Photo by Shotgun Spratling

Here’s my report on Friday’s USC rally of 40,000 with Barack Obama as its appears on The Nation website.

Officials at USC, where I work, anticipate a turn-out of as many as 30,000 when Barack Obama speaks on campus tomorrow. That would make it the largest event of the almost-over 2010 midterm campaign season.

I want to give a shout out to my great journalist-students at USC Annenberg who have been doing great reporting on the event for our Neon Tommy site. And they’ll be doing even more tomorrow.
View Obama At USC: Details Of The Visit in a larger map

Here’s some of the stories they have already produced.

Taylor Freitas put together a general info piece and map on the event.

Callie Schweitzer does an in-depth look at the Obama/Dem strategy.

Olga Khazan asks why Obama chose USC as a venue?

Amy Silverstein looks at the keyboard bombardiers using facebook to trash the Obama rally.

Sarah Erickson suggests the Prez take some cues from Colbert and Stewart.

Evalina Weary reviews Obama’s campaign promises at midterm.

Kevin Grant hopes that Obama will re-inspire.

Ben Gottlieb on the future of Obama’s enviro program with a GOP congress

Hilell Aron wonders if we are already seeing the end of the Obama Era.

Cyntha Balderas reviews Obama’s strategy to take back the youth vote.

Jennifer Kendall tells the Democrats the top 5 reasons why they will lose in November.

And much, much more coming later tonight and all day tomorrow before, during and after the rally. Make sure and check in during the day to Neon Tommy. Bookmark it.

P.S. Journalism is dying. The world is coming to an end. There is no future for reporting. The average age of these reporters is 24.

I should send a bill over to NPR.  Seems like it’s the only thing I’ve been writing about lately.  But I can’t help it. After the NPR P.C. Police warned even its clerical staff that it would be an ethical violation to attend the upcoming Jon Stewart rally, now it has gone ahead and fired commentator Juan Williams for some rather uncomfortable remarks he made on Fox.

So, Williams said what I am sure a lot of people think i.e. that he gets worried and nervous when he sees folks in full Muslim garb on airplanes. Didn’t matter that he also said it was absurd to think that all Muslims are terrorists.  The remark might, in fact, be crude. And it might be offensive to some.  But, if anything, it was about Williams revealing his own human frailties. BFD.

Williams is crying all the way to the bank.  He was immediately hired by Fox News for a hefty $2 million. I think the joke’s on NPR.

Clearly, what Williams said might be over the line. But so what? When did the First Amendment get suspended? I must have overslept that day.

I did learn something from this, even though I have been a journalist for 40 years.  According to the memo sent out by NPR honcho Vivian Schiller:

First, a critical distinction has been lost in this debate. NPR News analysts have a distinctive role and set of responsibilities. This is a very different role than that of a commentator or columnist.

Wow.  I have to reach into my wallet now and see what’s written on my Official Journalist certificate.  There’s some mysterious distinction I apparently didn’t know about for the last four decades between a “news analyst” and a “commentator or columnist?”  Please.  This is really in the realm of religion, redolent of a “debate” over whether John The Baptist preferred fresh or salt water.

By the way, I carry no water for Williams. He is the very embodiment of the word Mediocrity and symbolizes everything that is WRONG with the world of the MSM.  Indeed, I second what my old pal Earl Ofari Hutchinson says in this commentary. Or is it an analysis?

NPR, if it had an ounce of the integrity and fairness that it incessantly brags about, should have dumped Williams long ago for an equally great offense: his two-decade con job as a liberal civil rights expert and supporter.

Williams never missed a chance to boast about his two-decades-plus stint with the “liberal” Washington Post and tout his track record of authoring books on the civil rights movement. He sold himself as a man who backed, even championed, the civil rights struggles of the past, and whose sworn mission was to accurately and instructively chronicle those struggles. Here are a few of the titles that he used to sell this self-serving image of himself as Mr. Civil Rights: Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965.Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, This Far by Faith: Stories from the African-American Religious Experience, I’ll Find a Way or Make One : A Tribute to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience.

