. I wasn’t entirely sure at the very moment I realized my career had ended whether I could bounce back. I did manage to pick myself up; I got off the deck and along the way I discovered a side of my adaptability I didn’t realize I possessed.

Thus, am I now glad my tenure at the Globe-News came to a screeching halt?

You bet I am.

media news, national news, political news

‘Shame,’ ’embarrassment’ become campaign themes

dontvotefortheotherguy

Oh, for shame!

The remaining men vying for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination appear to have become embarrassments to the very people whose support they will need this fall when one of them square off against the Democratic Party presidential nominee.

What in the world has become of the process that selects major-party nominees seeking to become the most powerful officeholder in the whole world?

It has become a sideshow, a circus act, a schoolyard fight, a proverbial food fight.

Voters should demand better of the candidates. Then again, perhaps they secretly like what they’re hearing and seeing.

The Republican side of this carnival act has been particularly disgraceful. And that is coming from Republicans who’ve watched it.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz asked viewers who watched one of the Republican debates, the one in Detroit, to summarize what they saw. The Washington Post reported: “Sophomoric,” “embarrassment,” “disappointing,” “shameful,” “despicable,” “angering” and “schoolyard brawl” were some of the responses he received during a broadcast on Fox News Channel.

As one Republican told the Post — and this guy is a Ted Cruz supporter — the candidates need to be talking about ISIS and the “loss of freedom.”

Instead, he noted, they were engaging in the kind of talk one hears on junior high school playgrounds.

Who and/or what is the culprit?

Have social media become the communications vehicle of choice for too many Americans? We appear to be relying on Twitter feeds and Facebook posts to learn things — most of it irrelevant to actual policy — about these candidates.

Have their been too many of these Republican and Democratic primary debates? It might be that the candidates have run out of creative ways to argue the fine points of policy and have been left to resort to the kind of shameful name-calling and ridicule we’ve been hearing.

Do the candidates themselves deserve blame? Pundits keep talking about Donald J. Trump’s lack of depth and his mastery of media manipulation. Then there’s the belief among many that he is a barely closeted sexist, xenophobe and racist. The response from Ted Cruz to Trump’s insults has been, well, less than stellar as well.

The campaign should have been dignified. It has been everything except that.

These individuals are seeking to become commander in chief of the world’s greatest military machine. They want to become head of state of what many of us believe is the greatest nation ever created. They seek to lead a nation of 300-plus million citizens into a still-uncertain future.

And this is what we’re getting?

 

John Edwards, media news, national news, political news

Cruz affairs? Probably not, but then again …

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Oh, brother. Here we go.

The National Enquirer reports that U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has had at least five extramarital affairs.

Bombshell news, right? Maybe. Or, maybe not.

The fiery Texas Republican is in the middle of a heated fight with fellow GOP presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. Cruz says Trump’s allies have planted that rumor at the Enquirer.

I need to stipulate something. I do not read the National Enquirer, which I do not consider to be a legitimate news-gathering organization.

However …

Before we dismiss the National Enquirer reporting as hogwash — which it usually is — we need to remember something.

The National Enquirer broke the story of 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards’ affair with Rielle Hunter while his late wife, Elizabeth, was battling cancer. The affair produced a child. The former senator, meanwhile, was proclaiming publicly his love for his wife and holding himself up as a courageous and dedicated family man.

Remember how Edwards called the story trash? Untrue? Full of lies?

Uh, the story turned out to be quite true.