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Get into a dignified line of work, he says. Go into TV journalism, and you’ll never have to be harassed or humiliated like, you know, a hedge fund guy. (Photo by Vito Fun/Flickr)
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away, we were young, and journalists. We thought of ourselves as initiates in a brotherhood (which it was, mostly, then, the sisters came later), followers of a calling, and most importantly members of a profession.
A profession, according to the dictionary, is an occupation “that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification.” We were never big on the “formal qualification” part — although we had to have an FCC licence to put our hands on the controls of a broadcasting station — but we did train. For many years I spent hours each week being grilled on the word choices in my scripts (Lewis, have you no idea of the difference between continuous and continual?”) and my pronunciation of them (“Lewis, I did not hear any sub-guttural value in that initial G, and where was the labial stop at the end of ‘ship’?”)
We thought of ourselves as doctors to the body politic, lancing the boils of ignorance, quieting the fears of the afflicted by dispensing the balm of objective information. We did this without fear or favor, resisting fiercely any interference in our judgments by crass commercial or political interests — you know, like for example the owners of the stations we worked for. Seriously. We called it separation of church and state, and we believed that the ethics of truth, justice and the American Way could withstand the power of cash. Did I mention we were young?
Our high priest was Edward R. Murrow. Who brought down Senator Joseph McCarthy, and not long thereafter saw his work for television sidelined to make way for quiz shows such as The $64,000 Question. In a valedictory address made shortly before departing from the airwaves (the very year that I read my first on-air newscasts), Murrow laid it out:
“[If] this instrument [television] is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck.”
The struggle, of course, was already lost. We all soon realized, simply by taking note of who got fired and who got promoted, that the purpose of journalism was to get ratings. Cleavage and short skirts got ratings: The “weather girl” of yore was soon joined by the anchor babe. Bleeding, weeping and gnashing of teeth got ratings: “If it bleeds, it leads,” became the rule. Training? Diction? Ethics? Gedoudahere.
It’s hard to see how the degradation of a once honorable profession could go much further. At least it was, until Trump.
But there are other paving stones on the road to journalistic hell that have been little noticed or discussed. Once, “news” by definition meant an objective account of what happened. News accounts were supposed to be free of bias, opinion, even interpretation — that’s why there were editorials and columns.
Increasingly, however, turning or clicking on the news has come to resemble more and more a visit to a fortune teller’s tent. It’s all about what the President is going to say, how the election is going to come out, what somebody thinks is going to happen. Then when the President speaks, the votes are counted, or the happening happens, the “news” coverage is either how it did or did not “differ from expectations,” what the panel thinks of it, and/or what’s going to happen next because of it.
What’s the harm? In part it’s the continual reinforcement of an ill-informed, simplistic view of how the world works, with simple causes leading to simple effects, like the cartoonish representations of the human body used in drug ads.
The news industry is dedicated to its new guiding principals — no, not principles, principals, the guys in suits who demand more eyeballs, forbid affronts to sponsors and owners, and prefer crystal-ball gazing to reporting. And these principals insure that we know very little about the total collapse of the industrial world now in progress. For them the answer to last week’s revelations about the near total death of the Great Barrier Reef because of ocean warming, or about the stunning further collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is obvious and simple. Get Trump.
Not coincidentally, three different polls have found recently that only about 10 per cent of Americans trust the media; or believe the media do the right thing; or think they have integrity. Approximately the same number of Americans trust Congress, and think Judge Judy sits on the Supreme Court.
Good night, and good luck.
Excellent article, as is your wont, but why stop short? Was it not always E. R. Murrow’s modus operandi to dig deeper? Did not he and the estimable Mr. Cronkite ask “how,” “what,” “when,” “where” and, most importantly, “why” more often and more tenaciously than their alleged peers? In other words, how and why did the “guiding principals” become so unprincipled? Why and how did so many of their subordinate “journalists” follow suit? Additionally, what were the reasons this destruction of integrity spread throughout ALL of human endeavors, not least of which being politics? I think you know, Mr. Lewis, as do many who read or comment on these pages. Alas, I’m fairly certain that even IF the underlying malady were made widely known, little change would be suffered.
Mr. L.,
I feel it is normal, healthy, and expected for the energy and idealism of youth to clash with the corrupt sophistication of the control complex. A pot unstirred soon burns at the bottom.