But Williams was a fraud. This was more than apparent in the clashes I had with him on Fox, when he instantly assumed the requisite attack-dog role and jumped on any criticism of the dumbest inanities from black conservatives.

That was a consistent pattern with Williams. He fronted himself as a Dr. Jekyll moderate— a thoughtful and balanced commentator who strived for fair and accurate analysis of issues on NPR. But he would quickly transform himself into a raving, take-no-prisoners, right-leaning Mr. Hyde on Fox— bashing Obama and civil rights leaders and shilling the GOP line on race.

This con game was deliberately enabled by NPR. It’s let’s call it like it is. NPR liked him because he was a “safe black.”  Turns out, he was too safe!

One ironic and amusing side note about the “standards” of NPR.  In the memo sent out last week by a different NPR exec, Jon Stewart’s name was spelled as “John.” In today’s NPR memo, the word principle was spelled as principal.  I make plenty of typos on my blog– because it is MY blog and I can do what I want to.  In my classes, however, a similar spelling mistake earns a FAIL.  Different places. Different standards, apparently.

The only thing that kept me from screaming in painful loss as Mad Men went on hiatus last night for another six months or so was the balm of watching a new episode of the mesmerizing Boardwalk Empire. But back to Don Draper. What a season finale! What a knock-out punch! Draper dumps the wonderful Dr. Faye Miller and proposes marriage to Barbie-doll Megan?  Betty, meanwhile, is consumed with a slow-motion nervous breakdown. Little Sally is well on her way to moving to Haight-Ashbury by Season Six.  Peggy can’t be more than three episodes away from joining N.O.W.  And Joanie’s hubby has got to wind up in Da Nang.

What does it all mean? Hell if I know. That’s why I have a daughter who thinks this stuff out a lot better than I do!

Here’s her full  analysis of the season closer. A teaser:

Don’s right—about one thing, at least: teenagers are sentimental. The cynicism with which adults rebel comes from the nihilism of doing what you know is bad for you because you’re old enough to understand that these things usually go unpunished. The kind of joyless self-indulgence that adults traffic in doesn’t exist for teenagers. For the young, it’s unfathomable that act of self-indulgence can bring anything but joy. In the twilight of childhood, you’re not sure what’s like to be an adult but you know what it feels like to not be a child. Every brush with adult behavior—anything from smoking, to sneaking out, to driving, to fucking—is wrapped in a gauzy, loving haze. (It’s bittersweet though: as the twilight of childhood dims, there is within the heart of every teenager a dull throb that comes with the mourning of lost innocence.) What’s alarming, then, is when grown-ups act like teenagers: denying themselves nothing, cherishing their transgressions like merit badges, constantly chasing the beginning of something, unable to parse the sensations of joys from despair.

A great remedy for withdrawal until Season Five begins:  buy Natasha’s book!

Paging the Chilean miner rescue teams. They need you in Washington D.C. this week to help extricate NPR from the hole it continues to dig itself into over banning its employees from attending –or even watching from the sidelines– the upcoming Stewart-Colbert rallies on the mall.

NPR’s official Church Lady ombudsman, Alicia Shepard engages in some truly sophistic mumblings about the controversial ban, mostly lamenting how the ban was poorly handled PR-wise, while defending its substance.  Reading through this sludge reminds me of my college days, forty years ago, when I would have to peruse the ideological tracts of small Marxist-Leninist cults.  Ahhh, but such is the nature of orthodoxy, no? After all, IT IS WRITTEN.

Well, “Nothing is written!” as Peter O’Toole exclaims  to Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia. Except for Ms. Shepard. Everything is already pre-determined by The Code, the holy script (presumably guarded by that elite class of orange-clad primates in The Planet of The Apes). And, as was the case with those hairy, cinematic keepers of the truth,  it is her exalted duty to interpret the secret books for us chimps, much the same way priests and other charlatans interpret the Word of God for their own flocks of Sheeple.

