Okay, I know Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, John Chancellor, Peter Jennings and their lot were all just shills. They made their living presenting one carefully selected part of the Establishment line. Their living was based equally on ensuring that We the Peasants didn’t hear about anything that might cause us to lose faith in Our Glorious Leaders in media and politics.
We’re much, much better off now that we can get our news unfiltered. Or filtered through the sensibilities of … well, anybody with a YouTube or Twitter account.
Aren’t we?
Yes, we are, I remind myself.
But at least those old guys could talk. And think on their feet.
Today even the official mainstreamers sound like babbling bands of baboons (to quote Maggie Smith’s archly fabulous Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey).
I just listened to an NPR “Weekend Edition Sunday” report on yesterday’s false nuke alert in Hawaii. It consisted of an interview between host Lourdes “Lulu” Garcia-Navarro and NPR reporter Tamara Keith, who happened to be on vacation in Honolulu when the alert struck.
Garcia-Navarro began with the mind-bending observation (and no, not spoken with even a trace of humor or irony), “I guess you weren’t expecting this.”
Duh. No, everyone was actively waiting for their cellphones to warn them of Armageddon.
Garcia-Navarro continued with brilliant questions like, “So … explain what people told you. I mean, um, what was the atmosphere like? What were they saying? Where they actually thinking that a ballistic missile might sort of land on Hawaii?”
What exactly does might sort of land on Hawaii mean? And why is it emerging from the mouth of a presumably highly paid “news” personality?
The entire interview was laced with so many sos and ums and sort ofs and likes and actuallys and repetitious sentences that there was hardly any room for actual content.
Have you noticed how much that’s become the media norm? Even hosts and reporters who are otherwise capable of speaking adult-level English string their sentences out with ums and ers that should have been drummed out of them in their first semester of journalism school. But often, these alleged pros sound as if they’re still in journalism school — and not at the top of their class, either.
So here we are. We still get “news” filtered through media sensibilities (though we have more choice of sensibilities now). But we get it from people who don’t care enough to present themselves — or expect their employees to present themselves — professionally.
Is this stating the obvious? People paid by “official” media outlets to present information on air should be trained in public speaking, with particular emphasis on ruthlessly eliminating their own vocal crutches and juvenile ticks. If they’re incapable of speaking compact, lucid, flowing English, they shouldn’t be allowed to broadcast childish natterings.
I’m trying not to turn into an old grouch. Generally that’s working out quite well. There’s very, very little I miss about any mythical “good old days.” These days are better than any in my lifetime, despite all their chaos.
But so, I’m like, actually, um, you know starting to miss Walter Cronkite.
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The one thing I learned from the interview is that there isn’t much point in warning people they’re about to die unless you’ve previously given them solid information (preferably with drills) on what they should do to try to save themselves.
It appears all most people did, other than randomly panic, was congregate in insecure places and fret.
For 38 Terrifying Minutes, Hawaii Experienced Israeli Life under Rocket Threat
NPR in particular has gone sharply downhill in the past several years. In the ’90’s I used to enjoy listening to their newsreaders even when I disagreed with their point of view and/or didn’t appreciate their choice of subject matter. Then for several/many years I couldn’t get an NPR station. Now in the past year – maybe the local affiliate boosted its signal, I don’t know – I can hear it and you’re absolutely right: In addition to being complete moonbats, they don’t even sound like radio professionals.
When the Loma Prieta earthquake hit in 1989, Al Michaels was there to broadcast the world series game scheduled for that night. He did an excellent job of watching the camera feeds and explaining what was going on, much better than the newsreaders on other channels. I realized it was because, as a sports announcer, he was able to describe what he was seeing as he saw it, and the newsreaders were lost without a script.
Overheard while touring the Arizona memorial a couple of years ago, “It’s a good thing that can’t happen these days.”
georgelpollard — I watched Al Michaels that evening. He was amazing. Absolutely, he handled himself and the news, better than any other broadcaster did. I was impressed beyond words that a “lightweight,” a man on the scene to announce a baseball game, could rise to that awful occasion so brilliantly.
It never occurred to me that part of the reason he was able to cover the news so well was that his normal beat involved action and observation. Thanks for pointing out what I should have realized.
IMHO if you are a good journalist today you have two things to look forward to; jail or being fired or both.
Overheard while touring the Arizona memorial a couple of years ago, “It’s a good thing that can’t happen these days.”
OMG
Well, Comrade X, it’s a sure thing then, that the babbling girlies of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday are in no danger.
You have my attention.