Where we go wrong is in our estimation of the nature of this control complex. No young person is equipped to fully evaluate the kind of sickening scumsuckers that hold the reins. When young, and far too often when old, we provide excuses, byes, and apologies for those who should be dangling from tall trees and feeding the Ravens. Our egos get so entangled with being right, with that unquestioning certitude of righteousness.
When old we tend to look at the exploration of youth as something fleeting, ephemeral, invisible to a greater perception. To some extent this is correct, but how much of it is really a secret wish we had all that moxie with everything we are convinced we know now?
In the end any explanation of the human condition is just that, a rather feeble attempt to describe what we never invented, but live every day.
Well over the last few years I’ve tried to not respond to you and your own personal world view. As a person who seems to believe in the same “love” of one Ms. Baker while I’m one of those who had to use an extractor to remove the deeply remaining teeth she so generously embedded in my neck and back I’ll always defer to my own INFJ instincts when you contribute.
I’ve decided to call you Mr. Love, a reminder of Love Canal.
In this case you’ve contributed a very one sided and not very insightful perspective by only focusing on youth thereby seeming to infer and imply that with age comes great wisdom. Kind of similar to the Stan Lee drivel (which he’s never lived by the master of propaganda) of “with great power comes great responsibility). If only Mr. Lee would earn less and buy few Rolls Royce’s.
Well in this week alone I’m quite sharply reminded that with the coming of age one does not acquire any more deeper understanding of the world or how it functions.
I believed I shared in my previous post about the reading group I participated in here at the Forest Park Branch of the Queens Public Library right here in my neighborhood of Woodhaven (sadly as this area was one of the early transportation hubs from Long Island to the East River and the ferry which carted all the produce from Fulton Street to Manhattan it’s not been a haven for woods for well over 150 years).
I was one of the two youngest who were at the group (me being 58, the young woman left without uttering a single syllable the entire time could have been anywhere between 30 and 45). So, all these elders were more of the kind who believe they are successful (based on their bank account and the number of offspring, thank Jesus) and their well educated background which seems to allow them to praise to the high heavens such luminary publications as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the New Yorker. Not a whiff of awareness that these are shill publications whose only goal is to continue dumbing down an already stupid populace.
To a number of the people at the table the fact that their grandchildren had hair that fell over their eyes was the sign of the coming of the end times. Didn’t we already go through this in the sixties.
So, if youth is not well informed, and they are not, I concur, let’s not give a free pass to those older then them especially the vaunted and well touted New York City school teacher, with the exception of John Taylor Gatto, who has his own limitations regarding not understanding the limits to growth and what this country was founded on, who bucked the system, disgraced it, humiliated it by raising children from the poorer sections that were written off into people who could “succeed” despite all the odds against them. Gatto’s reward, the year he won NYC and NYS teacher of the year the Board of Education was focused on forcing him out of the system in 1991.
The other example of older people not having any more brains than youth is the woman who takes the MELT class with me at the gym. After years of working in corporate America helping to destroy the world (much like our own dear Mr. Perkins and his Confessions of an Economic Hitman) she’s trying to save the planet. Dhuuu!
Well, she won’t ever and wouldn’t vote for Bernie (I did, but not because I believe in the system, actually this is the first time I’ve voted for anyone in almost a decade, otherwise I vote an empty ballot just to keep me on the rolls) because just the word socialism is enough to turn her democratic, progressive, liberal soul to ice. I can’t fight ever battle so in this case I just listened.
Then she talked about the lack of journalism in the country and used (and this is twice in one week for me) the New York Times and the New Yorker as bastions of democracy and well written informed pieces. She’s in her 70s and so once again so much for the illusion that it’s all about the young being dumb.
I can’t fight every battle so in the MELT woman’s case i told her about a 7 set of DVD’s I’ve been burning and giving out over the last few years. Only Mohamed who works the food cart selling Halal food has at least watched the discs containing all the Adam Curtis documentaries and I’ve give out at least 20 sets of these discs to people who claim they want to learn. This saves me time and aggravation, but still results in sadness as it’s a case of bringing a horse to water and then even shoving his head in will not result in their drinking even if they are dehydrated and ready to die.
By the by the contents one of the discs include, one of McPherson’s Climate talks, Albert Barlett’s exponential growth talk, Jeremy Jackson Ocean Apocalypse (not rapidly out of date) all available on youtube.
