Huntley, Brinkley and Cronkite

I miss Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, those two NBC newscasters from the 1950s-60s. I was a bit too young to know Edward R. Murrow, the lionized god of broadcast journalism, although it seems in his case that the man is in fact the myth. I also miss CBS's Walter Cronkite. These were all the people who created and defined television broadcast news. People who did their homework, asked right questions, distilled down what I really seemed to need to know and presented it to me concisely, cleanly and respectfully. Then they left it to me to interpret its meaning, both in absolute as well as personal terms. I sense that they would be appalled by what they see passing for news reporting today.

Today, television news is all about entertainment and it shows, whether network or cable. And this entertainment keeps coming at us nonstop, offering more time and words than we can possibly absorb or have need for. The commentator is concurrently surrounded by tickertape news blips and multiple viewing windows ---- who or what am I supposed to be reading or seeing at any given moment? News stories now come with catchy silly titles (“Iraq: Day of Decision”! “Election 2008: Road to Change?”) and their own theme music. It is a visual medium, yet clips are shown that have no visual interest whatsoever. People standing around at a crime scene, or looking at the house where it happened; committee members sitting at a desk talking inaudibly among themselves; reporters standing in front of a scenic backdrop (how many shots of a reporter standing in front of the White House does it take for us think “gee, this obviously important reporter must really know what’s happening inside!”?).

And now that we have too many cable news networks and we show them 24 hours a day / 7 days a week (because they are inexpensive to program), the challenge is how to fill all that air time. And the answer is usually either to make trivial stories into major news events, transform everyday people into major actors performing in Warhol’s 15-minutes of fame, or supply us with “news commentators and analysts” who believe that intelligent conversation is defined by who can be the rudest and out-shout the other conversational participants, or say the most outrageous unsupported things, or say anything to provoke controversy for its own sake and garner headlines.

All this ain’t news, folks. And it is not even very good entertainment. Anna’s death and the father of her baby is information that has no impact on my life’s actions. Virginia Tech was a significant event to give us pause ands reflection, but the intrusion into private grief and the decision to air a gunman’s recorded rantings descended into sensationalism and irresponsibility. It is journalism as an embarrassment.

The promise of television news is visual and depth. What radio and newspapers cannot do is show you people’s faces and character as they speak, and allow you to add the important body language and nuances into the words they speak. Whereas all that blank airtime could be used to show real in-depth conversations with people on significant subject matters, television news instead simply fills people’s time under the banner of “news,” making it all seem more substantive than it is. Guilty consciences are assuaged for both the watcher and the provider: “I am not wasting time or just idly watching entertainment, I am listening to the news.” No you are not.

For my part, I refuse to watch anyone whose idea of news-giving is to yell at me, as if his/her volume will overcome my stupidity. Or who conducts a television discussion any differently than if they were a guest at my dinner table conversation. Or watch the phony displays of indignation. Or listen to people whose claim to be an authoritative / specialist / expert is all self-designated, only to be betrayed by the hollowness of their words. When O.J. or Michael Jackson turns the law into farce comedy, I will pass that up also. And please let me never again hear the question “So what was going through your mind at that moment?” from some lightweight interviewer who obviously has no real question of substance to ask.

In a recent column defending the role of the film critic, Time reviewer Richard Corliss nicely said “”If our opinions on a movie don’t coincide, I don’t care, and neither should you. I’m not telling you what to think. I’m just asking that you do think.” Well put statement of the reporter’s/reviewer’s role.

By the way, I miss Peter Jennings, too. A lot.

Mass Killing

This past week, Americans were witness to yet another incident of mass killing. An incident where one lone individual decides to make a statement, to act out his/her angers, and uses multiple indiscriminate killings as a tool of self-expression.

This time it was 33 persons dead at Virginia Tech University. With the exception of the University of Texas-Austin 40 years ago, most of our mass killings have spared our colleges and universities. They have been more at high schools (Columbine and the young girls at the Amish school), or in the workplace where an angry employee returns to take vengeance on a boss and innocent coworkers. In its aftermath, there will be the usual national discussion that, in the end, seems to result in little change.

There will be a new call for gun control to prevent such unstable people from obtaining guns; but politically there is not the strength of will to fight the minority NRA and enact meaningful legislation or control processes. Our Bill of Rights guaranteed the right to bear arms. It was written for a time when many people hunted to feed their families with a single-shot rifle, there was no standing law enforcement in the unsettled frontier wilderness, and it followed a citizen’s war of independence against England. (In that same antiquated spirit, the Bill of Rights also guarantees that we cannot be forced to house British troops in our houses, but I believe that has not been an issue for any of us since it was enacted over 200 years ago.) In short, it was a defensive legal protection. I do not know that the constitutional framers envisioned the level of personal armament and firearms usage that we experience today as necessary to protect our homestead.

