Kudos to Michelle Wolf for Best Speech Ever at Tonight’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Just a brief post to record my appreciation of Michelle Wolf’s appropriately expletive-laden keynote address at the White House Correspondents Dinner tonight.

And kudos to CNN for broadcasting it unmaligned by bleeps and cuts. That in itself is a wonderful expression of freedom of speech - not to mention emergence from infantile journalism, which most media suffer from.

I have no idea what MSNBC and Fox News did, but I bet they went the cravenly bleep route, rather than airing Wolf’s words just as she spoke them.

Those words were not only funny but true - or especially funny because they were true - and that makes this speech on CNN a great day for America, sanity, and freedom.

Note added 30 April 2018: Some additional thoughts on Wolf's important address, in my quote (scroll down) in Helen Ubiñas's article, In Defense of Being Mean, in The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

A Tale of Two Tickers

I didn't bother to take photos of this, but I couldn't help notice the slightly different headlines or tickers MSNBC and CNN attached to their coverage of  Republicans bowing and scraping around Trump about his "leadership" in getting the destructive new tax bill done:

MSNBC: "GOP lavishes praise on Trump"

CNN:  "GOP heaps praise on Trump"

Since when did MSNBC become so genteel? CNN is probably more entitled to be angry at Trump than is MSNBC - after all, CNN was the first to be called out as fake news by Trump bellowing at a news conference, almost  a year ago in January 2017 - but I'd give the edge on the more accurate headline to CNN anyway.

I left the TV screen before I had a chance to see how Fox characterized this. Anyone know? Maybe, "GOP gives long overdue praise to President"?

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Why Net Neutrality Should Be Repealed

I think it's time to mention again why net neutrality should be repealed, and for that matter, the FCC should be put out of business. Both are violations of the First Amendment and its proscriptions on government regulation of media ("Congress shall make no law").

I've been making this point for a few years, already, but it never has had more relevance than in this day and age, with someone in the White House who would love carte blanche control over all media.

How much more evidence of the danger of government controlled media do we need?  Trump almost daily rants about how real media such as CNN are purveyors of "fake news," which, in Trump-speak, amounts to anything he finds unwelcome.  He just this week moved to prevent the merger of Time Warner and AT&T, unless Time Warner divested itself of CNN, which could well put the pioneering all-news cable network out of business, or at least hinder its operation.

The notion that if net neutrality is abolished, all of us will be prevented from reading and writing and watching what we want online is not true, anyway.  Everyone was doing just fine before net neutrality was adopted by the FCC just a few years ago, under Barack Obama's urging.  That was in June 2015.  Were any of deleterious consequences of no net neutrality - individuals or small companies being locked out of the Internet, or crippled by glacially slow service - in effect then?   They weren't, and that's because the anti-trust laws - collusion of huge corporations to the detriment of individuals - were in full effect, then, administered by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission, not unconstitutional like the FCC), and the FTC will continue to do that job if net neutrality is eliminated.

But even if net neutrality were desirable, the price we would pay by weakening the First Amendment would be far too high.  Our freedom of expression, and thereby our freedom, has never been under greater attack.  Now is the time to get keep governmental regulation as far away as possible from our essential media lifelines.   We shouldn't let the fact that Trump wants to do away with net neutrality blind us to the fact that such an action would be a good way of limiting his attempts to punish media not to his liking.

Why the Government Should Always Keep Its Hands Off Media

The news that the Trump administration is suing to block the merger of AT& T and Time Warner - presumably stemming from Trump's pique over CNN's truthful reporting of news about Trump, which he deems to be "fake news" (CNN has long been part of Time Warner) - is unsurprising, and sadly demonstrates a point I've been making for decades: the government should keep its hands entirely off media, including not bringing to bear anti-trust laws.

I was never much in favor of anti-trust laws, anyway - the marketplace is a better regulator of business than the government - but when applied to businesses that have nothing or not much to do with communication, they are not unconstitutional.   In the case of media, any attempt to regulate - whether its content, its corporate structure, any aspect of media - is a blatant violation of the First Amendment, and its provision that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."