And one disc contains a copy of “Escape From Suburbia” just to show people visually that I’m someone who actually did things (and even now does things, but only for myself) . Until they actually see me milking a cow they merely think I’m storytelling.
So, Mr. Kay, yes young people are not equipped, but those who teach the young are even less equipped after a lifetime of “living”.
Good Night and Good Luck indeed.
Phillip, I appreciate your perspective but not your characterization of other posters. Please, lose the invective.
Phil,
You assume much. Your invective discourse suggests a jaded disdain for your fellow man, yet your posts cry of a reaching out beyond the box your conclusions have created. In essence Phil, you can heap your abuse my way, but it will neither strengthen your world view, or alleviate your alienation.
Interesting that you mention love. This is a word easily and often thrown around to cheapen and denigrate. Love, the word inspires derision amongst those convinced they have risen above those they despise. The juicy irony Phil, is that those who stand themselves above love will long for it the most.
I love the power and passion of youth, and I love the wisdom and generosity of the aged. I hope you find what you are looking for Phil, and maybe it all depends on dropping that armor long enough to breathe.
Mr. Kay,
We are not friends nor do we know each other (although I’ve followed your postings for years). I have not given you permission to refer to me as Phil, nor do I. The name I post with is Philip. I always ask people, out or respect what they wish to be called, after all it’s their name. Obviously, in this case you haven’t been courteous to me. That would have been a loving gesture on your part.
Your opinion of me is just that an opinion and one you are entitled to. I would highly recommend you pick up a copy of the book “Difficult Conversations”and “Raising Cain: The Emotional Life of Boys”. Even a man of such advanced age as yourself can learn some new ideas and ways to interact with people such as myself. Being able to understand others is something few of us make an attempt to do as we really don’t want to invest the time and energy in learning about them.
My opinion is that for years you have used the word “love” in your postings as a weapon to brutalize and silence others. Others may find solace and comfort in what your write, but I never did and that continues especially as you’ve become the main poster on “Collapse of the Industrial Age” when Mr. Pray’ s guest posts are there.
To find out a bit more about me I invite to you obtain a copy of “Escape from Suburbia” to gain a visual of me and a barely scratching the surface of a portion of my life experience. Sadly, I wish the director had had the creativity to delve deeper into the subject as he covered our portion of the film, but he choose not to.
I’d also invite you to listen to my interview with Ms. Baker conducted in October 14, 2012. These may help you put more flesh on the bones of me you seem to have created and image of. This was during my worker coop phase, after my permaculture phase and my Eco-Village phase, when i thought there was a possible way to avoid what I had to come to accept was unavoidable.
You know nothing of what I am looking for because you failed to ask me. Had you wanted to “love” me it would have been better to engage me in a dialogue, but what I’ve written seems to have brought out more negative aspects of your personality. I can live with that. Perhaps I’m unlovable.You have made many assumptions in your response and you know what happens when you assume?
By the way. In the last two weeks I’ve yet to find a single young person who has felt that the death of the Great Barrier Reef is something they need to be concerned about, that is if they even knew about it. I must not be working the Secret and the Laws of Attraction in the correct way to bring the proper people, who are mourning this great tragedy, into my life.
By, the way even though you didn’t ask. I do not see myself as above love. I just do not really see much evidence that humans are capable of caring for other humans nor for the other species who live on this planet. I guess we’ll find out which of us is right when we get to St. Peter’s desk to gain entry to the hereafter. I may just wind up in some version of Dante’s lower levels of hell, and you might just wind up there with me. Wouldn’t that be a hoot, spending eternity together.
Phil,
You have me confused with someone else, since I have never posted on the blog you mention.
Ultimately, the issue here is the obvious self destruction of human society. Along with that, wrestling with the roles we play within it. I daresay no one has a solution, but then one must first understand the problem. Here is where I think we currently are…grasping the nature of the problem.
We all arrive here on different paths, just make sure you have the correct target before firing away.
I came at journalism from another angle. I never trained, just went with gut instinct and the burning fire of idealism you mention. When I got promoted to be an editor I think the actual ‘trained’ journalists hated it. I’m not saying I knew it all, and I came at it from a somewhat idealistic angle – which is why I didn’t last long.