Spot on, Claire. Another painfully missing qualification among the media nowadays — something Cronkite and Brinkley and their ilk could lay decent claim to — is a good knowledge of history and historical context, both American ind international.
Well, that and at least an outward semblance of adherence to journalistic standards of accuracy.
I was a sprout back in Cronkite’s day, but I do recall the day Reagan was shot, when after several conflicting reports, Frank Reynolds slammed his anchor desk and fumed at his colleagues to get the facts right: had the president been hit or not?
Can’t picture a news anchor doing that today — publicly caring more about facts than spin and hype.
Good point, free.and.true. The “education” a lot of modern journalists have received is short on history and context, long on agendas and grievances.
http://neveryetmelted.com/2018/01/14/why-are-our-elites-so-stupid/
Just got back from seeing The Post.
(A hot date with my wife, who has a long and award-winning career as a journalist and so had to go.)
Not bad. Sensationalized, of course, and all about Freedom of the Press and feminism, not driving circulation or bringing down an unpopular (with the press) president. But it did a decent job of laying out the issues and the risks the journalists were taking.
I had forgotten that Daniel Ellsberg’s charges were dismissed “due to governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering.” (Not in the movie, I looked him up after.) The more things change…
“(A hot date with my wife, who has a long and award-winning career as a journalist and so had to go.)”
🙂 A worthy reason to attend, larryarnold. I hope you both had a great time. The Post is in my Netflix queue. I’ll sit down to it with all manner of caveats, but I’m looking forward to it despite those.
We did.
Oh, and in my experience OMG buttons aren’t easy to “accidentally” set off. They tend to require more than one action, like “open cover, insert key, turn key, push button.” If this was actually an “accidental” activation then the system is a Real Bad Design.
The “education” a lot of modern journalists have received is short on history and context,
Also woefully short on basic statistics, and how to interpret them.
Real Bad Design, if this is true:
What do they say? “To err is human. To really screw things up, it takes a computer.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/hawaii-worker-reassigned-false-missile-alert-2018-1
Only in a government bureaucracy would they not fire the person responsible. But then, if that’s an accurate account, who’s the person responsible? The person who clicked the wrong menu item, the person who designed the software, the person who approved the software, or the person who failed immediately to cancel the false alert?
I go to empty my e-mail’s spam folder and my computer brings up a message asking me if I’m sure that’s what I want to do.
you would think a missile alarm would do the same.
But then what do I know?
It sounds like I did not miss a thing, being tuned out this past weekend.
a drop-down menu that gave two similar options: “Test missile alert” and “Missile alert.”
[speechless]
Newscasters last night were reporting that the government was urging people to trust the warning system, despite the false alert.
MamaLiberty, see the comments from the 1/13 post for suggestions on how to find an out-of-system doctor, if there is one somewhere near you.
I saw a congresscriiter bemoaning trumps attacks on the media….how its making us the laughingstock of the world.And how his calling stories he doesnt like false news is dividing America and how we need to respect our media,not tear them down.
What drugs is this guy on,and I mean that seriously!
I would watch NPR and network news,and figure the story probably fell in between.Also for fun,watch the news,then spin it 180 of what they said,and it sounds at least as plausible,if not more so than what they just said!
LOL,we need to respect the media,so says our wise leaders,you have got to be kidding me.
“Might sort of land on Hawaii” was just her way of being technically accurate, as the reporter was recognizing that the warhead would explode at an elevation of approximately 1,000 feet in order to maximize its radius of destruction. She has studied nuclear science.
“She has studied nuclear science.”
Thank you for clarifying that for me, Dr. Jim. I’m much more impressed with NPR now. 😉
Most newscasters these days wouldn’t have survived my high school forensics team!
The US government spent decades telling people that you couldn’t do anything to prepare. The media chimed in and made folks who had shelters look like fools. In the meantime Russia was building shelters in all (or most) of their major cities. Switzerland has shelters to cover 100% of their population. (It’s in their building codes even today.)
People laugh at duck and cover drills from the 50s, but if you’re close enough to see a flash, then the next thing is the blast wave. Every piece of glass will be shattered and airborne. Everything not nailed down (and some things that are) will become a projectile. You don’t want to be standing up for that.
Hollywood and the media joined in with the .gov, in part – I believe – because they wanted the money that would have been spent on shelters to be spent on all their favorite social programs. Where the politicians were more interested in pork.
If you can avoid the fallout for even a few days you will avoid a lot of problems. 4 is good. 9 is better. 21 to 30 is best, but that requires a lot of food and water.
Fallout is dust. Breathe it in. Get it in a cut. You will have serious problems.