Category Archives: Media

Good Days, Bad Days

Media, Politics

 

Does the name Alfred E. Lewis ring a bell?  Probably not.  Yet it was under his by-line the Washington Post reported the June 17, 1972 arrest of five individuals at the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate office complex.  The opening paragraph stated:

Five men, one of whom said he is a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, were arrested at 2:30 a.m. yesterday in what authorities described as an elaborate plot to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee here. Three of the men were native-born Cubans and another was said to have trained Cuban exiles for guerrilla activity after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. (Washington Post, June 18, 1972)

The following day, the Post publishes the first story written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein which made the initial connection between the burglars and the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP).

One of the five men arrested early Saturday in the attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters is the salaried security coordinator for President Nixon’s reelection committee. (Washington Post, June 19, 1972)

Between June 19 and Nixon’s reelection on November 7, just three more Woodward/Bernstein articles made it into the Post.  With Nixon having garnered 60 percent of the popular vote and 508 electoral votes, Watergate appeared to be a footnote in American history.  It was not until May 19, 1973 that the Senate Watergate Committee began its nationally televised hearings.

I share this historical record as context for the coming days.  Yesterday was just the beginning of the saga to determine whether Donald J. Trump is guilty of treason (the only logical conclusion if, in fact, there was collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives) or whether the as yet unconnected dots are a series of possible, but highly improbable, unrelated coincidences.  (NOTE:  Nance’s Law, named after its originator former Navy intelligence officer Malcolm Nance, states, “Coincidence takes a lot of planning.”)

Yesterday was a good day for the resistance.  FBI Director James Comey, in what might be viewed as his mea culpa, first confirmed Trump and his campaign were under criminal investigation for their ties to and possible coordination with Russian government officials and operatives during the 2016 presidential campaign. Second, Comey and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers confirmed His Orangeness is better suited to be a radio talk show purveyor of conspiracy hogwash than president of the United States.

There will also be bad days.  The White House will continue to feed its base false narratives.  The former president wiretapped Trump Tower (Trump Tweet, March 4, 2017). Paul Manafort played “only a very limited role on the campaign” (Sean Spicer Press Briefing, March 20, 2017).  Executive privilege will be invoked.  Trump will challenge the FBI’s or any congressional committee’s request to see his tax returns, an issue that is more than likely to end up in the Supreme Court as did access to the Watergate tapes.

And Comey is right when he says this may take a long time.  Human error is not an option.  Any inaccuracy, as evidenced by the White House’s vitriolic response to the New York Times use of the term “intelligence officers” instead of the more accurate “Russian operatives,” gives undeserved credence to the “fake news” meme spouted daily by Trump and his surrogates.

There will be bad days when the media takes it eye off the ball to report on some other story they believe is equally important.  (Is it time to re-watch the Dustin Hoffman/Robert de Niro film Wag the Dog?)There will be bad days when progress on the investigation seems non-existent.  And there will be days when Trump’s ardent supporters will remind us there is no “smoking gun,” only circumstantial evidence.  That was the same defense Nixon supporters used in 1972 and 1973.

Last night, John Dean, legal council to Richard Nixon during Watergate and who’s damning testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee on June 2,  1972  was a pivotal event in unveiling the cover-up, was asked by MSNBC host Chris Hayes for his take on House Intelligence Committee hearing.

They’re just starting to unravel things that were rumbling in the press.  So, it is not a pinnacle moment. It’s just a preliminary moment.  I was more stunned by the reaction of the White House.and their handling of it, which seemed to be over the top.

They are in a cover-up mode.  There is absolutely no question about that.

And John Dean should know. As he told Chris Hayes:

I’ve been inside a cover-up.  I know how they look and feel.  Every signal they’re sending is ‘we’re covering this up.’  Experienced investigators know this.  They know how people react when they’re being pursued.  This White House is not showing its innocence; they’re showing how damn guilty they are.

There is a certain irony that this first official notification of the FBI investigation came one day after the death of New York Daily News journalist and author Jimmy Breslin.  In his book How the Good Guys Finally Won, Breslin chronicles the process by which members of Congress, at great risk to their careers and reputations, opted to challenge a sitting president.  Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote in her Wall Street Journal review, “A spirited recounting of how people better than Richard Nixon brought him down.”

American’s soul has been tested recently, but the final accounting, as always, will depend on individuals of conscience who courageously and meticulously approach the task before them.  And, if and when, the evidence requires judicial or congressional action, I believe these individuals (people better than Donald J. Trump) will heed their better angels as when the Supreme Count unanimously rejected Nixon’s claim of executive privilege and ordered the White House to turn over the oval office tapes?