The ‘news’ in Britain isn’t much better. They act like a herd of lemmings rushing from one cliff to another playing follow the leader. Even the once-esteemed BBC dances to the tune of a neoliberal agenda and has two modes of operation namely a) Cater to the lowest common denominator (75% of output) or b) Bore the viewer/listener to death with endless analysis of political matters (none of which address the really important issues). Better to turn it off and just go with a few trusted internet feeds while the official media zombie cannibalises itself to death.
I apologize for the time that passed before this appeared. The bots consigned it to spam hell for some reason, and I seldom look at the spam, so just came across it. Sorry.
Walter Cronkite was the worst of the bunch. He was only in it for what he could get out of it for himself. A propagandists dream anchorman.
Harquebus,
I totally agree. Cronkite never suffered the back lash from old man Paley that Murrow did. In fact he was well rewarded financially and with accolades throughout his career. He was never a fighter, he was a total shill for his day, despite that teary eyed clip that is shown over and over and over of the day Kennedy died.
Cronkite was more interested in being on his boat than fighting for the same type of programming Murrow did. The two should never be mentioned in the same breath.
Yes they should. Cronkite’s You Were There and The 20th Century were certainly as good as Murrow’s See it Now and Person to Person — which was, after all, celebrity interviews. And we should never forget that when Cronkite returned from a trip to Vietnam and reported that we were losing the war, President Johnson was heard to say “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the country.” Pretty soon, no more Johnson.
Tom,
No Tom your “opinion” is just that and I’ll stand by my statement, your site or not.
I believe you know the background conflicts between Paley and Murrow which lead to Murrow’s leaving the station. Even back then there was a constant friction between who brings in the money (the advertisers) and the topics they were covering (seems some things have never changed, but only have gotten much worse).
Despite the propaganda regarding CBS being the Tiffiany Network, Paley was interested in only two things money and power and would sell his soul to gain them and hold them. A disgusting and vile human if ever one ever existed. Imagine keeping Gunsmoke on while cancelling Gilligan’s Island all because his wife demanded it. Well I guess the old adage about behind every great man is his supportive wife must be true, at least in this case.
Murrow himself was no saint as looking at the role he played in the dismissal of William Shirer due to Shirer’s response to the Truman Doctrine.
Regarding the shows each journalist hosted that would be up to each person’s taste so it’s futile for us to argue or have a debate about that. In retrospect the 21st Century (for those who would see it now) offered a more or less utopian view of the future and as you and i know that didn’t quite manifest. So, for that show Cronkite was as vapid as Murrow was with People to People.
I don’t disagree with the results of Walter’s trip to Viet Nam resulting in Johnson not running for another term; however, let’s not put old Walter on any pedestal so fast. In the years prior to that report he was fully and completely on the side of the administration regarding the war (in a way he was an early Judith Miller). Shouldn’t he have been more objective all along during those years 60-68 when the war was escalating and McNamara was having his way (much like Rumsfeld did many years later).
Was Cronkite’s support of the war responsible for the escalation and therefore the deaths of so many boys who were never fighting in a declared war?
Journalism has somehow become a “four-letter word” and the people who “practice” it (never getting very good at it, apparently) became “presstitutes” for the status quo and business as usual. As Colin hinted at in his astute comment, it seems that the introduction of money and status combined with the subsequent loss of ethics and standards has eroded this NEEDED profession into the corrupted, brain-dead repetition of infotainment that it is today. Seems that tv has been reduced to a mechanism whereby people tune into “shows” that enable advertisers to reach their eyes, ears, and what’s left of their reptilian brains in an attempt to sell more junk to an ever-widening audience. The result speaks for itself (the collapse of the global economy and ecology).
There’s no “going back” to a stable climate now, no matter what we ‘do’ since we’re dealing with a chaotic system that has deviated from ‘predictable’ due to our incessant addition of pollution to every aspect of Earth’s biosphere. It’s gotten so bad lately that we’re witnessing whales beaching themselves with stomachs full of car parts and plastic. Birds and fish too seem to be ingesting plastic of various sizes (from nano to bottle caps and bic lighters), which of course kills them. Meanwhile, we’re ramping it up with radioactive particles being released into the air, ground and ocean (what could go wrong?). Little do we notice or care about any of it on our way to our daily part in the machine (via our own personal pollution spewing device) that’s destroying life on the planet. No, we concentrate on getting more for ourselves, the “competition,” and “getting ahead” because of constant reinforcement from the media that this is the “right thing to do.” It would be better for the planet and ourselves if we actually GOT a HEAD, or more specifically, a working brain capable of critical thought, out of our experience and education, but I digress.