And even when well-intended, such anti-trust laws are unnecessary when applied to media.  As I argued in my 1998 article in The Industry Standard - "Leave Poor Microsoft Alone" (not my title) - all the handwringing over Microsoft dominating the personal computing industry back then was not needed, and ignorant of media evolution.   As I point out in my Human Replay: A Theory of the Evolution of Media, history has shown that we humans bend media to what we want as consumers, not what corporations may try to dictate.  And sure enough, as the hue-and-cry against Microsoft in the late 1990s was reaching a crescendo, Apple was already on the way to staging a comeback with their rehire of Steve Jobs - a comeback which reversed the dominance of Microsoft, and left Apple in the powerful position it still has today.

The bottom line of all this is the Founding Fathers were right in what they put in the First Amendment.  For democracy to function well, government should have zero control of media - zero, whether Trump, Clinton, Obama, anyone in between.  (Which, by the way, is why I'm also no fan of so-called net neutrality.)

Abject Stupidity of Bank of America and Delta Airlines in Withdrawing Support from New York Public Theater

One of the stupidest, saddest pieces of news in the past week was Bank of America and Delta Airlines withdrawing their sponsorship of the New York Public Theater's production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar because ... the production presented Caesar with an orange, Trump-like wig, and, the corporations claimed, glorified Caesar/Trump's assassination.

The people at Bank of America and Delta Airlines are obviously stupid, or maybe ignorant is the better word, because Julius Caesar is not the villain (note to Bank of America and Delta - "villain" means "bad guy") in the play with his name, and neither is his killing glorified.  To the contrary, Caesar is the victim, and the villains - not the heroes - are the Senators who stab him to death, most especially the conflicted Brutus.  His assassination is presented not as something to be done or emulated, but avoided, if only because it is the undoing of the people who plot to do it and do it. That's the essence of the play.   Don't they educate executives at big corporations any more?

But their withdrawal of support for the NY Public Theater is also sad, because it follows the cowardly actions of CNN in firing Kathy Griffin and cancelling Reza Aslan's documentary series because of their criticism of the President.   Is this the society we've become, in which we can't tolerate politically lacerating humor (Griffin), cursing out a President (Aslan) - and, by the way, both did this not on CNN's air but their own time - and political commentary in art (NY Public Theater)?

People who believe in freedom of expression should do something about this.   I decided last week to watch CNN now about as often as I watch Fox News - almost never.   Fortunately, I don't bank with Bank of America, and I'm certainly not going to start.  As for Delta, I've flown with them many times, but now I don't intend to do that again.

Americans should stand up and call out these crypto fascists, wherever they rear their heads.

The Cowardice of CNN

Yesterday brought the news that CNN cancelled Reza Aslan's documentary series, Believer, after Aslan tweeted that Donald Trump was "a piece of shit".  This makes the second time in as many weeks that CNN cancelled a program or fired a host because of what it deemed as unacceptable behavior off of CNN.  The first case was the firing of Kathy Griffin after she held up a severed, bloody head of Trump in a political comedy routine.

In Aslan's case, he was replying to a series of Trump tweets which attacked the Muslim Mayor of London after typically misreading or misunderstanding what the Mayor said after a brutal terrorist attack on London.  Trump continued with a reiteration for the need of his Muslim ban.

Trump could and should have been called a lot worse than "a piece of shit" for this and many of the other things he has done or attempted to do as President.  I could understand if CNN had a policy prohibiting that use of language on its air - which use, by the way, is in no sense illegal - but CNN has every ethical right to regulate what it broadcasts.

But cancelling a series because its creator tweeted something under his own name - something CNN didn't find to its liking?  A creator who was not a journalist or a reporter, but a documentary TV maker? Reporters are supposed to be objective.  Makers of documentaries are supposed to have a point of view, the sharper the better.

The cancelation of Aslan's series, after it had been renewed,  represents a dangerous precedent, especially when preceded by the firing of Kathy Griffin for the severed head.  We live in a country in which vigorous criticism is more necessary than ever, with a President who lies and insults and misrepresents almost every time he opens his mouth.  Rather than punishing and de facto censoring people in its operation who speak up for the truth, CNN should be standing behind them, and expressing its pride in giving a forum for such brave and truthful communicators.

As it is, CNN and its cowardice has become part of the problem, rather than its solution or remedy.

Is MSNBC Losing Its Mind?

For the second time in as many weeks, right in the middle of a late hour with its election night coverage, MSNBC suddenly switched from live coverage to reruns of earlier coverage.

What's going on?   Why suddenly knock out coverage - in tonight's case, before the returns from Alaska were even complete - without so much as an announcement that live coverage would be ending?