There will be calls for an investigation into the actions of the campus police and the need for increased security; yet in reality there is little increased security possible at most of our open-access universities. Irresponsible outlets of our national news media roll out the historical comparisons of similar death counts (killing as a competitive Guinness record?) and intrude on the privacy of people’s grief. They broadcast photos and video clips and unending details about the shooter all in the name of “news,” thereby giving that individual all of the inappropriate attention he craved but never had in life, and laying the foundation for the next person to believe that mass sensational killing is the way to make a personal attention-getting statement.

As all of this was happening in America, over 200 citizens of Iraq died this same week. Over 150 people died in one Baghdad marketplace incident alone. By the most conservative of estimates, that war has consumed well over 50,000 innocent citizens on a cumulative daily basis. We rightfully grieve for the 33 lost in Virginia. How can we even imagine what it must be like to experience a Virginia Tech on a daily basis. How can we even imagine the numbing impact on one’s emotions from such a continual exposure to unexpected and horrific death, especially for a whole generation of young people. Why is it that we react more strongly to the death of an individual that we can to 200 hundred people, or to the millions killed in World War II? Our emotional and rational capacity to understand and assimilate death is truly very limited.

Whether it is the suicide shooter or the suicide bomber, whether a Christian shooter or an Islamic car bomber, it is still r4eally about people who have lost their sense of self-worth, of hope, of personal power, and for whom such a “glorious ending” is seen as the only recourse left. It is to this greater issue that our thoughts, energy and prayers must attend. (See future posting on this website regarding “Powerlessness.”)

A member of my spiritual group shared the following at our gathering this week from a prayer made available by the United Methodist Church:

“Whether in Darfur or Baghdad, London or Madrid, Kabul or Atlanta, Paducah or Blacksburg … The bullets ripped their flesh, and tear our souls, Lord God. Flashing from nowhere, unseen, unforeseen, perhaps unforeseeable, lives of promise ended, others mangled by hot steel and the shrapnel lodged in hearts too stunned to cry ... What break in heart, or mind, or flesh moved, possessed, demanded him to stalk these down like prey? We cringe, paralyzed before the mystery of evil even as we remember that he was your son who also needs your peace. We open our mouths, and join the silence of the disbelieving. Hear us, Lord. Heal us, Lord. Grant them, and us, your peace.”

We grieve for them all, and earnestly seek the capacity of forgiveness.

The Language of Imus

Don Imus was recently fired from his radio show and the various media outlets that have distributed it. He appears to be the latest fodder for what passes for “news” on the several cable network news stations. I guess the great consuming interest in Anna Nicole and Brittany Spears has thankfully finally worn down, at least for the moment.

Apparently, in one of his recent broadcasts, Imus referred to the Rutgers women’s basketball team as a bunch of “nappy-headed hos,” which is street language for calling a black woman a whore. I have not heard the context for Imus’s statement, or what he could have possibly been discussing when he made this reference. I do know that the Rutgers women’s team is not all black, and that they had a very successful basketball season run, including making it to the NCAA championship game before losing to perennial powerhouse Tennessee. So I cannot imagine how that could lead Imus to having anything to say about them at all.

But the fact is it was a stupid thing to say, regardless of any context. It was certainly not accurate, though that has certainly not been a prerequisite to comments made by these radio/TV commentators. It does demonstrate how much entertainment, in the guise of outrageous comments from outraged-appearing “news commentators,” has been the guiding hand for these kind of shows.

Firing Imus appears to have been a right response to his blunder. But it also calls attention to two other items of concern.

One is that cable TV news is in serious need of being called to task, and not just for the individual “shock jocks” that we often hear about. The cable networks’ voracious appetite to fill too much air space with the cheap-to-create product of shouting headlines and happy-talking anchors and arrogant (but intellectually shallow) commentators that passes for news has worn very thin.

I realize that the days of Huntley/Brinkley, Cronkite, and Jennings have passed and will not return. But there are a number of news individuals out there who show respect to my intelligence, and inform me with information and thoughtful perspective that is worthwhile. I have adopted a personal policy that I refuse to listen to any broadcaster who feels it necessary to yell at me to make a point, or to someone who thinks that outtalking and verbally stepping on another guest presenter wins the discussion.