The real problem, you see, is the “dark side” of the Internet as Shepard puts it. All us pajama-clad bloggers just ganged up and raped poor old NPR, without fully understanding what is written in Paragrah 9, Section 347, Book Three of the Revered Ethical Code of the Church of Latter Day Journalists.  The net did  a “lousy job,” she says in interpreting the latest decree from the infallible NPR managers,  unlike the stellar work done, say, by the “legitimate”  New York Times in its once-in-a-lifetime reporting on Curveball during the stampede to the catastrophic war in Iraq. Thank heavens no lousy bloggers stuck their nose under the tent on that one. One can only imagine the quagmire we would have been tossed into!

Jeff Jarvis, who happens to be an old newspaper guy, a Web pioneer and a  leading J-School innovator, rips Shepard to shreds in this fine piece. He also notes with barely concealed glee that Shepard is on her way out. Hopefully, NPR’s new ombuds will be someone who actually understands the Web and how it is changing everything.  Of course,  ten years from now it won’t matter because there will be no more “appointment radio” and that will be that. I suspect by then NPR will fully get how the Web works.

Earlier in the day, Jarvis had written a good piece on his own blog detailing exactly where NPR has missed the boat.  Even if you sanctify the illusion of “impartiality,” why would you encourage your reporters to be ignorant and non-observant of major societal events? Better to be engaged than to be celibate?

Well, don’t get lathered up. it’s all just a simple PR problem that could have been avoided with a more cleverly written press release.  Something more important than truth and passion. Shepard concludes that NPR’s absurd policy of political abstinence is just fine. The flacks just should  have had written the public memo in a better way.

Jarvis encourages NPR staff to actively protest the ban by making their voices heard on blogs and social media. Don’t hold your breath. I think more of their spare time is taken up attending those voice classes where you learn to speak like you are constantly pumped full of Thorazine and your heart rate never rises above 55.

Ms. Shepard: The best response to you is: Epuur’ Si Mouve.

I teach journalism students all day long and if there’s one thing that drives me crazy it’s an aspiring journalist who has nothing to say. Don’t we have enough them already?  I want my reporters to have drive, passion and commitment,

Apparently, I’m giving them bad advice.  Leading MSM news organizations are tying themselves into frenzied knots over how their employees are to participate, or not, in the upcoming Stewart-Colbert rallies in Washington D.C.   Here’s the message in less than 140 characters: “Please don’t have any thoughts.”

Or as the chief exec of NPR, Vivian Schiller, put it in a memo to all employees. It effectively bans not only on-air folks from any political activity but also employees in communications, legal and other departments who the public never hears from.

“[N]o matter where you work at NPR you should be very mindful that you represent the organization and its news coverage in the eyes of your friends, neighbors and others. So please think twice about the message you may be sending about our objectivity before you attend a rally or post a bumper sticker or yard sign. We are all NPR.”

NPR. It rhymes with nowhere. Or as NYU’s Jay Rosen has put it, The View from Nowhere. You are to be neutral and impartial. You are to have no point of view. No passion or principles to underpin or drive your reporting. You are not to think, judge or conclude. Everything is a maybe.

NPR’s Senior V.P For News Ellen Weiss was even more explicit in reminding ALL NPR employees what its code of ethics commands:

* NPR journalists may not run for office, endorse candidates or otherwise engage in politics. Since contributions to candidates are part of the public record, NPR journalists may not contribute to political campaigns, as doing so would call into question a journalist’s impartiality.

* NPR journalists may not participate in marches and rallies involving causes or issues that NPR covers, nor should they sign petitions or otherwise lend their name to such causes, or contribute money to them. This restriction applies to the upcoming John Stewart and Stephen Colbert rallies.

* You must not advocate for political or other polarizing issues online. This extends to joining online groups or using social media in any form (including your Facebook page or a personal blog) to express personal views on a political or other controversial issue that you could not write for the air or post on NPR.org.

As I said, have no passion. Do not think.