So, if you believe in America and the principle of law, that belief must be unconditional.  There are days when it will be tested.  But it should never be abandoned.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

Fool Me Every Time

Media

 

FACT: Thomas Jefferson, not only owned slaves, he fathered children by at least one that we know of.

FACT: Ty Cobb was a racist and Babe Ruth once told his young fans, “It’s simple kids. If you drink and smoke and eat and screw as much as me.  Well, kiddos, someday you’ll be just as good at sports.”

FACT: Lance Armstrong doped his way to seven Tour de France titles.  His success was due more to over-sized needles than an over-sized heart as we were led to believe.

FACT: O.J. probably got away with murder and Bill Cosby is accused of sexually abusing 58 women.

FACT:  Meryl Streep is over-rated.  (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

Hero worship isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Most idols have flaws.  After all, they’re human too.  But in the above cases, we had the luxury of celebrating their achievements for years, decades and in Jefferson’s case, centuries before learning of their criminal or moral failings.

Not so the case with Rachel Maddow.  Damn! Damn! Damn!  A mere two days ago I applauded the MSNBC reporter as a shining example of someone who understood and appreciated the gravity of journalistic excellence at a time when most of the fourth estate has abdicated its sacred responsibility of shedding light where there are only shadows.  Sadly, last night Ms. Maddow demonstrated such praise was premature.

A blind man could see she was being played by the Trump propaganda machine.  For days, Maddow had been connecting the dots between Trump, his family and his appointees and Russian officials and oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin.  And it appeared His Orangeness had finally overplayed his hand.  Accusing a former president of wiretapping his phones with no evidence had finally made a dent in some of Trump’s loyal apologists.  And that was just the start of a bad week.  First waffling and later embracing a health care plan which is about everything but health care added to the cacophony of criticisms from both ends of the political spectrum.

Just look at the headlines up until this morning.

  • House Intel Committee Dems Slam Trump Over Wiretap Claim (NY Post)
  • McCain to Trump: Provide Wiretap Evidence or Retract Claim (ABC News)
  • White House Back-Pedals on Claim Obama Wiretapped Trump’s Phones (Wall Street Journal)
  • Medical Providers Oppose Trump-Backed Health Plan (Reuters)
  • New Numbers:  Republican Health Care Plan Is Unaffordable (Time Magazine)
  • Trumpcare Could Send Seniors’ Insurance Rates Skyrocketing (The Motley Fool)
  • Health Care Bill Could Cost Oklahoma Millions (AP News)

If I were sitting in the oval office, I’d want to change the narrative.  And that’s exactly what happened.  And Rachel, you might as well have been driving the getaway car.  Yes, you tried to cover your involvement by questioning whether the White House was the source of the leaks.  Really?  You didn’t have to speculate.  ALL you had to do was practice good journalism.

You reported that the truncated tax return was passed on to you by David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist.  It would have been one thing if Johnston had told you, “A source handed it to me and I cannot reveal who that was.” Instead, Johnston admits the document just appeared out of nowhere.  If you were suspicious the return was leaked by the White House, you have to ask, “For what purpose?”

Rachel, I assume you’ve read All the President’s Men or seen the movie.  Weren’t you paying attention?  Consider the following exchange between Bob Woodward and Deep Throat.

Bob Woodward: The letter that destroyed the Muskie candidates… did that come from inside the White House?

Deep Throat: You’re missing the overall.

Bob Woodward: What overall?

Deep Throat: The people behind all of this were frightened of Muskie and that’s what got him destroyed. They wanted to run against McGovern. Look who they’re running against.

You, too, are missing the overall.  What if the White House was frightened you were getting too close to the truth?  Former Navy cryptologist and intelligence expert Malcolm Nance has said as much in several interviews.  Referring to Trump’s wiretap claims, Nance said, “This is the kind of behavior we see when a target is getting buggy. When he thinks he’s going to get caught.”

Not only did you let them change the narrative, you very likely carried their water.  Again, listen to Deep Throat when he chastises Bob Woodward for a single instance of sloppy reporting during the Watergate investigation.

You’ve done worse than let Trump (Haldeman in the original) slip away: you’ve got people feeling sorry for him. I didn’t think that was possible. In a conspiracy like this, you build from the outer edges and go step by step. If you shoot too high and miss, everybody feels more secure. You’ve put the investigation back months.

Woodward and Bernstein made up for their mistake.  Maybe Maddow can too.  But today, I’ve started looking for a new hero to carry the day.

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?  A nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

A Failure to Communicate

Media

 

In the 1967 Paul Newman vehicle Cool Hand Luke, the unnamed “Captain” (Strother Martin), who oversees the prison in which Luke resides, delivers a line which the American Film Institute (AFI) ranks #11 among its list of top 100 quotations in American cinema.

What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.

