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Facebook Friend Ron Fournier is one of the few political journalists who have aggressively covered the Clintons.
Fournier is going to the dark side — the title of “publisher” — but he has a few things to say to us ink-stained wretches on Labor Day (when, yes, I am working), beginning with a story about a short diversion into a website:
In a meeting just before the site launched, my business partners—six of the smartest, most successful political consultants in Washington—debated which reporter would be given an interview announcing our venture.
I mentioned a particular journalist known to be an easy mark inside the White Houses of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Afraid of confrontation, eager to please, and lazy, this reporter printed whatever minor bits of news and color aides fed him, without skepticism or criticism. I didn’t respect the guy. Nor did most other reporters forced to compete against a patsy who benefited from a policy of mutual-assured promotion.“He’ll gobble up what we feed him,” I told my partners. One groaned. Another winced and said, “Yes, but nobody will buy it. Nobody respects him. They’ll know it’s just a press release.”Until that moment, I assumed the people we covered in politics valued pushover journalists. I thought this particular reporter got ahead by going along. That might be true on the small stories, but not for the stuff that matters.One of my partners asked about a Washington Post political correspondent known for his tough, insightful coverage. “You think Dan Balz would buy this?” “I don’t know,” said another. “But if Balz loves Hotsoup, we’re golden. If he hates it, we’re toast.”
Balz never did write about the project, and we were toast. But I left the meeting knowing that if I ever returned to journalism, I didn’t want to be taken for granted liked the first reporter. I wanted to inspire in my sources what Balz had earned from my partners—respect and fear.
Now that I’m leaving political journalism again, I’d like to share a few other things I’ve learned since joining the profession 30 years ago in Arkansas, where I covered Bill Clinton.
Don’t lose sight of your mission. A reporter’s job is to get as close to the truth as possible, overriding personal biases and sifting through a rising churn of spin and lies to explain what happened and why it matters. At its highest levels, journalisminforms (via scoops and insights that would otherwise be unknown), provokes (via new thoughts and action), and holds powerful people accountable (with no fear or favor).
You’re not working for your editors, other reporters on your beat, or your sources. You’re working for the public, your audience, which is why you don’t slip acronyms, anonymous quotes, and other insidery detail into your stories just to impress folks on your beat. Also, remember for whom you work when you’re rewriting a press release or broadcasting a spoon-fed story for the wrong reasons—“because I’ve got to keep them happy” or “I’ve got to show them I’m relevant, that I’m the reporter they come to.” That’s how you become a patsy. It’s not how you develop sources.
You develop sources by building relationships. Draw up a list of the people on your beat who know things your audience needs to know. Call or email every one of them and ask them out for coffee or lunch. Keep lists. Keep calling. When you’re meeting a potential source for the first time, keep the conversation informal. Get to know him or her. Where’s she from? How does she get along with her family? What are her hobbies? Write a thank-you note after that first meeting, and follow up for a second and a third and a fourth. Don’t consummate the relationship until you’ve built one; it might take weeks, months, or even years to accumulate enough trust for a source to give you information that is valuable for your audience to know and dangerous for your source to convey. (I conducted workshops at The Associated Press that compared source development to the rituals of dating.) Don’t hesitate to hurt a source. One of the reasons to build relationships with people you cover is so that they understand your mission, which means they shouldn’t expect favors when they find your job in conflict with theirs. Fairness and honesty are central to any relationship, and nobody likes surprises, which is why I tell sources, “I’ll never stab you in the back. I’ll always stab you in the chest.” In other words, you’ll know when I’m writing about you or your boss, you’ll know exactly how negative the story will be, and you’ll get a chance to argue your case—but you’ll still get the sharp end of the knife. A reporter’s job isn’t to make friends. It’s to build relationships that inform and provoke readers, and to hold powerful people accountable. Remember the Balz lesson: Your sources are more likely to respect you if they’re a little afraid of you.Don’t cede power to the powerful. I’ve written repeatedly (here, here, and here) about how the media needs to confront a dangerous shift of power away from journalists and toward the people they cover. The short version: Stop ceding control and start doing things that bring powerful people to heel. You don’t like background briefings? Stand up at them and say, “I am filing this briefing to Twitter and quoting you by name.” You want Donald Trump to release his tax records? Impose an embargo on his free airtime until he does so. Campaign officials are bullying one of your reporters over a tough story she did? Get her help: Assign four more reporters to the story and tell them to dig deeper, because apparently she’s on to something. Political operatives are adapting, finding new and ruthless ways to mislead the public. Journalists must adapt, too.You control the ground rules. An addendum to the rule above, all news and information is on the record and suitable for publication or broadcast, subject to the sole discretion of journalists. On your beat, any exceptions to that rule must be approved in advance by you. A company email marked “off the record” or “on background” and sent to you unsolicited is an email you can publish—on the record. An advanced text of a speech marked “embargoed” and sent to you unsolicited is a speech you can publish—immediately. A government official who tells you something in an interview and then says, “That’s off the record” gets a polite but curt reply, “It’s on the record, sir. I’m a reporter, not a priest.” You may want to talk on background. Before granting somebody anonymity, ask yourself, “Am I doing this in service of my audience or my ego?” The standard rule for using anonymous sources, published in Associated Press style books used in almost every newsroom, is: “Whenever possible, we pursue information on the record. When the source insists on background or off-the-record ground rules, we must adhere to a strict set of guidelines.” First, the material is information “and not opinion or speculation, and is vital to the news report.” Second, the information is not available on the record. Third, the source is reliable. Many times, the only way to reveal secrets and ugly truths is to disguise the identities of people who expose them. Write with authority. Don’t use crutches like “critics say” when the truth can stand on its own. If the president has said something that is factually wrong, just write or say, “The president is wrong.” If you can show the deception is intentional, tell your audience, “The president lied.” Don’t strain for balance or equivalence in a story where there is none. The truth is rarely black and white or evenly balanced between poles. When you’re writing and editing a story, focus on your first paragraph—the lede that tightly explains what happened. But spend the most time on your “nut paragraph,” that chunk of context explaining why the news is important to your audience or what it might say about future behavior. If you’re writing an opinion piece, that “nut paragraph” may actually be your lede.Politics isn’t just about winning. I loathe political journalism that reduces every development or controversy into a single lazy question: “What does this say about how Candidate X will fare on Election Day?” The better question is often ignored:“What does this say about how Candidate X would govern?” This horserace bias helped fuel Donald Trump’s rise, as each outrageous utterance seemed to be forgotten, if not excused, when polls showed that the callousness was not hurting his poll numbers. In most campaign coverage, “Will he win?” trumped “Should he win?” It wasn’t until Trump’s approval numbers started tanking in general election polling that his suitability for the office became a mainstream issue. Politics isn’t just a science. For as much as reporters should use data and study political science, they shouldn’t ignore the sociology of the beat. We don’t cover mere numbers or studies or even candidates; we cover people—people who want to lead a nation of people buffeted by a confluence of economic, technological, and demographic change unlike anything the United States has experienced since the late 1800s and early 1900s. Understand that history. Get outside of Washington and ask people how their lives and politics are changing. This is how I wrapped my head around why good people support a bad candidate like Trump, people who I started calling “Crazy Buts.”Don’t follow the herd. Journalists in Washington tend to chase the same stories based on the same assumptions to reach the same conclusions. Resist the temptation because it’s boring and bad for your career. The way to advance in journalism is to be distinctive, which means telling stories that nobody else is telling, which starts by asking questions nobody else is asking, which can only be done if you ignore the convention wisdom and group think, which takes guts. Take a chance. Take control.Eventually, the dynamic shifts. You start breaking stories and stabbing people in the chest, and now the powerful people need you more than you need them. You stop begging for information, because now they beg you. “What are you working on?” ask government and campaign officials, the same people who used to ignore your emails and calls—and that’s when you know you’ve got ‘em. They trust you. They respect you. They may or may not like you, but what really matters is this: They’re a little afraid of you. -
Though I have seen perhaps one minute of it, the HBO series “Game of Thrones” is in its final season.