The switch felt so abrupt that it almost felt as if a plug had been pulled, or a switch turned off, accidentally.   But how could that have happened twice?  Sabotage by a disgruntled employee?

The sad thing is that MSNBC has been struggling to move up from its third place behind Fox News and CNN, and it offers a savvy line-up of political analysts.

I can only hope the culprit or whatever or whoever is causing this is discovered, and rooted out of this operation.   In the meantime, for the rest of this exciting political night, I'll be watching CNN.

I'm Glad Brian Williams Will Be Back on Television

That's right, I'm glad Brian Williams will be back on MSNBC, where he started, rather than being exiled from news reporting and anchoring forever.

I get that he did something wrong in his braggadocio misremembering of several news events of which he was not a part.  But that wasn't as bad, as, say, the racist comments made by Imus on the radio a decade ago, or even Dan Rather's misreporting of the George W. Bush evasion-of-the-draft story, if indeed that was misreporting.  But Brian Williams' exaggerations were not a misreporting of a news story, just of his own direct involvement in it.  And although people who tell us the news should be held to a higher standard of truth-telling than the average person, it's worth noting that exaggerations of personal experiences are as common as saying you loved a popular movie when you slept through it, as in fact at least one famous movie critic was reported as frequently having done.

As for MSNBC, they can use all the help they can get.  Despite their highly intelligent and articulate anchors - especially in the evening - they've been consistently in last place in the Fox, CNN, MSNBC lineup for a while now.  They were outrightly dumb to get rid of Keith Olbermann, the most energetic, iconoclastic person ever on their air.  And the tick-like constant reference to their "Pulse" statistics - to show what their viewers are thinking - is a drag on more than one of their shows.   But whatever its problem, MSNBC will be well-served with Brian Williams and his sage, incisive, sometimes satirical analysis -- especially with the 2016 Presidential campaign already in gear, and William's astute political sense.

Rachel Maddow, the best person on MSNBC and for that matter on any news network, last night took a point of personal privilege and said how happy she was that Brian Williams was returning and being given a second chance.  I couldn't agree more. Now, if MSNBC got back Olbermann, I'd bet at least even money that they'd overtake at least CNN once again,

Cowardly Republican Party Threatens NBC and CNN

Did you see this?  The Republican National Committee has threatened NBC and CNN - the RNC will veto any Presidential debates held on NBC and CNN, if the two networks go ahead with their plans to air a mini-series and a movie about Hillary Clinton.  Reince Priebus, RNC Chair (to my science fictional eyes, the name sounds like he comes from some villainous planet in the Foundation series), says that he thinks airing the Clinton shows will give her an unfair advantage in the 2016 Presidential election.   Pressing the networks is villainous enough in itself - a heavy-handed attempt to regulate the free flow of information in our country.

The threat is also clueless.   Hillary Clinton is already world-famous whether she runs for President in 2016 or not.  As a former First Lady, former Senator from the great state of New York, close contender in the 2008 Democratic Presidential primary, and most recently Secretary of State, her life already has ample accomplishment and profile for the making of all kinds of movies and TV shows.   Priebus, desperate, is just doing what he can to limit the public's knowledge of an iconic figure who will continue to be iconic and better-known than any Republican candidate regardless of these dramatizations.

I try to be even-handed when I criticize politicians and parties about their interference with dissemination of information.   For example, Democrats like Chuck Schumer have been as dangerously wrong as his Republican counterparts in his caterwauling about Edward Snowden being a threat to national security.   But the Republicans still have the stage all to themselves when it comes to misunderstanding a media situation, and calling for de facto censorship.   Here's my advice to the GOP: try coming up with policies that Americans like, and stop trying to win elections by badgering the media.

Evaluating Traditional and Social Media in Boston Bombing Reporting

I was interviewed this morning on KNX1070 Radio and earlier in the week by AP and USA Today and college radio stations about the media coverage - including errors - of the Boston bombings and the hunt for suspects, and thought I'd share what I said in the interviews here.

First, we need to distinguish between traditional mass media and social media (or what I call new new media) and the intersecting ways in which they covered the story.

The big flub in traditional media was the reporting on Wednesday by CNN and other outlets that the two suspects had been arrested.  This turned out to be false.  And since some news operations - such as MSNBC - refrained from reporting this, CNN and the others came in for much criticism.

At least three points, however, need to be kept in mind regarding what happened with the traditional media.

