Old saying.
Let our voices be heard.
That oldie but goodie dates back a ways, at least as far back as the middle 1700's when Penelope Baker used it to protest unfair taxation by the British.
These days, it resides comfortably in that folder of slogans, mottos and/or catch phrases that get utilized and/dragged out as needed, most often, of course, as an underscore to whatever point is being advocated, more often than not, political.
Here's a thing, though.
I'm satisfied that the original good intention of that particular rallying cry has been mutated in a fashion that makes Joan Rivers' Botox adventures look like a little make up touch up.
That mutation occurred fifty years ago tomorrow, Sept 2.
And there are, by my reconnoitering, two people to blame for that mutation.
Fred W. Friendly.
Walter Cronkite.
Case that requires making to be made momentarily.
Meanwhile...
Dan Bongino is a Maryland resident, former Secret Service agent and a candidate for Congress, having been defeated in a run last year for a Senate seat.
I met Dan late last year when he came into the radio station I was morning showing to voice some paid political spots. We had a brief chat after and he left me with the impression of a guy who not only merited watching, in terms of potential, but who deserved it, as well.
I liked the guy.
Still do.
Take that, my right wing friends/adversaries.
Dan posted the following opine on his Facebook page today.
The fight against media bias; the most dangerous battle in America right now?
Let me tell you my story in the interest of maintaining some modicum of integrity in this slanted process. During my 2012 campaign for the U.S. Senate I saw the worst of the worst. Combined with my years inside the DC "Bubble" and witnessing the activities of some in the media, I refuse to play along. Although the examples are numerous, I will give you one shining example of what some in the media call "fairness".
During the 2012 campaign, a rep from a major newspaper's editorial board insisted on lecturing me with patently false talking points. When I confronted him with the actual data he accused me of being "confrontational". In short, he stated that the 2003 tax cuts led to a loss in federal tax receipts. When I told him that 2003 tax cuts actually led to the largest four-year INCREASE in tax receipts in American history ($785 billion in additional receipts from ...2004 to 2007), he ignored it.
I write of this now because we had another in a long line of incidents this weekend. After receiving volumes of calls and emails on the article in question I had a salutary moment. I realized that the media outlets that play it straight and gave us a fair shot were the ones flourishing and the outlets that continue to play games are struggling to stay afloat. In the end, the truth wins out and content is still king.
You may ask, "Why choose this fight?" Because unlike many in the political arena I do not choose consultant class, focus-group-tested issues. When I see something wrong I am going to call it out. I feel that I owe those who follow me on this forum an unfettered view into my life and problems I am driven to fix. You have committed to me and I owe you more than cheap talking points.
I call this "the most dangerous battle in America" because you are being lied to. Some in the media have decided that you are too stupid to make a decision for yourself so they are going to make it for you. By ignoring stories that threaten their meme, by carefully coding language using the alphabet of the left and by reporting on the "intentions" of liberal politics, yet ignoring the disastrous results, they are playing a movie for you that is allegedly "Based on a true story", only to find out later that the movie was complete fiction.
I want to close by thanking those in the media who, despite their internal political compass, continue to play it straight. I promise they do exist. I had one such individual at one of our events this past Friday and when a guest asked me about "his politics", I paid him the ultimate compliment for a reporter, I responded, " I don't know".
Let me tell you my story in the interest of maintaining some modicum of integrity in this slanted process. During my 2012 campaign for the U.S. Senate I saw the worst of the worst. Combined with my years inside the DC "Bubble" and witnessing the activities of some in the media, I refuse to play along. Although the examples are numerous, I will give you one shining example of what some in the media call "fairness".
During the 2012 campaign, a rep from a major newspaper's editorial board insisted on lecturing me with patently false talking points. When I confronted him with the actual data he accused me of being "confrontational". In short, he stated that the 2003 tax cuts led to a loss in federal tax receipts. When I told him that 2003 tax cuts actually led to the largest four-year INCREASE in tax receipts in American history ($785 billion in additional receipts from ...2004 to 2007), he ignored it.
I write of this now because we had another in a long line of incidents this weekend. After receiving volumes of calls and emails on the article in question I had a salutary moment. I realized that the media outlets that play it straight and gave us a fair shot were the ones flourishing and the outlets that continue to play games are struggling to stay afloat. In the end, the truth wins out and content is still king.
You may ask, "Why choose this fight?" Because unlike many in the political arena I do not choose consultant class, focus-group-tested issues. When I see something wrong I am going to call it out. I feel that I owe those who follow me on this forum an unfettered view into my life and problems I am driven to fix. You have committed to me and I owe you more than cheap talking points.
I call this "the most dangerous battle in America" because you are being lied to. Some in the media have decided that you are too stupid to make a decision for yourself so they are going to make it for you. By ignoring stories that threaten their meme, by carefully coding language using the alphabet of the left and by reporting on the "intentions" of liberal politics, yet ignoring the disastrous results, they are playing a movie for you that is allegedly "Based on a true story", only to find out later that the movie was complete fiction.
I want to close by thanking those in the media who, despite their internal political compass, continue to play it straight. I promise they do exist. I had one such individual at one of our events this past Friday and when a guest asked me about "his politics", I paid him the ultimate compliment for a reporter, I responded, " I don't know".
First, a mini lecture.
Not to Dan.
To those who heard themselves saying "he's right" somewhere along the way reading what Dan offers.
Don't say that.
It's a fine, admittedly even nitpicky, point but an oft expressed personal pet peeve.
Right and wrong are subjective judgments, implying a conclusion most people are unqualified to make.
If you think Dan is right, then, the correct expression to use is the one I use.
And used here.
I agree.
End of mini lecture.
There was a time, in the not too distant past, when "media", defined for this essay as newspaper, radio and/or television news, still pretty faithfully adhered to the basic tenets of fundamental journalism.
Put in a less Roget's way, reporters limited their reporting to the who, what, when, where and why of a particular occurrence.
And "why", in that context, meant factual circumstances, as in "the accused shot the victim because he was high on meth at the time of the shooting".
"Why" did not mean expressing personal opinions as to the underlying political, theological, spiritual, sexual, moral, et al philosophies at the heart of the action.
Any opinions that could be interpreted as personal were restricted to the editorial columns, pages and/or segments of print and broadcast media.
Then, in 1963, along came Fred W. Friendly and Walter Cronkite.
Friendly was the president of CBS News and executive producer of the CBS Evening News with...
Walter Cronkite.
And on Sept 2,1963, a seemingly simple, even progressive, innovation occurred on national television that tipped the first domino of a chain reaction that has found us, today, mired in the muck of too many voices, too much personal opinion, too many mouths operating full bore and far too many ears, and brains, functioning much of the time, if at all.
On Sept 2, the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite became the first nationally televised news program to broadcast thirty minutes each weekday evening.
Until that day, daily television news casts had been, believe it or not, a mere fifteen minutes.
And in that single blooming of a new plant, grew the massive, gnarly mess of vines that make up television news.
Growing even more gnarly and massive when cable showed up a few years later.
An electronic monster that required feeding twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
Evening news begat cable news which begat news talk which begat political news talk which begat commentary talk which begat the ancestors of today's town criers, Chris Matthews, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Martin Bashir, the list, like the beat goes on.
And on.
And on.
And, added to that stellar assembly.....
Too often, reporters who come of age in a time when the basic tenets of journalism are almost supplementary to the quest for breaking news, exclusive headlines and shrewd, personal observation.
And the "why" in who, what, when, where and why is now assumed to mean expressing personal opinions as to the underlying political, theological, spiritual, sexual, moral, et al philosophies at the heart of the action.
Used to be that Jackie DeShannon musically summed our lives up for us.
"...what the world needs now / is love sweet love"
Today, Elvis has once again grabbed the top of the charts with his ode to what the world needs.
"...a little less conversation "
Fred Friendly and Walter Cronkite were pros in the classic traditions of broadcasting and journalism and, I suspect, they would both be agog and aghast at the chaotic cacophony that modern day broadcast journalism has become.
And while it's obvious they deserve no real blame for where we are because of when they started taking us, given that only hindsight is twenty/twenty, there's a reasonable case to be made that the virus was first injected, however well intentioned, into the cultural mainstream on that September day fifty years ago.
Fifty years from "that's the way it is" to finding ourselves in, as Dan Bongino puts it, the "most dangerous battle in America".
I'm one of those people I mentioned who are unqualified to make judgment about Bongino's assertion
But he's right.
And that's the way it is.
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