So what should replace it? Christopher Orr has a suggestion that readers will recognize:
Fifteen years ago, when I finished reading Patrick O’Brian’s magisterial 20-novel Aubrey-Maturin series for the first time, I remember thinking, damn you, Horatio Hornblower. C.S. Forester’s renowned nautical protagonist was at the time enjoying the starring role in the British TV series Hornblower, and given the close similarities to O’Brian’s oeuvre—both concern the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic era—it seemed unlikely bordering on inconceivable that anyone would try to adapt the latter for television.
That was, of course, at a time when it almost went without saying that a project of such scope and pedigree would have to be British. But the televisual times have since changed immeasurably for the better on this side of the Atlantic, and now it’s easy to envision O’Brian’s books—which The Times Book Review has hailed as “the best historical novels ever written”—being adapted by any number of networks: HBO, obviously, but also AMC, FX, Netflix, USA … the list grows longer by the month.
Which is a very good thing, because if someone would merely get around to undertaking them, the Aubrey-Maturin novels could easily provide material for exquisite television, offering the action and world-building scale of Game of Thrones, the social anthropology (and Anglo-historical appeal) ofDownton Abbey, and two central characters reminiscent of (though far more deeply etched than) Rust Cohle and Marty Hart in the first season of True Detective. Someone really needs to make this happen.
I was reminded of this when I rewatched Peter Weir’s 2003 big-screen O’Brian adaptation, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, on a recent transatlantic flight. It is a fine film (I reviewed it here), but it scarcely attempts to scratch the surface of its principal characters, let alone the rich supporting populations who orbit them.
Those principal characters are Captain Jack Aubrey—brave, gregarious, impetuous, not infrequently subject to romantic indiscretion—and his ship’s surgeon, Stephen Maturin, an accomplished but introverted scholar and naturalist. (He’s also gradually revealed to be a high-level spy, as well as an uncommonly gifted duelist and assassin.) The two meet-ugly at a concert in Minorca on April 1, 1800—Maturin is infuriated by Aubrey’s tapping to the beat “a half measure ahead”—but quickly become fast friends in part thanks to their shared love of music. Together they form what Christopher Hitchens described as “one of the subtlest and richest and most paradoxical male relationships since Holmes and Watson.”
In Weir’s film, Aubrey and Maturin were played, respectively, by Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. And while both actors offered solid performances, neither was particularly well-suited to his role: Crowe is too dark for Aubrey, and Bettany not dark (or small) enough for Maturin. Properly cast—a pairing such as that of Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl in Ron Howard’s underrated Rush would be closer to the mark—both are potentially career-defining roles, Maturin in particular.
Though you wouldn’t know it from Weir’s film, which took place entirely at sea, O’Brian provides solid female roles, too, in Aubrey and Maturin’s contrasting love interests, Sophie Williams and, especially, Diana Villiers. (It’s no coincidence that the author to whom O’Brian is most frequently compared—more than Melville or Conrad or Forester—is Jane Austen.) Outwards from this core are found an absurdly generous constellation of supporting characters: Tom Pullings, Barrett Bonden, Preserved Killick, Padeen (if he wasn’t an inspiration for George R.R. Martin’s Hodor, the resemblance is a remarkable coincidence), Sam Panda, Mrs. Broad, Clarissa Oakes, Heneage Dundas, Capitaine Christy-Pallière, the poor, doomed Lord Clonfert, and on and on.
There would be some narrative issues to untangle in adapting O’Brian’s work for television—chief among them the long, alternating storylines at sea and on land—but material this rich and vast could be sewn together in innumerable ways. And while it would inevitably be an expensive production, Hornblower showed that a similar feat could be pulled off way back in 1998. (Moreover, if financing can be arranged for an excellent but decidedly eccentric literary adaptation such asJonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell—well worth checking out, incidentally, for those who haven’t—surely it could be found for a series with the relative commercial appeal of Aubrey & Maturin.)
So if you happen to know a network executive (or, better yet, are one yourself), please raise the idea with all available alacrity. The possibility of historic television, in both senses of the word, awaits. Until then, we will make do with O’Brian’s novels—which, if it is not already apparent, I recommend wholeheartedly to anyone who has not already had the good fortune to encounter them.
The movie was more than “fine” as far as I’m concerned.
It seemed obviously destined for a film series, but the series ended at one. But having the source material of 21 novels (more than the source material for “Game of Thrones”) would, you’d think, be more than enough as a starting point for Aubrey and Maturin.
I watched the “Hornblower” series and enjoyed it.
I have also seen the movie starring Gregory Peck.
In neither case does it seem as though the novel Hornblower became the movie and TV version. The TV series starts with Hornblower as a seasick midshipman who grows in his duties and skill, whereas the movie has Hornblower already as a captain. The always-accurate Wikipedia describes the print version, praised by none other than Ernest Hemingway and Winston Churchill, as …
… courageous, intelligent, and a skilled seaman; but he is also burdened by his intense reserve, introspection, and self-doubt, described as “unhappy and lonely”. Despite numerous personal feats of extraordinary skill and cunning, he belittles his achievements by numerous rationalizations, remembering only his fears. He consistently ignores or is unaware of the admiration in which he is held by his fellow sailors. He regards himself as cowardly, dishonest, and, at times, disloyal—never crediting his ability to persevere, think rapidly, organize, or cut to the heart of a matter. His sense of duty, hard work, and drive to succeed make these imagined negative characteristics undetectable by everyone but him and, being introspective, he obsesses over petty failures to reinforce his poor self-image. His introverted nature continually isolates him from the people around him, including his closest friend William Bush, and his wives never fully understand him.