One, the media are always caught between the conflicting goals of getting the news out as quickly as possible and making sure the news reported is accurate.  The public wants both, and is entitled to both.  Further, people in times of crisis do better with more information - being kept in the dark, or feeling you don't know what's going on in life-and-death situations, is a prescription for high anxiety and jumping to all kinds of wrong conclusions.

The second is that John King on CNN who first went public with the wrong information that arrests were made obviously didn't just make this up.  He reported what he had been told by law enforcement.  So, the blame for this incorrect reporting resides at least as much as with law enforcement, which gave King the erroneous information.

And third, and most important, the incorrect reporting in no way impeded the bringing of the two brothers to justice.  

How did social media do in the past week?

The big error occurred on Reddit, and its crowd-sourced identification, based on the photos of the suspects, of two people as the bombers who in fact had nothing to do with the bombing.  This error was compounded by the unfortunate fact that one of the two people wrongly identified was a student missing from Brown University, whose family was already worried about him.   And the error was technologically compounded by its dissemination on Twitter.

On the other hand, crowd-sourcing was crucial in bringing the real bombers to justice, as the public responded with their own photos after the FBI's somewhat blurry photos released on Thursday.   The ubiquity of cameras in phones is making it increasingly impossible for criminals who strike in public to remain anonymous.

So social media, like traditional media, get less than perfect grades for their performance in the past week.  But, on the whole, both helped far more than they hurt.  Traditional media did for the most part keep the public accurately informed during this crucial time, and social media crowd-sourcing played a crucial role in apprehending the suspects.

And regarding the wrong information, we were made aware once again of a truth about all reporting, traditional as well as social media, that we should always keep in mind:  don't believe everything you see and hear from any journalist, whether professional or citizen, whether on CNN or MSNBC or Reddit or Wikipedia.   Take everything with a grain of salt.   Don't accept it as truth unless and until it is confirmed by all sources.   In that way, a wrong report's damage can be limited, and we can reap the benefits of being the best informed people in history, as did this past week with the reporting from Boston.

On Last Night's Biden Success in the VP Debate

Republicans have been whining all day that Joe Biden "bullied" Paul Ryan in last night's VP debates, and, when the Vice President wasn't doing that, he was grinning inappropriately.  I can well understand such Republican discomfort.  Both actions of Biden - the interruptions and the smiles - were responses to the fountain of Republican lies.   Indeed, it was President Obama's lack of forceful response to such lies last week that damaged him and his positions in that debate.

If anything, even Biden wasn't forceful enough.   When Ryan explained his position on abortion, he allowed that he would not ban them in cases of rape, incest, or where the life of the mother was at stake.  Had Biden asked Ryan how could Ryan then have sponsored the personhood amendment - which, if followed to its logical conclusion that human life commences in its entirety at birth would lead to bans on all abortions - even with that question, Biden would not have been bullying.  He would have been engaging in the noble pursuit of getting at the truth.

Harry Truman famously said, when asked if he would give Republicans hell, that he would speak the truth, and to Republicans that would be hell.  To Republicans today, speaking the truth to them - on women's rights, on the economy, on foreign affairs (here's a list of "24 myths in 90 minutes" told by Ryan last night) - is perceived as bullying. 

Meanwhile, Biden's nonverbal behavior - his smiles and expressions - was also fine.  If anything, once again, a smile is a polite way of responding to a bald-faced lie.   What would Republicans have preferred?  That Biden with a scowl on his face denounced Ryan every time Ryan misrepresented the Democratic positions and the facts - such as unemployment in fact decreasing - and even Republican positions at times?

We move on now to the next Presidential debate, on Tuesday night.  The only thing lacking in last night's debate was that it was the Vice President not the President confronting the Republican misrepresentations.  President Obama will have a crucial opportunity to correct that on Tuesday.

PS: All of the initial polls save one had Biden as the winner of last night's debate.  The one that did not was CNN's - which, it turns out, was based on a sample that had more Republicans than Democrats, which does not accurately reflect the greater number of Democratic registered voters in the country.   CNN had an obligation to immediately and prominently report the basis of its poll results - the skewed nature of its sample.  That CNN did not, until later the next day (today), was unprofessional - and not in the interests of our democracy and the current election.

MSNBC's Olympic Gamble

MSNBC has already begun its Olympic programming, with pre-Olympic coverage for most of the day prior to 6pm this week.  When the actual games start, there will be no regular MSNBC programming until Rev. Al Sharpton at 6pm and then continuing with Hardball, Ed, Rachel Maddow, and The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell for the rest of the evening.

