Category Archives: media news

media news

Now comes Louis Farrakhan to weigh in on flag

Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show the other day that liberals are next going to seek to take down the Stars and Stripes.

The conservative talk show voice was making some point about the furor over the Confederate flag in the wake of the Charleston church massacre.

Now comes a voice from the equally remote far left of the spectrum. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said we, indeed, need to take down the American flag.

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/06/24/farrakhan-i-dont-get-debate-over-confederate-flag-we-need-to-put-the-american-flag-down/

Those who march under and behind Old Glory have been subjugating African-Americans, Farrakhan said.

That is utter crap!

A former colleague of mine said I owe Daddy Dittohead an apology for tweeting that he should “shut the bleep up” over his remarks about the Stars and Stripes.

I’ll pass on the apology. As for Farrakhan, he, too, needs to shut his pie hole.

 

media news

Dad asked a simple question … and gave birth to a career

It’s kind of late in the day. It’s about to end.

But in the waning hours of Father’s Day, I’ve suddenly gotten filled with the desire to share a brief story about my dad and a simple question he posed to me.

It was late in 1970. I had returned home from a two-year U.S. Army stint. I was preparing to re-enroll in college.

Mom, Dad and I were having dinner one evening at their home, where I returned after my Army hitch.

We were chatting about college, my plans and what I might want to do with my life now that my military obligation was over. I was single, unattached (for the time being) and I had my whole life ahead of me.

Dad asked, “Have you declared a major yet? Do you know what you want to study in college?”

I had not yet made that decision. “Why do you ask?” I said.

Dad responded immediately, “Have you thought about journalism?”

To be honest, I hadn’t given it any thought. “Journalism?” I asked.

Sure, he said. He told me of the letters I wrote home from wherever I was stationed for the previous two years. I wrote home frequently from basic training in Fort Lewis, Wash.; from Fort Eustis, Va., where I went through my advanced training; then from Da Nang, South Vietnam and later, from Fort Lewis, where I was assigned at the end of my tour.

He mentioned how “descriptive” they were. He said I had this ability to turn a phrase. He thought journalism might be a good fit for me, given — he said — my ability to string sentences together.

Oh, gee, why not? So, I returned to college in January 1971, enrolling in some journalism-related classes.

I then fell in love with this craft called “journalism.”

I stayed with it for the next four decades.

I look back at that dinner-time moment with Dad and Mom with great fondness and appreciation for the simple question that Dad asked. It helped me — along with prodding and pushing from the girl who would become my wife in September 1971 — undertake a fruitful and moderately successful career in print journalism.

It’s not yet over, thankfully.

I’m pretty sure I thanked Dad for nudging me down that path. He’s been gone now for 35 years; Mom died 31 years ago. I can’t thank them again now.

However, I can share this memory to remind myself — and perhaps others — of our parents’ wisdom.

In that moment at the dinner table, father definitely knew best.

media news

Brian Williams gone … but then he stays

There are a lot of things I don’t understand in this world.

One of them is how a high-priced broadcast celebrity journalist can stay employed by the network that hired after he violated one of the basic tenets of journalism: to tell the truth.

Brian Williams reportedly is out as anchor of NBC NIghtly News. He’s going to be given some sort of undefined “special assignment” slot on the network’s news team.

My strong hunch is that the one-time golden boy of NBC won’t like the demotion. He’ll likely quit to “pursue other interests.” But in order for him to make his exit cleanly and without too much fuss, the network will have to pay him a lot of money to fulfill the terms of his contract.

You know the story. Williams fibbed about being shot down while riding in a helicopter during the early months of the Iraq War in 2003. He embellished the story with each retelling of it in the years since. Then the network discovered at least 10 or so more incidents of embellishments — or non-truth-telling.

Where I come from, that’s reason to get canned, booted, tossed out on your ear.

Brian Williams violated Rule No. 1 of Journalism 101: tell the damn truth.

He didn’t do it.

He’s been reduced to a punch line at parties. Late-night comedians had a field day over his shame. The Internet is still bubbling with fake depictions of Williams storming ashore at Normandy on D-Day and walking on the moon before Neil Armstrong ever set foot on the place. Others are out there, too.

Whatever project he undertakes at NBC will be viewed, I’m quite sure, with plenty of skepticism from a public whose trust in this guy was shattered because he couldn’t carry out the basic rule of good journalism.

media news, political news

Bye, bye Rush … don’t hurry back

I posted something to my Facebook feed the other day about Rush Limbaugh losing yet another radio station from his shrinking audience.