Well, the insular Hornblower is not really Peck’s Hornblower, nor is it Ioan Gruffudd’s Hornblower. What about Aubrey?
In his early career, according to HMS Surprise, Aubrey was not a skilled mathematician. In that book, he is described as learning mathematics and “…he studied the mathematics, and like some other late-developers he advanced at a great pace.” In later books, Aubrey is presented as interested and skilled in mathematics and astronomy. He is also a great lover of music and player of the violin; he is a hearty singer. He is a man of even temperament, generally cheerful, sociable and alert to the feelings of his shipmates. He knows every aspect of the ships he sails and how best to gain speed over the oceans from each one by use of the sails without putting too much stress on the masts or yards (which would then break), a complex and hard-earned knowledge. He has been described as “the bluff and ultracompetent Aubrey”.[8] He feels the joy of battle; he is skilled in planning his attacks and in carrying them out, using cannon or hand to hand fighting. By contrast, he cannot watch his close friend, Dr Maturin perform a surgery, and is offended at the sight of blood on Maturin, the natural result of performing surgeries. On board ship, Aubrey on his violin is generally accompanied by his friend and shipmate Stephen Maturin on the cello. Aubrey is particularly fond of the music of Corelli and Boccherini. He is noted for his mangling and mis-splicing of proverbs, sometimes with Maturin’s involvement, such as “Never count the bear’s skin before it is hatched” and “There’s a good deal to be said for making hay while the iron is hot.” …
He enjoys the company of women. From the incident of keeping a girl aboard ship in his youth, unbeknownst to him, she was pregnant when he sailed away. Their son, Samuel Panda, appears in Aubrey’s life fully grown and educated, a dark-skinned version of himself, but a Catholic priest. Before he knew of this young man, Aubrey married Sophia Williams, whom he met and courted in the peace of 1802, when he was on land. They married and had three children, twin daughters Fanny and Charlotte, and a son George. He loves his family, though most of the time he is away on a ship.Successful TV series are about the characters. Aubrey and Maturin are substantially difficult, yet friends and comrades. Done right, a series would be compelling TV.
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Ted Cruz’s Wisconsin Republican primary win over Donald Trump was credited in large part to the united front of conservative radio hosts Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling, Vicki McKenna and Jerry Bader against Trump. (Because Trump is neither a Republican nor a conservative.)
So what now after Trump got the nomination anyway? Darren Hauck looks at Sykes:
Since last year, the most influential political talk show host in Wisconsin has found out just how hard it is to be a #NeverTrump conservative on right-wing radio. Ever since Sykes began denouncing Donald Trump on the air—which he does just about every time he talks about the presidential election—he’s strained his relationships with the listeners of his daily radio show.
Sykes’ many arguments with listeners over Donald Trump’s serial outrages have exposed in much of his audience a vein of thinking—racist, anti-constitutional, maybe even fascistic—that has shaken Sykes. It has left him questioning whether he and his colleagues in the conservative media played a role in paving the way for Trump’s surprising and unprecedented rise.
A few days before the Wisconsin congressional primary in early August, Sykes seized on remarks by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s opponent, Paul Nehlen, that raised the idea of deporting all Muslims, even American citizens. It’s the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that has become the norm during a presidential cycle that has featured Trump’s calls for immigration bans on Muslims, loyalty tests and mass deportations. A friendly and round-faced guy with glasses, Sykes, 61, doesn’t even try to conceal his disgust, but a large segment of his listeners, like Audrey from Oshkosh, are eager to defend ideas that Sykes believes violate fundamental conservative principles.
“Yeah! Let me make a comparison, and I don’t mean this in a bad way,” Audrey says. “They’re talking about phasing out breeding of pit bulls. Well, not all pit bulls are bad.”
“You’re comparing American citizens, Muslims, to rabid dogs,” Sykes responds.
“No, I’m saying, they’re talking about phasing out the breed because so many are bad. No one wants to phase out poodles! I mean, there’s no Lutherans doing this! We never know when one of these people are going to be radicalized.”
“One of these people,” says Sykes.
Sykes ends the call. He’s silent, broadcasting dead air. He looks upset, like he’s stopped breathing. He goes to a commercial break.
“OK, that doesn’t happen very often,” he says off-air. “I’m not usually absolutely speechless.” He says his listeners never talked like this until recently.
“Were these people that we actually thought were our allies?” he asks.
Sykes remains confident that Trump will lose badly in November, and he is equally fearful that Trump will drag longtime Republicans, like Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, down with him. This has Sykes thinking about the long-term future of the party and what might have precipitated its looming collapse. He wonders: Did “the faux outrage machine” of Breitbart.com and other right-wing outlets foment the noxious opinions that Trump has stoked so effectively on the trail?
“When I would deny that there was a significant racist component in some of the politics on our side, it was because the people I hung out with were certainly not,” Sykes says. “When suddenly, this rock is turned over, there is this—‘Oh shit, did I not see that?’
“I kind of had that reaction this morning, with that woman: Did we ignore this? There’s got to be some serious introspection, because of the things that we either didn’t see, or that we ignored, or that we enabled.”
***
Few people outside Wisconsin had heard of Sykes until this spring, when his explosive interview with Trump became national news. In the 17-minute confrontation a week before the Badger State’s primary in April, Sykes exposed several flaws in Trump’s candidacy, including his lack of preparation and obsessive grudges. “Before you called into my show, did you know that I’m a #NeverTrump guy?” Sykes asked. “That I didn’t know,” Trump replied. Sykes gave Trump several chances to back off his feud with Ted Cruz over online insults about each other’s wives, but Trump couldn’t let it be. “He started it,” Trump kept saying. “We’re not on a playground,” Sykes replied. “We’re running for president of the United States.”
When Cruz beat Trump—the #NeverTrump forces’ last big win—many credited Sykes with a key role. “Midday with Charlie Sykes,” on 620 WTMJ-AM, where he’s been a host for 23 years, reaches 200,000 listeners a week in the Milwaukee area alone, and more beyond. Sykes is Wisconsin’s most prolific conservative media personality: He also hosts a weekly TV show and edits the website Right Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute’s magazine Wisconsin Interest. His support has boosted conservative candidates across the state, most notably Scott Walker. Sykes and the governor are close, often exchanging texts and emails. Sykes supported Walker throughout his rise to power, the fierce backlash to Wisconsin’s 2011 anti-union law, and the failed 2012 gubernatorial recall.
“[Sykes’] contributions to the conservative movement in Wisconsin cannot be overstated,” Walker said in a written statement. “I value his friendship.” Walker’s support for freezing tuition at Wisconsin’s state universities parallels the ideas in Sykes’ eighth book, published this month: Fail U.: The False Promise of Higher Education, a thoughtful critique of the spiraling cost of college and the “culture of victimization on campus.”