Thanks once again, Mr. Lewis. It’s great to have you back.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
More and more extreme weather
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
The weather is getting more and more extreme. On April 23, 2016, temperatures in India were as high as 47.7°C or 117.9°F. At the same time, temperatures in California were as low as -12.6°C or 9.2°F, while temperatures in Greenland were as high as 3.6°C or 38.6°F. Meanwhile, Antarctica was as cold as -60°C or -76°F.
The situation in India is most worrying. Temperatures are very high in many locations.
India has been experiencing heatwave conditions for some time now, as reported in this and in this earlier posts.
On April 22, 2016, the sea surface was as much as 11.3°C or 20.3°F warmer than 1981-2011 (at the location off the coast of North America marked by the green circle).
Ocean heat is accelerating Arctic sea ice demise, as the Gulf Stream keeps carrying ever warmer water into the Arctic Ocean. The image below, created with an image from the JAXA site, shows that Arctic sea ice extent was well under 13 million km2 on April 19, 2016.
Demise of the sea ice will cause even more rapid warming of the Arctic Ocean, with the danger that more heat will penetrate sediments that contain huge amounts of methane in the form of hydrates and free gas, threatening to trigger huge methane releases and cause runaway warming.
_____________
While we’re looking at this, notice that earthquakes and volcanic activity continues to build in number and size of incidents. A convergence of all the factors that make up the “knock-on” effects of climate change (too numerous to mention) will eventually take place and we as a species will be overwhelmed like the species that can’t deal with the rapid changes in the climate, and the result (extinction) will be the same.
From the comments above i can tell that very few people watch PBS. I tired of
network news along time ago. Likewise I see no reference to Frontline which has
had many fine reports. I think some people a sort of careless about picking their
sources for news.
Frontline is actually an excellent source with in-depth reporting. Too bad that good reporting doesn’t get clicks.
Glad to hear from you. But if you are not willing to share a valid email address (which will not be published), we’ll have to part company.
So, just because those of us (and I really shouldn’t be speaking/writing for anyone above, so let’s just say I’m only writing for me) didn’t refer to Frontline why assume (there’s that word again) that we haven’t watched it for years? That’s a silly conclusion and not very intellectually curious or a sign that you are a critical thinker.
What would have mentioning Frontline indicated for any of the above comments? Would it have added any depth or greater understanding to journalism discussion?
PBS is not a source to be accepted so easily. It is not what is once was if you’re paying attention to the commercials running on it and the companies paying for these advertisements.
So, you tired of network news and retreated to PBS thinking you found a haven. I invite you to peruse the website know as Unwelcome Guests. It has over a decade (well over a decade) of reports on topics and situations from around the world which PBS has never had the courage or wherewithal to cover. If you didn’t find many useful episodes there I’d be sorely disappointed.
Have you seen any of Adam Curtis’s documentaries? I’ve often wondered why PBS never made any effort to run those shows here in the USA.
It just sucks how the ideals and visions we were fed in our youth eventually get blown apart by a world that has sold its soul to the devil of industrial ‘civilization’. The arts used to be about expressing our noblest and most beautiful thoughts and thus making the world a better place with them; now the arts have become merely an avenue for exhibiting the spiritual bankruptcy and squalor of our inner world and have succumbed to that hateful poison of ‘deconstructive postmodernism’ which declares we should make ourselves totally incomprehensible to each other. Education used to be about learning to be a better human being, as in a more intelligent, cultured and moral human being; now education is just about learning all sorts of skills that will increase your market value on the job market. Work used to be about contributing to society and repaying what society has provided for your upbringing; now work is just about the minimum wage. Books (before computers came along) used to be gateways into entire universes waiting to be explored and revelled in; now we realize that more often than not books have been means of pushing all sorts of venomous views and agendas, or at best, like the arts today, have become just a form of intellectual or mental masturbation.
And to top it all off, we used to believe that through human effort our world can become a better place for everyone; but a whole lot of rotten apples (otherwise known as TPTB or the ‘Masters of the Universe’, and I’m not talking about the Filmation cartoon series) just refused to change their sorry ways, as a result of which we now find that our world is soon going to end up in a state whereby we’ll be really lucky if we can have just three meals a day and a roof to sleep under.
Yup. Life is good.