This sentence is most often employed by people who are talking past each other or, as in the case of Cool Hand Luke, one person fails to heed another’s advice or warning.  However, it is equally applicable in situations when one person or entity has access to information and opts not to share it.  Which brings us to today’s post and the failure by the corporate media of all political and ideological stripes to recognize an opportunity to disseminate unfiltered facts and objective analysis to their viewing audiences.

Let’s begin by examining the difference in viewership between cable news networks and the Sunday news shows.  It is no secret that Fox News Channel leads in the number of average daily viewers as demonstrated below for the week of February 27 thru March 5. (Source: TVNewser, March 7, 2017)

CABLE NEW NETWORK/AVERAGE DAILY AUDIENCE (in 000s)
Fox News Channel/3,474
MSNBC/1,569
CNN/1,372
HLN/285

In contrast, viewership for the Sunday network news shows on March 5 presents an entirely different picture. (Source: MediaLife Magazine, March 12, 2017)

SUNDAY NEWS SHOW/TOTAL AUDIENCE (in 000s)
NBC Meet the Press/4,128
CBS Face the Nation/3,483
ABC This Week/3,336
FOX News Sunday/1,663

Assuming viewership this past Sunday was in line with the previous week’s numbers, let’s see how the four networks chose to inform their audiences (~12.5 million Americans) about the top news story of the week, release of the Republican health care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.  This is best done by reviewing the list of guests invited by each program to address the pros and cons of the American Health Care Act.

SUNDAY NEWS SHOW/GUESTS
ABC/White House Budget Director Michael Mulvaney & Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR)
CBS/ House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) & Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
FOX/Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) & White House economic adviser Gary Cohn
NBC//HHS Secretary Tom Price & Governor John Kasich (R-Ohio)

If you were looking for someone to objectively summarize the bill and how the various provisions might affect different segments of the population, sorry, you were out of luck.  Where was a representative from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has done perhaps the most exhaustive post mortem on the GOP proposal (http://kff.org/health-reform/)?  Or practicing physicians and hospital administrators who might share the potential impacts on their patients?

Maybe the news divisions of the four major networks honestly believe talking heads, not objective analysis, equals ratings.  But emerging evidence suggests otherwise.  One example is the Rachel Maddow Show.  This morning the Associated Press (AP) reported Maddow’s audience has doubled to 2.3 million viewers compared to February, 2016.  AP attributes this increase in popularity to the following.

Maddow has decided to cover the Trump administration like a silent movie, so the show could pay more attention to what is being done rather than what is being said.

Hopefully, other news programs will take note. To paraphrase #95 on the AFI top quotations, “Carpe Diem.  Seize the day, boys.  Make your NEWS (as opposed to LIVES in the origin) extraordinary.”  (Robin Williams as John Keating in Dead Poets Society)

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

WHITE Friday

Economics, Media

 

Today, we are being exposed to just one more example of how the pro-Trumpsters are making every effort to give Agent Orange (my favorite euphemism for Donald Trump) credit before it is earned.  In this case, they are hailing Trump for the stock market bump since election day.  Conservative economists who have always warned against making long-term predictions on short-term market activity are shedding their own advice.

Consider the following example.  Steve Nicklas, a certified financial adviser who writes a weekly column for our local newspaper, included the following in today’s edition.

Despite a politically divided country, the U.S. stock market continues to reach new highs.  The markets obviously like the new administration’s prescription of lower taxes, less regulation and a stronger economy.  Even though outside businessman Donald Trump is far from your polished politician.

He references the $2.7 trillion in wealth created in the U.S. stock market since the November election.

Which brings me to the reason why I called this post, “WHITE Friday.”  Because Mr. Nicklas and other conservatives are giving the WHITE guy credit after 30 days with little acknowledgement the current bull market might just be a continuation of the momentum created by the BLACK guy’s policies and stewardship of the national economy.

To make my point, let’s look at what would have been Mr. Nicklas’ prediction if he had used similar methodology after the first 30 days of President Obama’s tenure in office.  On November 4, 2008, the day Obama was elected president, the Dow Jones industrial average (DJIA) closed at 9,625.28.  On February 30, 2009, 30 days after the inauguration, the benchmark index stood at 7,365.76.  According to Mr. Nicklas’ logic, the markets were responding negatively to the Obama program.

There are just two problems with that analysis.  One, the DJIA on February 20 was a snapshot in time of a trend which had begun on September 3, 2008 when the DJIA closed at a high of 11,532.88.  If I remember correctly, George W. Bush occupied the White House when the trend began.  Second, and equally important, the stimulus package designed to kickstart a tanking economy had not yet been implemented. So anyone making a prediction about the stock market based on the same time frame Mr. Niklas is using today would NEVER have imagined the DIJA would close at 19,804.72 on January 19, 2017, Obama’s last full day in office.