So on this Friday in August, Sykes is juggling his many conservative roles—radio host, thinker, translator of Wisconsin political mores for the outside world. Young reporters from Vice and Milwaukee Public Radiointerview him about his book’s argument that spiking student debt isn’t worth it. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and NBC political reporters ask him about the Ryan-Nehlen race and whether Trump will endorse Ryan. Meanwhile, he’s wrestling with his listeners, from whom he is feeling increasingly estranged.
“I am dealing with the daily flood of emails on how we’re never going to listen to you anymore,” Sykes says. Longtime listeners write him to say conservative talk radio should criticize Hillary Clinton and not Trump.
“If I lose listeners, that’s a price I’ve just got to pay,” he says. He’d rather say what he really thinks than fall in line with other broadcasters’ embrace of Trump. “I feel dumber every time I listen to Sean Hannity. I don’t want to be that guy.”
***
Paul from D.C. is on the line.
“This is not the U.S. Constitution; this is not the Bill of Rights,” the speaker of the House responds after Sykes plays him Nehlen’s anti-Muslim comments. “This is not Wisconsin conservatives, Wisconsin Republicans. That kind of dark, grim, indefensible-thinking comment is going to be thoroughly rejected and repudiated Tuesday, I believe.”
Sykes sees an opening. “OK, so here’s my question: What would you say if Donald Trump is asked about this comment and refuses to disavow it? Would that be disqualifying for you?” Sykes’ face has turned red. He’s smiling.
“I’m not going to go into hypotheticals,” Ryan answers testily. “You and I have had these conversations. By the way, with any endorsement of anybody, there’s never a blank check. And you know that.”
This is how Sykes’ show has gone since Trump clinched the nomination: The biggest names in Wisconsin Republican politics call in—like Walker and Johnson—and the normally sympathetic host grills them about their support of Trump.
This time, Sykes reads from an especially punishing New York Times column, in which Ross Douthat claims Trump has “laid waste” to Ryan’s reputation for “moral and substantive authority.”
“I’m the speaker of the House,” Ryan replies. “With this job comes different responsibilities than, say, if I were just a congressman from Wisconsin. … This man won the votes fair and square. … As part of my responsibility for this job, I have the duty and obligation to honor this process.”
Sykes met Ryan when the speaker was first running for Congress, and he’s always been impressed with Ryan’s talent and intellect. They’ve matured together, Sykes says. For instance, they’ve both moved away from their earlier rhetoric about a country divided between “makers” and “takers.”
Wisconsin’s conservative talk-radio hosts are closer to Republican elected officials than radio populists elsewhere. They share pride in the successes of the state’s brand of conservatism: They brag about Ryan being the national Republican Party’s intellectual leader, and they celebrate Walker’s sharply conservative agenda. Decency is also a big part of the Wisconsin Republican self-concept, which clashes with Trump’s self-aggrandizing bombast.
“The elected officials in Wisconsin are all pretty much anti-Trump,” Sykes says. Nevertheless, nearly all of them endorsed Trump once he became the presumptive nominee. Sykes thinks none of them have their heart in it.
“Walker and Ryan have no illusions whatsoever about who Donald Trump is,” Sykes insists with the authority of a confidant. “They could have a conversation for an hour and a half with me, and everything [I] say about Donald Trump, there would be no disagreement. It’s just, at the end of the conversation, they would say, ‘Yes, but we can’t elect Hillary Clinton.’ I would say, ‘I can’t bring myself to vote for Donald Trump. I think he’s unfit to be president.’”
Sykes sympathizes with Ryan’s and Walker’s political quandary, but he’s unsparing in his critique of Reince Priebus, who, as the state GOP chairman, boosted Ryan and Walker’s careers before he ascended to the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. After Priebus declared Trump the presumptive GOP nominee, Sykes stopped talking to him for a couple of months.
“I just didn’t want to hear about the Kool-Aid,” Sykes says after a long sigh. “Reince is a friend. Reince has no illusions about Donald Trump, but made this decision not just to support him, but to go all in. It was painful watching somebody who I knew knew better. That’s why I describe him as a tragic figure.”
Priebus, he notes, commissioned the famed post-2012 election “autopsy” that called on the GOP to become more inclusive. “To watch him bow and scrape before the Orange God King—it was difficult!”
***
The reluctant right’s most powerful argument for supporting Trump, the future of the U.S. Supreme Court, doesn’t persuade Sykes—even though it affects someone close to him. His ex-wife, Diane Sykes, is on Trump’s short list for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Since their 1999 divorce, Diane Sykes has risen from local judge to federal appeals court judge and has developed a national reputation as a respected conservative jurist. In a February debate, Trump offered her as an example of a judge he might appoint to the high court.
Sykes says he’s “very close” to his ex-wife. “She would be absolutely fantastic for the court,” he says. “That would be an outstanding choice.” There’s just one problem. “I don’t trust [Trump] that he will appoint the people he says. I don’t believe the promises he’s making aren’t negotiable. He’s backed off virtually everything.”
This does not mean he can contemplate voting for Trump’s opponent. (When pressed, he says he’s willing to consider voting for Libertarian Gary Johnson.) “Hillary is awful and potentially corrupt within historically understandable parameters,” says Sykes. He holds his hands about a foot and a half apart. “She’s awful like that.”
Then Sykes throws his arms out wide. “Trump is potentially awful at thislevel,” he says.
In Sykes’ eyes, Trump is “a serial liar, a con man, a fraudster, a narcissist and authoritarian.” Clinton, meanwhile, is “a welfare-state liberal Democrat” and “big government” supporter with her own character problems.
“In any other scenario, Hillary Clinton’s lying about her emails, and her pay-for-play relationship with the Clinton Foundation would be disqualifying issues,” he argues. “The only reason they’re not disqualifying is because Donald Trump is a fundamentally more repellent, dishonest figure.” He predicts Trump will lose Wisconsin, take Ron Johnson’s Senate reelection bid down with him, and poison the Republican Party’s chances to ever make inroads with women, minorities and the young.
He predicts doom for the GOP ticket in Wisconsin in November. Trump, he says, is “uniquely unpopular in the biggest Republican areas of the state”—meaning the Milwaukee suburbs, where Sykes’ show has its deepest reach. Though Sykes thinks Johnson is an “outstanding” and “fantastic” U.S. senator, he thinks the Tea Party favorite will lose to liberal Russ Feingold, who’s running to take his old seat back. Trump’s unpopularity will trickle down the ballot and wound Johnson, Sykes thinks: “It’s not going to be pretty.”
Besides, Sykes notes, Wisconsin’s conservative revolution is based almost entirely on success in off-year elections. The Badger State hasn’t gone for a Republican presidential candidate since 1984. (George W. Bush lost Wisconsin by less than 1 percent in 2000 and 2004, but Barack Obama won it overwhelmingly in 2008 and 2012.)