The post prompted an interesting exchange among several individuals with whom I’m “friends,” actual friends — and it included one of my sons.

One of the individuals encouraged another respondent to actually listen to Limbaugh’s radio show before making a judgment about his message.

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/09/rush_limbaugh_is_cooked_the_stunning_fall_of_the_rights_angriest_bloviator_partner/

It reminded me a bit of a similar exchange I had in the pre-Internet days with a man I admired greatly.

The late Maury Meyers, who once served as mayor of Beaumont and who once ran unsuccessfully for Congress against the Irascible Man, the late Rep. Jack Brooks. Meyers was a Republican, Brooks a Democrat.

Meyers was a fine individual, a progressive, pro-business mayor.

He also was a fan of Rush Limbaugh.

I wrote a column about Limbaugh’s short-lived TV show in which he’d rant for 30 minutes, sign off, then come back the day and rant some more. I couldn’t take it and I said so in my column, which ended with this: “Rush Limbaugh is to TV political commentary what Willard Scott is to TV weather predicting, with one difference: Scott makes me laugh; Limbaugh makes me sick.”

Meyers called me and invited me to listen more intently to Limbaugh. Tune in to his radio show, Maury implored me. Listen to him over a period of time and tell me if you still feel the same way, he said.

I took him up on it.

Limbaugh was worse than I thought. I wrote a follow-up column, stating that Limbaugh’s radio show was the worst piece of broadcasting I’d ever heard. OK, I’ve heard worse since then, but at that time, Limbaugh was the gold standard for right-wing trash-talk.

The term “Dittohead” was meant to be worn as a badge of honor by the man’s radio listeners who proclaim themselves to be among them. It’s an interesting term, when you think about it. To me, it more or less connotes an inability or unwillingness to think for one’s self.

That, I reckon, is Limbaugh’s audience.

And it appears to be dwindling.

 

 

media news

CNN anchor ‘misspoke’ about Dallas PD shooter?

This likely will be the last thing I’ll say about this, but I must ask: How does one “misspeak” the words that CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield uttered in describing James Boulware, the man who laid siege to the Dallas Police Department before a police sniper shot him to death?

http://news.yahoo.com/cnn-fredricka-whitfield-dallas-police-shooter-courageous-brave-210006543.html

Whitfield went on the air the other day and said Boulware was “brave and courageous.” He assaulted the PD in an armored van, opening fire on police officers.

The criticism erupted. Whitfield went back on the air a couple of days later and said she “misspoke” when she used those words to describe Boulware. The media called her statement an “apology.” It really wasn’t.

My understanding, though, is that when you misspeak, you insert incorrect verbiage into sentences intended to convey another message. What did she intend to say about Boulware? Was the word “brave” uttered instead of — as a friend of mine noted — the term “brazen”?

Now I’m trying to figure out a word that sounds sort of like “courageous.” I can’t come up with one.

She misspoke? No, that’s not what I’d call it.

 

media news

Whitfield apologizes for ‘brave’ remark … I guess

Fredricka Whitfield has more or less apologized for a comment she made Saturday about the guy who stormed the Dallas Police Department headquarters.

The CNN anchor had called him “brave” and “courageous,” drawing a stampede of criticism.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/cnn%e2%80%99s-fredricka-whitfield-apologizes-for-calling-dallas-gunman-%e2%80%98courageous-and-brave%e2%80%99/ar-BBl8L1N

Today she said something quite different: “Yesterday during a segment on the Dallas police department attack, I used the words ‘courageous and brave,’ when discussing the gunman. I misspoke and in no way believe the gunman was courageous or brave,” Whitfield said.

Well, I guess there’s an apology in there somewhere.

The man was shot dead by a police department sniper. He’s been identified as James Boulware, who opened fire on the PD from an armored van.

Whitfield said she “misspoke.”

I’ll just ask one more question: What did she intend to say?

media news, national news

‘Courageous and brave’? Not even close

CNN news anchor Fredericka Whitfield needs — I think — some lessons in how to use the English language.

She attached the terms “courageous” and “brave” to describe the actions of a man who laid siege to the Dallas Police Department headquarters building before he was shot to death by a police sniper.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/cnn-anchor-calls-dallas-attack-brave/ar-BBl6wpK

My goodness. My head is spinning over that.