There are actually two inter-related issues here. One is the issue of “neutrality,” which we will get to in a moment. The other, it seems to me, is a basic First Amendment issue. If NPR, or anybody else, wants to cling to the obsolete and actually impossible ideal of an impartial he said/she said approach to reporting, it seems to me that what reporters, anchors, legal clerks and any other employee does in his or her personal time is NONE of the business of the employer. If you want to say that reporters ought to keep their opinions to themselves while reporting, well OK. But what’s that got to do with what they choose to do otherwise as living, breathing citizens of the United States. Should NPR post a banner over its door plainly saying: “Please Deposit All Rights To Free Speech Before Entering.”

It’s not just NPR. This absurd code of “ethics” also prevails at most major newspapers. It’s about as enforceable as anti-pedophile restraints on Catholic priests.  As if not going to a rally, not putting a bumper sticker on your car or not donating money to a presidential candidate will keep you from having impure and impartial thoughts.

What a load of crap.

Journalist and ASU professor Dan Gillmor wrote recently on this View From Nowhere ethic and noted that it’s one of the reasons that top tier MSM  journalists like Newsweek’s Howard Fineman and the NYTimes’ economics editor Peter Goodman are fleeing to online media where they can actually say what they want to.  Dan wrote:

Goodman told the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz (scoop for the old guard!) that writing in the Times’ news pages was “almost a process of laundering my own views, through the tried-and-true technique of dinging someone at some think tank to say what you want to tell the reader.” This prompted NYU professor and media critic Jay Rosen, who’s helped define a major problem with traditional media’s washing of actual voice and even honest reporting out of journalism, to tweet:

You get what this means, right? The View from Nowhere has become a liability in keeping newsroom talent

Scott Rosenberg, writing in his Wordyard blog and here on Salon, refined the implications today with a smart posting, expressing sympathy for the traditional media’s wish to offer an impartial take on the news. But his key insight is that the opportunity for old and new media people these days is to use actual human voice, amid much experimentation with journalistic forms, to bring valuable information to people who want something they can trust.

I’m also convinced that a big part of what’s happening is a sound one from a journalistic sense: That is, reporters want to be liberated from the lazy-journalism tyranny of the idiotic notion that there are two equal sides to everything — do a story on the Holocaust, get a quote from a neo-Nazi — and they grasp better than their old-media editors do that human voice is the heart of story-telling. When the Washingon Post tells its journalists to hide all human-ness from their public utterances, it’s missing an important part of our future.

By the way, this has been a pet theory of mine for the last year or so, one for which I have no data to support it: That part of the crisis of the MSM is not just a failed business model but also a tin ear. I firmly believe, with no proof, that younger Americans, now so accustomed to the conversational tone of TV and the Web, rather viscerally reject the Voice of God language that dominates newspaper reporting (and NPR). Those formerly known as the audience might not be able to exactly identify what it is that rubs them wrong but they can sense the inauthenticity of what they are reading — or hearing.

Incidentally, I will be DC that weekend for the Online News Association and I will be going to the rally. Maybe I can pick up some extra coin by spying on what other media people are there and ratting them out.

UPDATE: Speaking of MSM clowns, the top prize goes to Tribune Company innovation guru and buffon Lee Abrams who was recently (and finally) suspended.  Gawker has a delightful stew of his ten dumbest moments.

I’ve spent the last two nights dinging the MSM. Let’s switch it up this time around and take a shot at the, um, “alternative” media — as in alternative universe.  I have written extensively on the slow-motion demise of listener-sponsored Pacifica Radio — and it’s local affiliate KPFK in specific.

Tonight, a new chapter in the saga. This chapter is titled: You Can’t B.S. Everybody All The Time.

The fine website LAObserved reported this morning that the struggling KPFK, which is almost 100 percent dependent on conspiracy theories and medical quackery for fund raising, will soon be initiating a Spanish-language stream and over-the-air transmission. Not necessarily a bad idea but one that would be a lot more attractive if the station could first fix its wretched English-language programming which has led to historic lows in listenership and longer-than-ever on-air fundraising marathons. Indeed, the weak and laughable  KPFK management can’t even get it together to remove programmers who are quite literally in their afterlives.