“After November, the #NeverTrump conservatives will basically find themselves in the wilderness,” Sykes says. “Our role is going to be opposition to whatever is the ruling regime installed next year. I don’t want to be complicit in it one way or another.”
Instead, Sykes wants to help Ryan-style conservatives take the Republican Party back from Trump’s angry nationalists. “I hope to spend next year writing my next book,” Sykes says, “which will be titled Howthe Right Lost Its Mind.” He wants to figure out why, in his opinion, things went so wrong for the conservative movement. One problem, he thinks, is his fellow talk-radio hosts.
“Talk radio made itself relevant by beating up on other Republicans, vilifying other Republicans,” he says. “It fed this faux outrage machine that raised expectations unrealistically”—for instance, asking why Congress didn’t repeal Obamacare, though Obama’s veto pen made it mathematically impossible. Later, he would tell Business Insider’s Oliver Darcy that talk radio’s attack on mainstream-media bias has backfired, because its listeners now dismiss legitimate media fact-checking as untrustworthy.
Sykes warns his listeners to step outside the “alternative reality bubble” of Breitbart.com and other right-wing websites. Part of his audience thinks he’s sold out, he complains, because he won’t parrot dubious claims they’ve read on such sites. “A lot of the conservative talk shows around the country embrace almost whatever comes over the transom,” he says.
***
Eight days after the Nehlen show, a Milwaukee policeman fatally shot an armed black man, 23-year-old Sylville Smith, after he fled from a traffic stop. Rioters burned down stores, injured police, threatened and even attacked reporters, fired gunshots, and shot an 18-year-old white man in the neck. On the following Monday, the first day back on the air, Sykes drops his coverage of the presidential race and devotes his entire show to the unrest, Milwaukee’s story of the year.
“A riot—not an uprising, a riot,” he says. Sykes sounds like a conventional conservative on this issue, blaming cultural and family breakdowns and criticizing a black Milwaukee alderman for rhetoric that he thinks excuses violence. But he also subtly challenges himself and his audience by bringing on Mikel Holt, a columnist for the Milwaukee Community Journal, the city’s black newspaper, and taking callers from the city, not the Republican-leaning suburbs. Holt pushes back against some of Sykes’ assertions that city politicians have provided poor leadership, and he argues for drawing clear distinctions between the rioters on one side and idealistic activists and law-abiding city residents on the other.
“This was a really important message for my audience to hear,” Sykes says the next day, “that some of stuff they’re seeing on TV is not representative of anything more than a small minority of the community.”
A week earlier, Sykes had said Milwaukee’s racial divisions would also be a part of his coming reevaluation of the conservative movement. He’s thinking again about a 2014 New Republic piece that depicted Scott Walker’s political base in the Milwaukee suburbs as a hostile racial environment and argued that conservative talk radio hosts such as Sykes play a role. Sykes calls the piece “ridiculous,” “tremendously overblown” and a “really, really negative hit job.” But he says he’s going to grapple with it when he writes his next book.
“I’m going to reread it and go, ‘OK, as much as I really seriously hated this story’—this is the nagging thing in the back of your head—‘Is there some grain of truth in the criticism that I spent 20 years denying?’”
Do you know anyone from the world of the liberal commentariat who would conduct a self-examination that might counter the liberal shibboleths? I bet you don’t. (Of course, liberal talk radio has been and continues to be a commercial flop with rare exceptions, because it doesn’t bring in enough listeners and therefore enough ad revenue.)
Sykes (with whom I appeared on his “Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes” TV show back in my business magazine days) is the object, if that’s what you want to call it, of the “Sykes effect,” his ability to influence GOP legislators within the sound of WTMJ’s signal, but not beyond it (such as in western and northern Wisconsin). I doubt his influence on the state GOP is going to diminish regardless of this election’s bad results, because he’s had influence in the GOP long before Trump decided it would be yuuuuuuuge to run for president. (Friends in high places, as they say.)
Sykes gets to continue on radio because of his ability to bring in listeners and therefore ad revenue, and that is unlikely to change once Trump’s candidacy goes away. (Certainly four years of Hillary! the Corrupt will provide Sykes et al with more than enough material.) WTMJ’s former owner, Journal Communications, and current owner, Scripps, has devoted significant resources to the Right Wisconsin platform, and Sykes really has an unprecedented role within Wisconsin radio right now. As long as Sykes is making money for Scripps, Sykes will get to keep doing that.
Sykes is also correct, by the way, that Trump is and will be a disaster for the Republican Party, though the party in Wisconsin and at the state level elsewhere will survive Trump.
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Michael Goodwin:
Donald Trump may or may not fix his campaign, and Hillary Clinton may or may not become the first female president. But something else happening before our eyes is almost as important: the complete collapse of American journalism as we know it.
The frenzy to bury Trump is not limited to the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House. They are working hand in hand with what was considered the cream of the nation’s news organizations.
The shameful display of naked partisanship by the elite media is unlike anything seen in modern America.
The largest broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — and major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post have jettisoned all pretense of fair play. Their fierce determination to keep Trump out of the Oval Office has no precedent.
Indeed, no foreign enemy, no terror group, no native criminal gang suffers the daily beating that Trump does. The mad mullahs of Iran, who call America the Great Satan and vow to wipe Israel off the map, are treated gently by comparison.
By torching its remaining credibility in service of Clinton, the mainstream media’s reputations will likely never recover, nor will the standards. No future producer, editor, reporter or anchor can be expected to meet a test of fairness when that standard has been trashed in such willful and blatant fashion.
Liberal bias in journalism is often baked into the cake. The traditional ethos of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable leads to demands that government solve every problem. Favoring big government, then, becomes routine among most journalists, especially young ones.
I know because I was one of them. I started at the Times while the Vietnam War and civil rights movement raged, and was full of certainty about right and wrong.
My editors were, too, though in a different way. Our boss of bosses, the legendary Abe Rosenthal, knew his reporters leaned left, so he leaned right to “keep the paper straight.”
That meant the Times, except for the opinion pages, was scrubbed free of reporters’ political views, an edict that was enforced by giving the opinion and news operations separate editors. The church-and-state structure was one reason the Times was considered the flagship of journalism.
Those days are gone. The Times now is so out of the closet as a Clinton shill that it is giving itself permission to violate any semblance of evenhandedness in its news pages as well as its opinion pages.
A recent article by its media reporter, Jim Rutenberg, whom I know and like, began this way: “If you’re a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him?”
Whoa, Nellie. The clear assumption is that many reporters see Trump that way, and it is noteworthy that no similar question is raised about Clinton, whose scandals are deserving only of “scrutiny.” Rutenberg approvingly cites a leftist journalist who calls one candidate “normal” and the other “abnormal.”
Clinton is hardly “normal” to the 68 percent of Americans who find her dishonest and untrustworthy, though apparently not a single one of those people writes for the Times. Statistically, that makes the Times “abnormal.”
Also, you don’t need to be a detective to hear echoes in that first paragraph of Clinton speeches and ads, including those featured prominently on the Times’ website. In effect, the paper has seamlessly adopted Clinton’s view as its own, then tries to justify its coverage.
It’s an impossible task, and Rutenberg fails because he must. Any reporter who agrees with Clinton about Trump has no business covering either candidate.
It’s pure bias, which the Times fancies itself an expert in detecting in others, but is blissfully tolerant of in itself. And with the top political editor quoted in the story as approving the one-sided coverage as necessary and deserving, the prejudice is now official policy.
It’s a historic mistake and a complete break with the paper’s own traditions. Instead of dropping its standards, the Times should bend over backwards to enforce them, even while acknowledging that Trump is a rare breed. That’s the whole point of standards — they are designed to guide decisions not just in easy cases, but in all cases, to preserve trust.
The Times, of course, is not alone in becoming unhinged over Trump, but that’s also the point. It used to be unique because of its adherence to fairness.
Now its only standard is a double standard, one that it proudly confesses. Shame would be more appropriate.
Trump and Clinton should be treated the same by the media. So should every politician and candidate. Politicians should be afraid of the media, because the media should curry no favor with any party, any politician, or any cause.
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The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple reports on the flagship publication of my former employer (other than Marketplace Magazine, R.I.P.):
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel pulled a sneaky maneuver this summer. In mid-July it published a column on race relations by columnist James E. Causey containing the incorrect claim that the unemployment rate for white men in 1954 was zilch. It appeared that this fanciful statistic had been sourced from a website named YourBlackWorld.net.
Instead of fixing the column and adding a correction, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel disappeared the entire thing. It never showed up in print, and the column’s link dead-ended. Then, after this blog inquired about the situation, it resurfaced the piece, this time with a correction.
More corrective action appears to be descending on the work of Causey, who wrote a compelling piece this past weekend about the violent protests around his Milwaukee neighborhood after a fatal police shooting of an armed man (he even scored a nice writeup on Poynter.org). In April, for instance, Causey wrote a piece about Gov. Rick Snyder’s handling of the Flint water crisis: “Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder should be charged.” A cached version of the column (captured on Aug. 14) turns up this explanation of the crisis:
It started in April 2014, when the state decided to temporarily switch Flint’s water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River as a cost-savings measure until a new supply line to Lake Huron was ready. That would have been fine, but the Flint River had a reputation of being nasty. Right after the switch, residents complained that the water was brown and it smelled funny. Residents started reporting hair loss, rashes and illness in 2014.
Compare that phrasing to a CNN piece dated Jan. 19, 2016, about three months before Causey’s column:
In April 2014 the state decided to temporarily switch Flint’s water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River as a cost-saving measure until a new supply line to Lake Huron was ready. The river had a reputation for nastiness, and after the switch, residents complained their water looked, smelled and tasted funny.
Virginia Tech researchers found the water was highly corrosive, and the city switched back to the Lake Huron water supply in October.In recent days, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has addressed this matter, among other deficiencies in Causey’s Flint story. An italicized passage at the top of the piece reads, “Correction: An earlier version of this column inaccurately attributed information about the water crisis in Flint, Mich., and inadequately attributed other information. The column also inaccurately described a quotation by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who said it would not be unfair to compare the crisis to Hurricane Katrina.” No longer does the story contain the passage that mimics CNN’s formulation. Instead, it now reads this way:
The problems began after the state switched Flint’s water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April 2014. Almost immediately, residents complained of brown water and a foul odor. Some said they broke out in rashes and lost their hair, CNN reported.
That’s an improvement. Two other Causey columns also contain headlining corrections, one for poor sourcing and the other for poor attribution and crediting.
The Erik Wemple Blog asked Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editor George Stanley how long the newspaper knew about the attribution problems and how he viewed them. He responded, “The explanations on the stories are the result of an internal review to set the record straight with readers — corrections that were addressed prior to any outside inquiry.”
The newspaper’s review may want to linger a bit on a Nov. 2015 column by Causey titled, “Diversity needed in the jury box.” It contains this description of a decision by a Kentucky judge Olu Stevens:
Stevens, who is black, dismissed the panel Oct. 14, because on the second day of jury selection, he was concerned that the pool of jurors that attorneys were to choose from had 37 white citizens and only three black citizens. Two of the three potential black jurors already had been eliminated.
Weeks before, Louisville’s WDRB.com wrote this:
In the recent case, on the second day of the drug trial on Oct. 14, Stevens said he was concerned that the panel of jurors attorneys were to choose a jury from included 37 white people and only three black citizens. And two of the three potential black jurors had already been eliminated.
This blog asked Stanley about that overlap; we are awaiting a response.
Inadequate attribution is one thing when the information is correct; it’s another when the information is bogus. As we reported earlier this week, Causey’s July column titled “Donald Trump’s right: We do have a race problem” contained these assertions about historic racial disparities: “In 1954, unemployment was zero for white men, and it was 4% for black men.” YourBlackWorld.net put the matter this way: “For white men in 1954, unemployment was zero. For African-American men in 1954, it was about 4 percent.” Both were wrong, but YourBlackWorld.net was wrong first.
After the unemployment gaffe, Causey’s column took a hiatus of several weeks. Stanley attributed that gap to a “special in-depth reporting project” that will stretch into next year.
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I was on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Joy Cardin Week in Review Friday morning segment this morning, which you can listen to or even download here. (Listen for the references to nuclear holocaust movies, which didn’t include “The Day After” or “Fail-Safe.”)
This week starts the high school football season, which means I am announcing a game tonight and a game Saturday night, both of which can be heard online. The start of high school football is not a holiday, but, believe it or don’t, today is Black Cow Root Beer Float Day, National Aviation Day, National Hot and Spicy Food Day (you’d think that and the previous holiday wouldn’t really go together), National Potato Day, National Men’s Grooming Day, National Sandcastle and Sculpture Day, World Humanitarian Day and World Photo Day.
Saturday, by the way, is highlighted by National Radio Day, National Honey Bee Day, Lemonade Day, National Bacon Lover’s Day and National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day.
But about tonight and tomorrow, Travis Wilson writes on the state of high school football:
It is en vogue to take shots at football for being too violent, too dangerous, and something that will not last the next few decades.
In Wisconsin this year, three 11-Man football teams have canceled their seasons in the last few weeks, with a pair of 8-Man teams suffering the same fate. It led to numerous questions about the sustainability of high school football, especially in the small schools. Newspaper articles and internet commenters rushed to forecast the demise of high school football.
However, despite challenges faced in the arena of public opinion, the actual game at the high school level in the state of Wisconsin remains strong.