Why is MSNBC putting its regular daytime programming - and the superb Up With Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris Perry on weekends as well - on the shelf?  MSNBC expects the Olympics to draw big audiences, as they have in the past.  That's a safe bet.  But MSNBC also has a long range strategy at play here - they're hoping that some of the new viewers who come by to see the Olympics will stay for Rev. Al, Hardball, and the rest of evening.

This could happen.  But the reverse is also already at play.  The Cycle, struggling to find its footing in the afternoon, has not been on MSNBC the past few days.  I watched whatever was on CNN.  How many other news junkies, accustomed to leaning forward on MSNBC, will lean away to another news source during MSNBC's daytime Olympic coverage?   And will those people equal or outnumber the new viewers who come for the Olympics and stay?

It's a gamble.  And were I calling the shots, I wouldn't take it.  MSNBC has struggled long and hard to surpass CNN and get in second place in the 24/7 cable news races.  I would double down on the news, and leave the daytime Olympic coverage to some other NBC division, like NBC itself.

Why CNN and Fox Wrongly Reported the Supreme Court Health Care Ruling

The initially incorrect reporting by Fox and CNN of the US Supreme Court health care ruling yesterday will go down in history and long be cited in journalism courses along with Dewey beating Truman in 1948 according to the infamous Chicago Tribune banner headline and other examples of premature breaking news.  It was the most enjoyable part of the ruling other than the ruling itself.

But why did this happen?  The superficial answer, true enough, is that neither Fox nor CNN read far enough in Chief Justice Roberts' opinion to see he was upholding the mandate in the Affordable Health Care law as a tax, after rejecting its constitutionality under the commerce clause.

But there are deeper reasons.

CNN has fallen to a weak third place in the 24/7 all-news cable line-up.  It attracts not only the lowest number of viewers but likely staff and interns at all levels who would rather be someplace else.  Marshall McLuhan observed this sinking ship phenomenon in media when major newspapers began going on strike in the 1960s - they were going on strike, temporarily shutting down, McLuhan noted, as prelude to their permanent shut down, because fewer people were reading them, anyway.  Lack of audience and lack of production acumen feed one another in a vicious, downward, mutually destructive cycle. McLuhan not only saw the decline of newspapers in response to the screens of television, but accurately foresaw their decline in response to 21st century social media, which are now also challenging cable.

CNN is not about to shut down, but it is already in this cycle of decline, and needs to take special care not to feed it.

Fox, still in first place in cable news land, made the miscall for a very different reason.   Fox, despite its "fair and balanced" moniker, has long seen and reported the world through right-wing glasses.   Its top talent - Shep Smith, Bret Baier, and even Bill O'Reilly - can and do have independent views.  But its staff at all levels wears ideological blinders.  Fox not only misread the Supreme Court decision by stopping too soon in its reading, but likely did that because that's what the Fox people who did the reading wanted it to say.   They read as much as they needed to confirm their hopes.  Seeing support for one's views can be a powerful source of distortion when encountering new material.

I suppose the same could be said for MSNBC, which didn't want to see the ruling strike down Obamacare and reported the ruling correctly.   On the other hand, Pete Williams, who brought the opinion to MSNBC air, is one of the sharpest legal reporters in the business.  Given the decline of CNN and the ideology of Fox, it is unlikely he'd be anywhere other than reporting for MSNBC.

MSNBC Cuts Away from Zimmermam Attorney Resignation

Unbelievably, MSNBC cut away from George Zimmerman's attorneys, as they were explaining to a press conference why they were resigning from the case.  Back to Dylan Ratigan and his planned concluding segment.  Fortunately, CNN provided continuing coverage (I didn't check about Fox).

MSNBC is thus continuing its amateuristic approach to news programming.   When news of the Mumbai massacre broke on the Thanksgiving weekend several years ago, MSNBC offered canned documentaries about prison life.  They still switch to prison coverage at 10pm every Friday - as if no real news happens after that time.

Two bright spots are the four new hours of sharp, intelligent commentary by Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris Perry every Saturday and Sunday.  But as today's poor performance in covering a live press conference about one of the most important stories of the year shows, MSNBC still has a ways a to go.