The other item of note is the one-sidedness of our racial dialog. If what Imus said on the air was wrong, it should be wrong for anyone of any race to use the same words. If “nigger” is a bad term to reference a black person, it should be so regardless of whether the speaker is white or black or any other color. If “nappy-headed hos” is a racially and sexually insulting phrase to use about a woman, it should be so regardless of the speaker. Inappropriate language is inappropriate, regardless of age, racial group, or whether the speaker is a musical artist, comedian, news commentator, or just an everyday Joe. I will have no respect for Al Sharpton’s many calls for civil respect until his sword cuts all attackers and defends all of the injured.

Our pressing need is for a language of civility that uplifts relationships among all people on a one-to-one basis. That is an obligation to each other that we all share. And an obligation that needs a lot more work.

Rational Immigration

We are told we have an immigration problem in this country. What is really being said is that we have a problem with immigrants from Mexico, too many of whom are entering illegally. We don’t seem to have a problem with Canadians, Asians or Europeans, although in the past we have had periods of large waves of Asian and European immigrants. In most all instances, the driver for these immigrations have been economic --- people believing in the American dream, and maybe our values and freedoms and government systems, and who want to participate in them.

The current Mexican immigration is huge in numbers. Where it was once a southern California issue that became a southwestern US/Rio Grande issue is now almost a national issue as enclaves of Mexican immigrants have dispersed across the US. The arguments against this immigration include its sheer volume, its drain on US social service systems, the taking of jobs from US citizens, and the unwillingness to assimilate into American language and culture. The proposed “solutions” have included a 1000 mile fence to seal the border, and the roundup and return of the offenders back to Mexico.

These solutions are nonsense. The truth is, national unemployment is as low as it has ever been, so it doesn’t seem that Mexican workers are displacing too many American workers. Most Mexicans are here in the first place to work to support families in the US and/or Mexico. US employers (principally farm and industrial) tell us they are needed to fill jobs that would otherwise go vacant. In the meantime, these people are providing key inputs to many local economies.

Cultural assimilation will not happen if you concurrently refuse to let people become part of the citizenry. And we have always supported many bi-cultural identities and celebrations in America (African-American, Irish-American, Asian-American, Latino-American, even Native-American). These immigrants would not be “draining” our social services if they were allowed to fully pay into those services through taxes and other social rights and obligations. We have a reality of @12 million illegal immigrants in this country. Do we really think we are going to round up 12 million people and put them on trains back to Mexico?

As Americans, we are all of immigrant backgrounds, including what we now know about our Native American population. Our real problem is the attractiveness of our own success, and we cannot undo what has already transpired. Bring the illegals into legality, either as citizens or as certified immigrant workers, and let us move on. Then put an intelligent plan in place to manage future immigrants, including denial of services for those without certification. Pardon the past and accept our reality. We need to focus on the future.

Remembering Diplomacy

Do you remember the good old days of American diplomacy? An overseas visit by the President of the United States used to be a special event, well-prepared by solid advance field work that resulted in notable historical moments. Sure, politics and diplomacy were often married with a bit of show-biz spectacle, but that was all right. Those events in all their theatricality served to move forward international relations between countries and cultures.

There is the visual memory of Nixon with Mao in China. Of Ford with Brezhnev in Moscow. Of Reagan in Europe and Iceland with Gorbachev. Of Carter in the White House Rose Garden with Begin and Sadat. Of George the Elder on the phone patiently building a truly international coalition to resist aggression.. And of Clinton brokering peace in the Baltic and attempting to do the same in the Middle East.

Each of these instances marked the willingness of our President to put his reputation and commitment on the line by talking directly to people with whom we had substantive differences of opinion. But by showing respect for those differing opinions rather than contempt, and being confident and capable of defending our own beliefs without arrogance, we were able to engage in discussions and actions that led to positive change.

That was a very different environment than what we have seen these past seven years. Where are the grand ceremonies, the historic decisions, the major steps forward in “getting along and working together”? Versus refusing to even talk to those with whom we disagree, and publicly humiliating and insulting our adversaries. Our visual memory today is of giving a backrub to a friendly head of state and publicly embarrassing her. But we cannot demonstrate leadership around which friend and foe can coalesce.

How do explain such posturing to people such as Nelson Mandela, who embraced his captors and through quiet diplomacy subsequently obliterated the apartheid of South Africa which had imprisoned him for most all of his adult life?

“You talk to the most awful in order to get what you claim to be looking for ---Peace. And you will be surprised ... You don’t negotiate with your friends. You negotiate with the person you regard as your enemy.” (Bishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa)

The Elusive Rationale of Iraq

With our Iraq misadventure, we have engaged in a continuing shifting rationale to try to continually justify the support of the American population in what has become a huge mistake. But no rationale is credible any longer.

When we initiated America’s first unprovoked first-strike war by attacking Iraq, it was to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an unstable dictator apparently willing to unleash them. We all know how that rationale turned out.

When no such weapons were found, we discovered instead that our real mission was to rid the Middle East and the world of that same horrendous dictator (conveniently ignoring other bad leaders in the world).

Despite having been told on the deck of an aircraft carrier “Mission Accomplished,” we found out instead that in the course of removing that dictator we had simultaneously destroyed Iraq’s economic, social and organizational structures with no plane to recreate these. (So much for Iraq paying for its own liberation with its own oil revenues ...) Most of the trained Iraq workforce (police, military, infrastructure, teachers, etc.) were sent into the streets to now be unemployed. So our mission then became to bring democracy and stability to Iraq. To a country that had already had stability (albeit in its own undesirable way) but with absolutely no experience or preparation for democracy.

As we began to fail on both the democracy and stability fronts, our mission then became one of defeating terrorists in Iraq before they could hurt us here at home. Of course, there were no terrorists in Iraq until we created an environment and haven for them to eb there.

And now as Iraq descends into outright civil war between the Sunni and Shi’ite Islamic sects, we escalate our troop levels to buy time for the transitional government to take control of its own country. Except that it is a Shi’ite government trying to take control over a Sunni minority that has a long history of domination over the Shi’ite majority. And who really thinks this can ever succeed in anything but trading one domination for another?

We are now stuck in the middle of something that has nothing to do with us, but which we have unleashed. When we chose to invade a country with no awareness or consideration of its history, its makeup, its dynamics, its aspirations, or its internal conflicts, why would we have ever thought that we would be welcomed as “liberators”? Of course why would they not want us to go home?

We are stuck in our own folly. And no shifting rationales-of-the-day can hide the calamity of our inadequate planning, arrogance and foolhardiness.

Palestinian Peace Not Apartheid

For those who share my high interest in the seemingly never-ending greater Middle East political nightmare, particularly with respect to the Israel/Palestine aspect, I would highly recommend to you President Jimmy Carter’s recent book “Palestinian Peace Not Apartheid.”
Unsurprisingly, this book is not without controversy. A number of people have said that this book is biased against Israel, is pro-Palestinian, and that the use of the term “apartheid” is inappropriate to describe the structure Israel has put in place to manage the Palestinian territories under their control. Several members have resigned their positions on the Board of the Carter Center in protest of this book, saying that the book now makes it impossible for President Carter to serve as a trusted neutral intermediary in any official or unofficial negotiations. Brandeis University outside of Boston did allow President Carter to speak on campus, but refused the filming of a documentary showing his talk or interviews of students regarding Carter’s writings.

In my own readings of this book, I find such reactive comments completely inappropriate and unjustified, but not a surprise. I have no doubt that President Carter fully expected that his perspective would generate some strong reaction. He has acknowledged that he is hoping to stimulate some fresh dialog into a situation that has remained largely stale and unchanged for some time, especially as the U.S. has largely abandoned any meaningful attempt to make genuine and balanced initiatives in this arena.

Structurally, the book includes an excellent snapshot history of events and players in the Israel / Palestine area, from ancient to modern times. It then goes into detail as to the modern events in the area, with the narrative built predominantly around his personal meetings and dialogs with many of the leading Israeli and Palestinian political players in that region (both during and after his presidency and continuing to this day). It is a fairly fast read that belies its significance. It is an important read if you are grappling as many of us are with understanding the real why’s of that area

I found his writing to be very even-handed towards both the Palestinian and Israeli sides of the issue, telling the positive actions and in the negative actions of each side. If one is a “100-percenter” who believes that one side is all correct and the other side is all wrong, then yes you will find this book “biased.” But if one believes that no one (or nation) is perfect, that each political entity must acknowledge and take responsibility for and correct their imperfect actions or self-centered motivations, and must keep their commitments made, then this book will provide some possible starting places to find accommodations that must recognize the needs of all parties.

President Carter is neither a wholesale accuser nor apologist for either side. But if apartheid means treating people as second-class citizens in their own country --- as we did in America for several hundred years, as Britain did in Scotland and Ireland (and elsewhere) for almost a century, and as South Africa did for generations --- then perhaps the label may well be accurate.

Perhaps it may be true that one should negotiate from a position of strength. But in the end, it is only fairness that will be successful in achieving a permanent end result, Otherwise an unresolved problem is simply continued for years in disguised form at great human, economic, and spiritual cost. If you think one side is all bad and wrong, and the other all good and right, then you are part of the problem that prevents a resolution.