In data provided by the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, while overall high school enrollment in the state of Wisconsin (public and private schools) fell by 3,094 students from the 2014-15 year to 2015-16, the number of players out for football at the start of 2015-16 was 883 higher than the previous season, this despite four fewer teams overall.
An analysis of enrollment and participation data provided by the WIAA shows no significant change in the overall participation rate in high school football over the last 16 years. In 2000-01, the first year private schools joined their public school counterparts in the WIAA and the first year full data is available, the beginning-season football participation rate amongst all high school students was 9.50%. Outside of several years where full private school enrollment information is not available, which skews those seasons, the football participation rate has remained between 9.12% (2003-04) and 9.63% (2001-02).
The participation rate for the 2015-16 season of 9.46% was the third-highest of the last 16 years (not counting the years of no enrollment data for private schools). So, in the face of increased publicity about concussions, heat-related dangers, etc., the sport continues to be the highest participation sport in the country and the state at the high school level, and the participation rate has been largely unchanged for nearly two decades.
While it is true that the raw participation figures for football are decreasing over the last 10-15 years, it is a result of decreasing populations in the state of Wisconsin more than a decrease in the interest or participation levels.
The WIAA and the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association have done a great job trying to spread the message about the measures taken in recent years to make football even safer, with numerous studies continuing to show that football is as safe as it has ever been. But public opinion and the shots taken at the game in the media are an ongoing challenge.
Both the WFCA and the WIAA, along with the schools impacted by low numbers in football programs, have to search for solutions to ensure that those student-athletes and communities that want to continue the sport of football have that option. As evidenced by recent rules changes that make the game safer as well as increased support of 8-Man football, the leadership in the state remains proactive and I trust will continue to do so. No one wants to cancel a season, especially right before games begin.
There is a sense among some that the start date of football, which has crept into the end of July the next two years, is chasing away players. While that may the case in some isolated instances, the overall participation numbers continue to show no significant change. Many coaches cite other reasons (sport specialization, not going to start on varsity, jobs, etc.) that players have given for not coming out for football.
It is important for everyone to be up front and honest about the possibilities of injury and the out-of-season work it takes to be involved in football. But it is also important to continue to spread the word about the measures taken to improve the game, and wherever possible, cultivate a sense of excitement, not trepidation, about high school football.
As a former football player under coach Jim Harris and WFCA Hall of Fame coach Avitus Ripp at Richland Center High School, I can certainly attest to the many positives that I took from the game, and can tell you unequivocally that I have no regrets about coming out for football my sophomore year after choosing not to play as a freshman. It is a great game that you will cherish for the rest of your life.
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Because there are always naysayers, and because the naysayers are not always wrong, something called The Geek Nerdom has a few negative things to say about “Star Trek: The Next Generation”:
Star Trek: The Next Generation was my first genuine Star Trek series. It appeared when I was in my teens and I was totally taken in about everything. This ranged right from Picard’s serenity to Troi’s diving necklines. I devoured each new episode and couldn’t wait for more. However, I shouldn’t have re-watched the show recently. Here are ten things I detested about the show;
1. Offensively Inoffensive
Interpersonal clash was a relic of the past in Gene Roddenberry’s brain by the 24th Century. This makes for some dreadfully dull viewing especially when the greater part of the regular cast is one huge happy family. They get along well except when one, or many of them, gets possessed by some alien that was simply searching for understanding right from the beginning. TNG is a great therapist-friendly show. It refuses to blame in any direction. It would most likely make for an idealistic culture in which to live, yet not one to set a drama in.
This is the biggest flaw in TNG, though changed in “Deep Space Nine,” although in both cases the interpersonal conflict mostly occurred when the Enterprise types interacted with non-Federation species, or non-Enterprise people, such as Captain Jellico vs. Commander Riker in “Chain of Command” (read here for comments from actor Ronny Cox, who played Jellico) or Riker vs. Commander Shelby in “The Best of Both Worlds” (both two-parters, interestingly), or Riker vs. his father in “The Icarus Agenda.” As I’ve said on this subject before, if you think thousands or millions (depending on your worldview) of years of human nature will be nullified in the next 300 years, you’re mistaken. Whenever you have human interaction, you will have conflict, and conflict isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For that matter, accepting orders without question should be somewhat frightening to contemplate.
From here on, the reasons start to get less and less logical:
2. It Was Clearly A Product Of Its Time
The Next Generation is so much more awful than the first Trek. I don’t mean culturally. However, the visuals: Being shot on video and with special effects that extended from truly cool to truly horrible, the show now looks more like something cheaper and lower quality than the normal Syfy Saturday Night film. This is difficult to get that out your head while you’re viewing it.
Every TV series is a product of its time. The Original Series was a product of the 1960s (hence the female Enterprise crew’s “skorts”); TNG was a product of the 1980s.
3. It’s An Allegory
The original Trek had many allegories. Don’t misunderstand me, yet it felt as if that is all TNG might have been: Every single week, the show would handle a genuine subject with the state of mind of “But it’s happening to aliens.” Thereafter the crew of the Starship Enterprise would come, glare and reprimand aliens like their parents and everything would be over within 60 minutes.
Wrong reason, right rationale. It isn’t that there were too many allegories; it’s “glare and reprimand aliens like their parents.” The moral smugness in the series sometimes got quite overwhelming; it marred one of the best first-season episodes, “The Neutral Zone,” when Picard proclaimed “We have eliminated need.” (Irrespective of the bad economics, but you knew about that.) I used to hate episodes with Q (which included the first and last episodes, plus the introduction to the Borg), but at least Q smacked the Enterprise crew in their moral preens.
4. Very Inoffensive
For a show that was so unequivocally politically right, it was shockingly timid too. Do you recall when the first Trek made TV history by having the first on-screen interracial kiss? Definitely, not at all like that in TNG. Additionally, after the multi-cultural unique cast, the altogether caucasian TNG team appeared like a step taken in reverse. This is particularly considering one of the black on-screen characters played an alien and the other invested a large portion of his energy keeping the engines running.
Well … I’m not sure from this what the writer has in mind. It’s one thing to be “diverse”; should you count cast members’ ethnicities based on their characters (La Forge is black, but there are no Asians) or the actors (Michael Dorn as Worf)? Or: How about following the suggestion of Martin Luther King (a big fan of TOS) to judge others based not on the color of their skin (or what planet they’re from, presumably) but on the content of their character?
5. Riker And Troi: Science Fiction’s Most Passionless Unrequited Love
Better believe it, truth is stranger than fiction: For the majority of their assumed backstory of lovers torn apart because of duty, Riker and Troi figured out how to keep their feelings covered up. They did this by having no chemistry onscreen. I find the actors at fault. However, Jonathan Frakes had a demeanor of steady amusement about him amid everything past the second season. Therefore, the scripting must be blamed too.