So, to be fair, let’s wait and see where the market stands on Donald Trump’s last full day in office regardless of whether we are talking about eight years, four years or something even less.  He has proposed another round of supply-side economics which has historically proven to yield long-term negative returns at both the national and state levels.  Like Bush 43 who turned low employment and a budget surplus into the worst recession since the Great Depression, Trump has the same opportunity to undermine a 4.7 percent unemployment rate and 75 consecutive months of job growth.  Need we remind Mr. Niklas lower taxes and deregulation were exactly what precipitated the great recession?

So let’s hold the praise until (1) Trump actually does something and (2) we see what impact it actually has.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

The Old Switcheroo

Media, Politics


Longtime Seinfeld fans will recognize the title of this post.  On the sit-com’s January 5, 1995 episode, Jerry finds his current girlfriend’s roommate more appealing and asks George to help him find a way to make “the switch.”  George replies:

Do you realize in the entire history of western civilization no one has successfully accomplished the Roommate Switch? In the Middle Ages you could get locked up for even suggesting it!

no-nbcDespite this warning, NBC and its subsidiaries believe they can achieve the impossible.  After two years of aiding and abetting the normalization of Donald Trump, NBC is trying to switch roommates.  After spending 2016 and the transition in bed with Trump supporters, they are now trying to court the resistance.  Sorry NBC, too little, too late.

Chuck Todd  is being praised for his tough questioning of Stephan Miller last Sunday on Meet the Press and enabler-in-residence Matt Lauer tried to display his newly discovered journalist cajones during an interview with court jester Kellyanne Conway following the Flynn resignation.  Nice try, but none of this would have been necessary without NBC’s role in creating the Trump White House of Cards. Consider the following.

  • As chronicled in the September 8, 2016 issue of Fortune magazine, NBC literally rescued the Trump brand. Tarnished by casino bankruptcies and declining sales of Trump products and their properties, NBC offered Trump a television show (The Apprentice) that “would let Trump remake himself as he saw fit.”  Using manufactured situations and extensive editing, Trump was presented as a knowledgeable and decisive business leader to a whole new audience.
  • When behind the scenes rumors about The Apprentice host’s misogyny and prejudice became an issue following release of the Access Hollywood video, NBC was asked to provide outtakes which would either confirm or repudiate the gossip.  NBC accurately replied producer Mark Burnett owned the rights to the show, but added incorrectly the decision whether to share the raw footage was out of their control.  Wrong!  NBC could have given Burnett an ultimatum.  Share the video or cancel future seasons of his show.  Instead, NBC gave him cover.
  • The free rides provided by MSNBC’s Morning Joe are too voluminous to chronicle in a single post.  It all began on September 4, 2015.  This was the first time Trump was allowed to call-in an interview with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.  The conversation lasted over 24 minutes and consisted mainly of Trump repeating his stump speech talking points. Keep in mind, at this time, Trump was still being paid by NBC as executive producer of The Celebrity Apprentice.
  • On November 5, 2015, NBC handed Trump a 90 minute infomercial as host of Saturday Night Live.
  • On July 18, 2016, the Golf Channel (owned by NBC) handed Trump a second 60 minute infomercial when he was the only guest on that night’s edition of Feherty.
  • On September 7, 2106, Lauer hosted what was billed as the “Commander-in-Chief Forum” on NBC during which he did not fact-check Trump’s responses to his softball questions and, in contrast, devoted 15 of 30 minutes of his time with Hillary Clinton to her emails.
  • On September 16, 2016, Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon soft-pedaled an interview with the Republican nominee including a “hair-rub” and faked, prolonged laughter at one of the guest’s clearly scripted jokes.  (NOTE:  Karma is a bitch.  For the week of February 6-10, 2017, CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert, unofficial after hours spokesperson for the resistance, topped all competitors with an average of 3.01 million viewers.)
  • Following the election, NBC raided Fox News (aka the Trump echo chamber, although it is hard to figure out who is echoing whom) hiring long time Fox hosts Megan Kelly (January 3, 2017) and Greta Van Susteren (January 5, 2017).
  • The latest MSNBC ad campaign for Morning Joe promotes the program as a direct line to the news about the Trump administration.  I can only imagine what the meaning of “direct line” is.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.  Saturday Night Live and Seth Meyer’s “Closer Look” on Late Night have become major thorns in Donald Trump’s side.  And I must admit, I am addicted to both.  But I watch them on Hulu Plus, commercial-free.  Just as GrabYourWallet.org tells us how the resistance can vote with its dollars by boycotting Trump products and the retailers which offer them, I refuse to do anything which might line the pockets of Trump’s co-conspirators.

So, like Jerry Seinfeld, I’m not into the ménage. But NBC seems to think it can have it’s Kellyanne and eat it too.  My advice to NBC.  Just eat it.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP