A Return to “The News” being “The News”

            As everyone knows, the Qatar-based media outlet, Al Jezeera, has bought the infant cable TV network called “Current TV” and is making its entry into the U. S. cable TV market with a full-blown English-speaking network.  Huffington Post and others recently reported that Al Jezeera has made a big splash in the realm of U. S. journalism by posting over 100 notices of available journalism jobs, quoting New York Times media reporter Brian Stetler as saying: “Al Jazeera . . . [has] decided . . . to hire a lot of [American] journalists and prove to the country that they are here to do journalism, not to do some kind of propaganda."  (emphasis mine). 

            I was just reading the Huffington Post report on the subject, which brought into stark contrast the very hopeful possibility that Al Jezeera may force a return of U. S. journalism to just that – journalism – instead of giving us Fox News and other non-journalistic television productions that are nothing more than entertainment shows masquerading as “news programs”.  That hopeful possibility was most startlingly evidenced by a perhaps unwitting comment by a guy named Tom Gura, who is the editor of a blog called “Corporate Intelligence” for the Wall Street Journal.  Gura said, “It’s going to shake the industry up in a lot of ways. . . .  I mean, you've basically got a not-for-profit, 24-hour news network launching here. This is a company that does not do things based on a financial or economic rationale." 

            How refreshing is that ? ! ! !  I remember the time when Walter Cronkite and CBS News came before the American people every evening and told the country “the way it is” – without worrying about whether a truthful report of the news of the day would help or hurt its ratings.  Let us all hope that Al Jezeera will be exactly the journalistic entity that Gura described – a company that does not do things based on a financial or economic rationale.  How ironic it is that an Arab-government-owned cable TV network would be the entity most responsible for returning the honest and truthful reporting of the news to American airwaves !

 

            Just MHO, of course.

Hillary Clinton vs. Rand Paul

It has been widely reported this morning (Wednesday, January 23) that Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) told Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton this morning that he would have "relieved [her] of her post" (presumably inherent in the comment, "... if I had been President ...").  It would have been so very wonderful if Secretary Clinton had responded to Senator Paul thus:  "Senator, based on your many public comments with which I and the vast majority of Americans disagree, if I could have acted in behalf of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky I would never have elected you to your post in the first place."

Alas ... Secretary Clinton is too classy - or perhaps just too "nice" - to make such a response.

Just MHO, of course.

Phil Mickelson -- a "giver" perhaps, but also a "taker"

Phil Mickelson has made the news recently, whining about the new income tax rates that will be imposed on his $60 million-per-year earnings in 2013 and thereafter.  Poor Phil.  It will probably be hard for him to get by on a disposable annual family income of, say $30 million !

This give-me-mine dispostion expressed by Mickelson may seem strange to those who have been influenced by all of the publicity Mickelson and his wife get for their laudable charitable efforts.  However, Mickelson's complaints about his income taxes going up are particularly galling if one is aware of the sweetheart give-away deal that the City of Scottsdale recently presented to Mickelson and his business partners.

The City of Scottsdale owns McDowell Mountain Ranch Golf Club - formerly known as The Sanctuary - a very nicely designed and maintained championship-caliber golf course with a very nice clubhouse and accompanying facilities.  The City of Scottsdale recently leased McD.M.R.G.C. to Mickelson and his partners.  One assumes that Mickelson and his partners were astute enough business peopole and sufficiently knowledgeable about golf courses not to pay too much for the lease.  They're in it, after all, to make a profit.

BUT ... using his national prestige and his particular local clout in Scottsdale - as one of Arizona State University's most famous graduates - Mickelson cajoled the City Council of the City of Scottsdale to GIVE him and his partners $2.2 million for renovations to the course and clubhouse.  Yep -- that's right -- an outright GIFT of $2.2 million of taxpayer dollars so that Mickelson and his partners could have a better opportunity to make a bigger profit.

Good ol' Phil.  Lefty is smilin' all the way to the bank ... again !

Manti Te'o is a FRAUD.

Manti Te'o is a fraud.  That's all there is to it.  He was exposed as a football player in the Alabama game, and he's been exposed as a liar and a narcissist with respect to the fabricated "dying girlfriend" story.  I agree completely with these comments made and posted by readers of a Sports Illustrated article:

Comment No. 1:
I don't need to know anymore from Manti Teo about his involvement in this saga other than the statement that "It never really crossed my mind" to go see his dying girlfriend, "the love of my life". . . . Teo is on record as saying he was at the airport leaving for home vacation when he was told she was "flatlining" at the hospital (a vacation he nonchalantly continued). . . .
What fascinates me now, and I'm certain will continue to, is how many people will continue to believe him. Amazing.

Comment No. 2:
Many of these mainstream reporters, especially at ESPN, are too busy kowtowing to athletes instead of delving deeper and pushing the envelope because they want to maintain good PR for future business. Glad that in this day and age we have websites like Deadspin which does not and will not.
If Manti Te'o had not played for Notre Dame, he would never have been thought of twice by Heisman voters, and he certainly would not have been an All-American.  But, Notre Dame must be considered complicit in the whole thing, because Notre Dame certainly got a lot of good publicity for a long time out of Te'o.  Take a look at what Notre Dame Public Information Director had to say about Te'o.

Now that he's been exposed as a mediocre football player and as a liar, let's see what the NFL - the guys who put their money where their mouths are - say about and do, in the draft, with respect to Te'o.

No need for a Latino actor in ARGO ...

I've just read some harsh criticism of Ben Affleck because of his decision to cast himself as the star of the movie Argo, instead of "a Latino actor".  This - like so many other ethnocentric criticisms of virtually everyone in the news - is bullshit.  The thesis is that the CIA agent whose actual activities were the basis for the movie is a guy named Tony Mendez.  The criticism runs thus:  Since the guy upon whom the story is based is a Latino, you should have starred a Latino actor.

My response is this:  If Mr. Mendez, during the time when he was performing the heroic acts that are depicted in the movie, was acting "first as a Latino, and secondly as an American CIA agent", then the criticism is just.  However, I suspect that Mr. Mendez would acknowledge that when he was performing the heroic acts that are depicted in the movie he was acting, first and foremost, as an American CIA agent- nothing more, and nothing less.  The fact that Mr. Mendez is of Latino descent is purely incidental to the entire basis of the movie.  If the name of the CIA agent had been Ted Wojowiczi, would the casting director have been criticized for not casting a Polish actor in the lead role?  Of course not.  Therefore, Ben Affleck's having not cast a Latino in the role of Tony Mendez in the movie should not be criticized in the slightest.

This is just another example of much ado about nothing brought about by people who get paid to write something - and are generally paid the same no matter how good or bad, no matter how "strong" or how "lame" is that which he/she has written.

Just MHO, of course.