John King Fails to Ask Santorum Crucial Follow-up Question in CNN Debate

The point just came in the CNN Republican Presidential debate in which moderator John King asked Rick Santorum about his views against birth control.

Santorum gave a long answer, mostly about the large number of children born out of wedlock, how they are so often in poverty, and how that was ruining our country.   He decried children born to children (teens).

A follow-up that asked Santorum if he realized that contraception would help with that problem was logical and necessary.  Why, indeed, then, are you against contraception, King should have asked Santorum.  

But no such question was forthcoming.

Questions from the audience in these debates are often boring.  But this kind of questioning - or lack of questioning - from a professional journalist moderator was plain and simply incompetent.

CNN Distorts Ron Paul Interview

I should have known better.  When I saw Ron Paul stalk off after a few questions from Gloria Borger about the racist statements published under his name in his newsletter in the late 1980s / early 1990s, I should have suspected that there might well have been more to the interview.

I of all people should have known this, given that I gave a 45-minute lecture to my class at Fordham University in September 2007 about the mass media's misreporting of Ron Paul in the last Presidential campaign (see video below) - about how ABC and Fox, especially, cropped pictures, left Ron Paul out of poll reports, and committed other lies of omission in their coverage.

But, instead of suspecting CNN, as I should have, I simply assumed that what I saw on the screen was true.  I even commented on Facebook that Ron Paul should have talked more about the offensive newsletters, rather than abruptly terminating the interview.

And it turns out that's exactly what he did.  The bright spot in our media world, as I point in New New Media, is that we need no longer rely on the mass media as our sole source of information.  As Mediaite - itself a new new media site where you can see the uncut interview, and compare it to what CNN aired - aptly notes, the Daily Paul and Reddit brought the truth of this interview to everyone's attention (and thanks to my friend Michael Papagermanos for bringing this to my attention on Facebook about an hour ago).   Indeed, the complete interview not only shows Ron Paul giving Borger a full and repeated explanation of his views about the racist passages in his newsletters, but also has a clear and cogent an analysis as ever I've heard from Ron Paul (or anyone) about the dangers of going to war without the Declaration of War required by our Constitution - something I've been pointing out since the Vietnam War in the 1960s, and has been the case for every "war," beginning with the Korean War, that we've waged since World War II (the last legally waged war).  But Ron Paul's words about this, too, wound up on CNN's proverbial cutting room floor.

No one expects any television channel to air every second of an interview it tapes.  Cutting is an intrinsic and necessary part of television and radio news, just as editing is in the press.  But deceitful cutting - editing which distorts what the interviewee says, and therefore misleads the viewer - is most certainly not.

Such deceitful reporting is not only an attack on Ron Paul, but on all Americans and our democratic system of government.  The media are given special protections and status under the First Amendment - which, as my readers know, I've spent a lifetime vigorously supporting.  But the media also have a responsibility to report the truth, and not undermine our electoral process by cutting interviews to give wrong impressions.   Media that distort are worse than useless.   They are dangerous affronts to our freedom.

Don Lemon, Al Sharpton, and the Media's Reporting of Michael Jackson

I just saw Don Lemon defending CNN's coverage of Michael Jackson, in response to Al Sharpton's criticism that the media have been much more negative in their reporting of Jackson's death than they were in coverage of Elvis and Frank Sinatra's passing.

Lemon's response that the media covered controversial aspects of Elvis and Sinatra may be be true, but they were more along the lines of footnotes to the lives of the great singers, rather than the questions about Jackson's life that have been trumpeted in just about every report I've seen about him. The fact is that we do not yet know if drugs caused his death - the autopsy report has not yet come in - and Jackson was acquitted of child molestation charges in his 2005 trial. Sharpton is right that these issues are receiving undue attention.

More important, the media should not be in the business of defending itself against criticism of its coverage. We look to the media for news and information, not self-righteous defense of what it chooses to cover. If Sharpton has a critique of the media's coverage of Michael Jackson's life and death, and CNN wants to report that critique, fine. But we don't need to see Don Lemon then say, hey, I don't know if Sharpton was talking about CNN or other media, but CNN has been reporting just fine about Michael Jackson.

In short, the media should report on the world, not report on its reporting, and certainly not give us report cards on its reporting.

Obama's Press Conference: Speaking When He Knows What He's Talking About

I thought the high point - in terms of communication policy - of President Obama's press conference, just concluded, was his response to a jibe from CNN's Ed Henry about why Obama took a few days to express his outrage over the AIG bonuses. Obama's response: "It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."