The diver of an armored van opened fire on the police building. He was committing at least two serious felonies: attempted murder and firing a gun in the city limits come to mind most immediately; there might be a dozen more criminal acts involved here. She said: “It was very courageous and brave, if not crazy as well, to open fire on the police headquarters, and now you have this scene, this standoff.”

Huh?

The terms “courageous” and “brave” are intended to put a positive description on one’s actions. The actions of this guy never — not ever — should be labeled in the manner described by this news anchor.

media news

Williams is likely gone, but at what cost?

Brian Williams’s future as NBC News’s anchor seems to have been settled.

He’s gone.

Williams embellished his wartime experiences during the Iraq War, contending his helicopter was shot down when it wasn’t. There were some other fabrications, but that’s the one that got him in trouble. NBC suspended him without pay for six months.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/rieder/2015/06/10/the-brian-williams-endgame/71009594/

Williams has become the object of jokes around the world. His credibility is blown to smithereens.

What escapes me, though, is how someone could — in effect — be terminated for cause, but still get all kind of big money to “settle.” Williams holds a huge contract with NBC. But then he squandered the trust he had cultivated, that his bosses at NBC News had cultivated.

So, as USA Today reports, the network is going to replace him in the anchor’s chair with Lester Holt and then pay him millions of dollars to leave quietly.

I don’t understand a lot of things in the business world. This is one of them.

 

media news, national news, political news

Rubio takes heat, gives some of it back

Welcome to the national spotlight, young man.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, is finding out first hand how tough it is to keep some aspects of one’s personal life out of the glare of public view.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/marco-rubio-hits-back-at-new-york-times/ar-BBkXhm9

It really cannot be done.

The New York Times has published a couple of stories about the senator from Florida. One of them details the number of traffic tickets he and his wife (mostly his wife) have run up in the past 18 years. The other examines the couple’s spending habits.

The stories aren’t exactly flattering. In fact, they’re quite unflattering. Rubio has hit back at the Times over the personal finances story. He wrote an email: “It’s true, I didn’t make over $11 million last year giving speeches to special interests,” Rubio said. “And we don’t have a family foundation that has raised $2 billion from Wall Street and foreign interests.” Those examples appear to be shots at Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton, who’s come under scrutiny herself for the money she has earned since she and her husband, President Bill Clinton, left the White House in 2001.

Personally, I think the traffic-ticket story is overblown. Indeed, if he is elected president in 2016, neither he or his wife will be sitting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle on public streets for at least the next four years. So, what’s the point, right?

As for the financial story, the Rubios reportedly have thrown a good bit of money that Sen. Rubio seem to indicate they don’t have. According to U.S. News & World report: “The Times also said Rubio has handled his personal finances in a manner that ‘experts called imprudent,’ with a low saving rate, substantial debt, buying an $80,000 boat and leasing a $50,000 2015 Audi Q7.” Rubio is going to insist on prudent spending by the government as he campaigns for president. Do as I say and not as I do? Is that it, senator?

Here’s a thought for the Times’s editors to consider: If you’re going to examine the personal spending habits and the portfolios of the candidates, be sure to look at Sen. Bernie Sanders’s account statements carefully. He is the “Democratic socialist” who’s campaigning for the Democratic Party nomination on a platform that seeks to redistribute wealth throughout the country because of what he calls the “obscene” wealth of too few Americans.

As for Rubio and the treatment he’s gotten from the media, there’s much more scrutiny to come.

It goes with the territory.

 

media news, political news

Where has Rush been hiding?

Out of ideas

Maybe I’m a bit slow on the uptake — which I admit to readily — but I’m not hearing much lately from Daddy Dittohead, Rush Limbaugh.

I know he’s still on the air here in Amarillo. How do I know that? The gentleman who delivers our mail each day tunes his radio to the station that broadcasts Rush’s bilge, er, commentary.

It’s just that Limbaugh’s thoughts on this or that used to be quoted by mainstream media quite regularly. I haven’t seen much from or about the gasbag.

The only news I’ve seen lately involving Limbaugh has related to stations dropping him because of advertisers bailing out. I don’t expect that to happen in the Texas Panhandle, where Limbaugh is considered by many to be the voice of all that is wise and correct.

As one who thinks quite differently of this guy, my hope is that he remains in the background, blathering only to the Dittoheads who don’t quite grasp the irony of being labeled as such.