But there’s more. I know for an absolute fact that the station has conducted ZERO market research nor has it sought out as much as an iota of expert advice on the nuances and utility of Spanish-language programming.  There is a ton of research available on this complicated subject which has to do with language patterns and preferences of immigrant communities (like how long do immigrants consume content in Spanish before they switch to English etc.)

Of course, this sort of detail is irrelevant to Pacificaoids where all decisions are political and strictly ideological. And this case, rather hypocritical and misleading.

For some years now, guilt-ridden radicals have been pushing to expands the few hours a week of already existing Spanish-language fare on the station (which consists mostly of crude propaganda ass-kissing of Chavez and Castro).  They have used this issue as a cudgel to beat other slightly saner factions in and around Pacifica. Now, Alan Minsky, the program director (of the slightly saner faction) has come up with a devilishly hypocritical and cynical move.  He announces in the memo published by LAObserved that soon the station will launch a web-based Spanish stream of programming. Translation: we will now ghettoize the programming and get it the fug off the air.

Actually, as the person who, 30 years ago exactly, initiated the first pieces of Spanish-language programming on KPFK, I think the experiment failed (a long time ago) and it should NOT be on the air. There’s nothing wring with Spanish… it’s just that mixed programming doesn’t work. You gotta do one or the other and here in L.A. we have several very successful Spanish-language broadcast outlets. Natch, KPFK mgmt is way too timid and politically correct to make such a rational decision as to can the Spanish programming.

So, with a neat little hat trick… it gets moved to the Web (with no financial resources and no real Pacifica presence ever established on the Web).

Then there’s this kicker. The REAL bullshit.  Here’s an excerpt from Minsky’s memo:

Basically, KPFK will start with a 24/7 Spanish language web-stream, which we are planning to inaugurate shortly after the fall fund drive. Once that is up and running, we will be ready to move that stream over to a new signal, which will be transmitted on the AM dial (yes, there are available signals!). The AM signal will start out relatively weak, thus very local – as a Part 15 station, which you can learn about at http://part15.us. But we can relay the signal as far and wide as we can, so long as each transmission complies with Part 15 regulations. Of course, once we establish ourselves at a place on the dial, it should make things much easier if we choose to raise money to have a more powerful signal.

A “relatively weak” signal? Um, compliance with Part 15 means an UNLICENSED, unrelgulated transmitter limited to one-tenth of a watt! The current KPFK FM signal is 112,00 watts or 1.2 million times stronger than the new “relatively weak” AM broadcast.  I do know what I am talking about as I have been a licensed amateur radio operator since 1965 and the mobile rig in my car puts out a very modest 100 watts or one-thousand times the power of the new KPFK AM signal (at home I have a 1500 watt station).

Here’s how the Wikipedia describes the devices covered by Part 15 of the FCC code:

• 802.11x wireless LAN (e.g. WiFi) 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz (U-NII)

• 802.15x PANs (e.g. Bluetooth, ZigBee) 2.4 GHz

• Cordless phones: 900 MHz, 1.9 (U-PCS), 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz (U-NII)

• Low-power broadcasting, often by hobbyists, or on college or high school campuses.

• Small FM radio transmitters designed to hook to the audio output of an iPod or other portable audio device and broadcast the audio so that it can be heard through a car audio system that is not equipped with an audio input.

• Very low power transmitters, often referred to as “talking roadsign”, “talking houses” or “talking billboards”, which will air a repeating loop of highway construction, traffic, promotional or advertising information. A sign placed near the transmitter is used to entice passersby (nearly always in automobiles) to tune in. The talking house gets its name from the fact that many such transmitters are installed at houses that are up for sale, thus enabling a passerby to find out details about the interior of the house without actually touring the building. Many talking houses have been noted by DXers apparently using unauthorized power levels and antenna systems, and thus audible far beyond the limitations authorized under Part 15. The FCC has also found some of these devices to exceed their limits.

• In the United States, state departments of transportation such as the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Washington State Department of Transportation often set up temporary low power radio broadcasting system near road construction worksites to inform drivers of expected delays and detours, duration, and history of the construction project drivers are passing. These systems are set up permanently to provide traffic information near airports and concert and sports arenas.