Good for Obama - refreshing in a President and a politician.

Obama also showed an admirable sensitivity in his answer about adult vs embryonic stem cell research: he takes no pleasure in stirring up controversy. If and when science can provide through adult stem cells, what it currently can through embryonic, then Obama would be happy to go the adult stem cell route - as would everyone.

As for the economy, Obama stood his ground about not sacrificing health care, new energy sources, and other key steps to a better America, on behalf of keeping spending down.

And, although Obama didn't explicitly say this, I will: balancing the budget is not the most important goal of the Federal government. Instead, as FDR and John Maynard Keynes realized, and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has been repeatedly urging, the goal should be to spend as much money as needed to reboot the economy. Once that happens - as Obama did say - then all the other financial problems, including the budget deficit, will be more easily resolved.

The United States of America, after all, is neither an individual nor a company. Not even a municipality. We have never gone bankrupt, nor will we - unless we allow the country to get browbeaten by pursuit of balanced budgets.

It's Not HBO - It's A Quantum of Solace

Just back from Quantum of Solace - it was far better than some of the critics have been saying, but not as good Daniel Craig's first James Bond, Casino Royale, in 2006. There's not much in the way of gadgets, though MI6 has some cool thing which looks a lot like CNN's Magic Wall. And no real puns - about the closest we get of that is James telling a man on shore, "she's seasick," as he hands over an unconscious Camille he carries off the boat. But A Quantum of Solace has more than a quantum of humanity - of James Bond as not just a killing machine, but a human killing machine. Craig's killer, unlike Moore's and Brosnan's, tempers his performance with an underlying everyman soul, not flippant humor. As was the case in Casino Royale, Craig's Bond seems most like Sean Connery's, but Craig's is more vulnerable. The story this time is barely a story on it own - more a continuation of Casino than a story of its own - and that's mostly, I think, because the villain, Dominic, is second rate. No Blofeld, of course, but not even Le Chiffre from Casino Royale, who had great quirks and was a fine match for James in both cards and killing. But Dominic and the storyline worked ok, anyway, because what this movie was mostly about was Bond and his developing relationship with M, who has the best line of the movie ("I don't give a shit about the CIA," delivered only as Judy Dench can). Why was this low-key story ok for the 2nd Craig Bond? Because this rendition of James Bond, here at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, feels more like a series on HBO or Showtime, than what the Bond movies were throughout all of their earlier renditions. And as I've said many times, television can be a great medium. 

See also The New James Bond - Without the Golden Pun

---

 The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

MSNBC Runs Canned "Doc Bloc" As Mumbai Burns

I was just looking for a few minutes at MSNBC. You know what they were reporting? Nothing, really. From 6-8PM, and who knows how much longer today, MSNBC had on its canned "Caught on Camera," with footage of events that happened years ago.

Over on CNN, Wolf Blizter in the Situation Room was doing a superb job of reporting on the Mumbai Massacre, with interviews of survivors, discussion of what this means for world security with former Secretary of Defense William Cohen and other terrorism experts, and detailed information on the heart-rending story of Brooklyn Rabbi Gabriel Holzberg and his wife, murdered along with three other Jewish people at the Chabad Lubavitch. His two-year old had escaped with their brave housekeeper. Canadian Jonathan Ehrlich, who managed to escape from another one of the terrorist targets, one of the attacked hotels, also gave a poignant interview on CNN.

Fox News did an ok job of reporting, as well, on the still ongoing September 11th for India - though I did spot a rerun of O'Reilly on Fox tonight.

But what can MSNBC have been thinking? They have wasted our time, and driven away viewers interested in real news, for years with their "doc-blocs". They had the good sense in the recently concluded coverage of the 2008 Presidential campaign to greatly expand their political coverage. But who at programming was asleep at the switch at MSNBC today?

MSNBC will never maintain a leading position as a cable news source, or even be taken seriously, if they put "Caught on Camera" or any doc-bloc programming ahead of covering ongoing world catastrophes.

Added December 1, 2008: Check out and join, if you like, the Facebook group I just created: Stop the Doc Bloc on MSNBC. Wield the power of new new media to change television!

See also similar sentiments by Lionel on Air America and David Zurawik at the Baltimore Sun.

Added December 29, 2009: See also Media Coverage and Government Response to Terrorism in the Christmas Skies and MSNBC criticized on coverage