• Some wireless microphones and headsets that broadcast to a receiver which amplifies the audio. Wireless microphones allow the speaker to move about freely, unlike a conventional microphone, and are thus popular with musicians. However, all professional wireless microphones (including those labeled as “UHF”) must be licensed under Part 74, Subpart H of the FCC’s rules. Units using the high UHF channels revoked from the TV bandplan in June 2009 will become illegal to operate in June 2010.

• Toys such as the popular late-1970s Mr. Microphone and its imitators, which would broadcast the user’s voice to a nearby radio receiver. Variations on this type of transmitter were advertised for sale in radio magazines as far back as the 1920s.

• Walkie talkies intended for children’s use, baby monitors, and some older cordless phones all operate on frequencies in the 49 MHz band (or rarely at the upper end of the AM broadcast band) and have been known to interfere with one another.
• Remote Controls for various toys, garage door openers, etc

I guess we can now add to that list, “People-Powered Radio!”  All kidding aside, a Part 15 transmitter operating on the very low AM frequencies will have a range of maybe a block… maybe two if you have a great big, and I do mean BIG antenna.  Minsky makes some obscure reference of how somehow linking together a bunch of these micro-transmitters will extend the signal to a much broader area.  I don’t know, I’ve worked with radio repeaters for 40 years and to cover a city you’ve got to get 50 watts or more way, way up high on a mountaintop and Part 15 permits no such thing.  Perhaps, if KPFK strings a couple of thousand baby monitors across the city, spaced 150 feet apart, the mission will be accomplished.

Why write about this? Precsiely because of my posts from the two previous nights bemoaning the state of the MSM. We deserve real alternatives. Not clown shows.

I’m sitting here watching the Chilean miner rescue on cable TV and I am consumed by a whipsaw of conflicting emotions.  Who cannot be moved by this incredible human story, the miraculous rescue of 33 trapped miners from a half mile below the surface?  As pinhead MSNBC anchor, Chris Jansing, gushed a few minutes ago: ‘This is better than any reality show on TV.”

No scheiss, Sherlock.  Of course, what she doesn’t say is just how much BETTER a TV show this would be if the cable on the rescue car would snap and we could all watch some poor bastard hurl to his demise, live.

I don’t know at what hour of the day CNN and MSNBC began their continuous coverage of the rescue, but I’m in my fourth hour with five guys rescued so far.  Will this continue live for 35 more hours?  What happened to the rest of the world?

No doubt that this story deserves front and center coverage. But continuous? Why? I suppose because it aggregates eyeballs — the news value itself dissipates by the minute.  Then again, CNN and MSNBC aren’t in business primarily to propagate news, are they?

Earlier in the day, as I was getting ready to go to work around mid-day Tuesday, I saw about four or 5 reports from Copiapo (pronounced co-pee-ah-PO and not  co-pee-AH-pu as the ignorant anchors continue to repeat) in which NBC correspondent Kerry Sanders had NOTHING to actually report –except that there were 1700 reporters on the scene.

Pretty good PR for Chile. That’s more reporters than showed up for the recent earthquake there or for the monster quake in Haiti some months before.  Which brings me to my main point tonight… a point as dead obvious, I am sorry to say, as was my post below from yesterday.

The ONLY way the Third World gets ANY MSM coverage, especially TV coverage, is to have a nice, big friggin’ natural or man-made disaster. Period. Full stop.

I’ve been trying to find it for weeks, with no luck, but there was a great study published in the Columbia Journalism Review in the late 1980′s analyzing U.S. network coverage of the Third World. The study found that something like 95% of such stories were reported through one of two frames: either as a “cold war national security story” (El Salvador, Nicaragua etc.) or as disaster story.

With the cold war now over, I guess that only leaves one way to get foreign and especially American reporters to your country: have an earthquake, a tsunami or trap a bunch of miners alive.

Go ahead, fellow reporter, a pitch a story on just about anything else south of the border and watch the eyes of  your editor roll back into their heads.

How many reports have we ever seen on mining conditions in Chile (which lives off mining?).  How much coverage have we seen of El Salvador or Nicaragua since the U.S. military intervention in those places ceased nearly 20 years ago? They as much as disappeared from the map.

I know I am getting repetitive on this subject … but…here’s one more thing I will not miss with the coming demise of the MSM. I will not miss its omission of The World from daily coverage.

I LOVE this headline from Bloomberg news service: Obama Engages in Class Warfare With His Campaign for Democratic Lawmakers.  The same accusation is made in several other MSM and online publications as well as by GOP pols.

Why?

Because Obama has called for the expropriation of the capitalist class? Because he has called for confiscating banks and insurance companies? Because he has called the sans-culottes to rally and storm the New York Stock Exchange?

No.

Bloomberg explains its headline in the text of its objective article:

resenting Democrats as the party that will fight for the “middle class,” and Republicans as the party that will look out for “millionaires and billionaires,” Obama in campaign speeches and at fundraisers has sought to make his point using a populist lexicon that aligns Republicans with big businesses as the forces behind the worst recession since the Great Depression.

His cast of villains makes repeated appearances, including in Obama’s remarks at an Oct. 10 rally in Philadelphia: “special interests,” “Wall Street banks,” “corporations,” the “oil industry,” the “insurance industry” and “credit card companies.” Specific corporations aren’t spared, as when the president said the Republican governing agenda was “written by a former lobbyist for AIG and Exxon Mobil.”

Oh, geesh. Roll out the guillotines and off with their heads.

I know it’s obvious. I know it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. But, for Chrissakes, why is denouncing the wealthiest for being greedy — which they are– “class warfare” but cutting off unemployment insurance for common people, bestowing a trillion or two in tax breaks for the rich while one out of six workers is effectively unemployed and engaging in the most radical transfer of wealth upward over the last 25 years are not?

What a strange country we live in.

What a subservient, timid MSM we are condemned to suffer.

It’s hard to say if the poor devil in this pic will soon be a subject of ABC News or if he is an executive of ABC News.

Though, it;s more likely the network suits look like this.

In a truly bizaarro world development, ABC News, which you will remember is a branch of the mega corporation known as DISNEY, solicited and received a $1.5 million handout from the non-profit Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation so the network can better cover poverty in the third world (make sure you read the linked article from Variety as I am quoted in it).

As you know, I am part of the “creative destruction” school when it comes to the MSM.  I am not among those who are worried that we are going to lose “quality journalism.”  I think, on the contrary, we will gain.  This little to-do between ABC and Gates further convinces me.

So, it turns out that the network, citing its need to better conserve its resources, will put up $4.5 million for its upcoming series on global poor people and it will take the $1.5 million dole out from Gates to help finance the series.  The ABC segments will be led by none other than former Nixon aide and current news reader Diane Sawyer whose salary is reported to be $12-15 million per year!

Need anything else be said?

Ok, I’ll say it. I really don’t care very much what ABC does or doesn’t do. I never have and it is unlikely I will start at this point in my life.  But if ABC is hurting for money, as it claims, and it needs some charity hand outs to cover –ugh– poor people, then maybe it ought to think about taking it out of Sawyer’s (and several other multi-millionaire anchor) salaries. Until they do that, and cap the salary of an anchor at the same level of their highest paid reporter, I really don’t care to hear any moaning or pissing from the news hounds at Disney.

This current situation in GROTESQUE.  Indeed, the thought of Diane Sawyer reporting on the the Third World poor is rather grotesque, no matter who is picking up the bill.

Nor should we let the Gates Foundation off the hook. What the hell are they doing giving more than a million bucks to Disney to cover poor people instead of giving that money directly to the projects ABC will be “reporting” on.  This, of course, doesn’t even address the possible issue of conflict of interest. Will the ABC series look at possible corruption or inefficiencies in the do-gooder projects that will be its subjects and that Gates, obviously, wants publicized? Somehow, I don’t think so.

Talk about an upside-down world.

P.S. Don’t they shoot Diane Sawyer through cheesecloth nowadays to soften her lovely but aging features? You’d think that alone would result in a pay cut.