I believe Riker and Troi were not supposed to be an item in TNG, in order to be able to (1) have Riker channel his inner Kirk the ladies’ man and (2) have Troi be able to be unattached. I admit to not liking the Worf and Troi romance (if that’s what it was), but they fixed that when Riker and Troi got married in the “Insurrection” movie.
6. Nearly Everything About Data
I realize that this is similar to saying that I abhor Santa Claus. However, Data never truly did anything for me except give deus ex machinas and irritate me. We’d seen the “What does it mean to be… human?” thing before with Spock (and, peculiarly enough, again with Ilya probe in The Motion Picture), and Brent Spiner’s depiction moved from innocent to strangely conceited amid the show’s run, making him even more irritating.
To quote the late John McLaughlin of “The McLaughlin Group”: “WRONG!” So Data was TNG’s Spock. I fail to see what is wrong with that. One would expect a science fiction series to cast at least one alien to observe us humans, wouldn’t you? Data was played sort of as a cross between Spock and, well, a puppy, eager to learn and eager to please. (Well, minus the part about using the floor as a bathroom. I think.) Odo played a similar role in “Deep Space Nine,” and Neelix and eventually Seven of Nine did the same thing in “Voyager.”
7. The Rest Of The Crew
OK, maybe Patrick Stewart can be spared from the storm of “Well, they weren’t the best actors on the planet” hate. However, there truly was a level of acting skills from the regular cast that appeared to support soap opera scale responses to anything unpretentious, enchanting or reasonable. I’m taking a look at you specifically, Michael Dorn. Klingon or not, there was a great deal of howling there.
Well, maybe the directors watched TOS, which was filmed in a day where TV acting was closer to stage acting than movie acting. I can’t say I buy this objection, though some characters were easier to watch (Riker, told by Roddenberry to act like Gary Cooper) than others (“Shut up, Wesley!”).
8. Those Uniforms
I’m sure you agree with this. Especially the main couple of seasons, where they were all wearing those all-in-one things.
The uniforms certainly improved when they became less form-fitting. Maybe by the 23rd and 24th century everyone will be in perfect physical condition, but 20th-century actors are not necessarily so. (See Shatner, William.) Others would argue that the uniforms shouldn’t have deviated from TOS’ palette of greenish-gold for command, red for engineering and the security redshirts (R.I.P.) and blue for science and medical. (For that matter not that many characters died in seven seasons of TNG vs. three seasons of TOS.)
10. It Ruined The Franchise Until JJ Abrams Saved It
The Next Generation changed what had been a series about adventure, exploring and quite goofy into something calmer, genuine and less fun. It took a ton of the imperfections of humankind out of the thoughts behind the show and supplanted it with… well, I don’t know. Each successive series attempted another trick to fill the gap. You can watch an original Trek and although it’s not perfect, there’s a feeling of excitement and revelation and is convincing to watch. However, The Next Generation has this embarrassing quality to it. It’s as though simply doing sci-fi is excessively lowbrow for its own tastes, thus it’d rather accomplish something more brainy and “important.”
The concept that Abrams “saved” Star Trek with a bad ripoff of TOS is blatantly offensive and demonstrates that the author has as much brainpower as a Morg. As with every Abrams thing not named “Lost,” Abrams’ approach is to assume that original fans will be satiated by references to the previous series, while doing a shoot-’em-up for today’s attention-span-deprived audiences. Abrams’ second Star Trek movie grotesquely miscast Benedict Cumberbatch, a fine actor who nonetheless looks like neither an Indian (Khan) nor a Hispanic (Ricardo Montalban). His third movie, which swiped the tired trope from the previous Star Trek movies of destroying the Enterprise, has done so poorly at the box office that it may well have killed Star Trek as a movie franchise.
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James Taranto, who is not a Hillary toadie:
A juxtaposition of headlines from the Hill reveals a lot about politics and journalism in 2016: “Clinton to Press: ‘Hold Me Accountable’ ” and “Journalists Applaud Clinton at Event.”
The latter story appeared three minutes after the former Friday afternoon, and both were about the same event. The second story was not a direct response to the first, which is to say the journalists didn’t applaud Mrs. Clinton’s call to hold her accountable. According to a Time.com transcript, they applauded her eight times in all; National Review has a video montage.
Our favorite applause line, as per the transcript: “I served as secretary of state. And when I left, I had a 66% approval rating.” You know who else likes to boast about poll numbers?
Mrs. Clinton’s appearance, at a conference of the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists, was described after the fact as a news conference, though it was really something of a hybrid with a campaign rally. She took seven questions, which the Washington Examiner lists. Most were softballs, but not all.
The biggest news to come out of the Q&A portion came when NBC’s Kristin Welker asked about her latest evasion in the classified email scandal (noted here last Monday). She prefaced a long, rambling answer with a vivid quote regarding the false answer she gave Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday”: “I may have short-circuited it.” One must reckon that a setback to the campaign’s effort to “humanize” the candidate.
The Hill reports that “before [Mrs.] Clinton’s appearance, conference staffers went around the room reminding people that it’s inappropriate for journalists to give politicians standing ovations.” So was she speaking to journalists or to supporters of her candidacy?
That line seems even more blurred than usual this year, and some journalists find that acceptable. Jim Rutenberg writes a column for the New York Times business section called “Mediator” (it’s about mass communications, not dispute resolution). In today’s paper he raises the following question:
If you’re a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him?
Before we consider Rutenberg’s answer, let’s try offering one of our own: Maybe you shouldn’t. If you have such a strong opinion about one of the major candidates, perhaps you shouldn’t be reporting on the election. You could request a transfer to another beat, or to the opinion section. If you really feel strongly about preventing Trump’s election, perhaps you should consider a career change. You could go to work for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, or for one of the many independent advocacy organizations that support it.
Rutenberg never considers these possibilities. Instead, he wants to bring the mountain to Muhammad:
If you believe all of those things, you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career. If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable.
He notes that Trump and his backers “are reprising longstanding accusations of liberal bias”:
A lot of core Trump supporters certainly view it that way. That will only serve to worsen their already dim view of the news media, which initially failed to recognize the power of their grievances, and therefore failed to recognize the seriousness of Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
This, however, is what being taken seriously looks like.
Hang on a second. Is Rutenberg claiming that journalists—who, whatever their biases, have heretofore maintained at least the pretense of fairness and balance—have never taken a candidate seriously before? Or that they are not taking Mrs. Clinton seriously?
Another way of putting the media-bias complaint is that conservatives—including some who oppose Trump—have long seen the media as tilting toward the Democratic Party and taking an “oppositional” posture toward Republicans. Rutenberg is recommending that they dispense with the veneer and embrace open partisanship.
He doesn’t put it that way, of course. He tries to justify his proposed departure from journalistic standards with an appeal to journalistic ideals: Not to treat Trump differently from other candidates, he argues, would “be an abdication of political journalism’s most solemn duty: to ferret out what the candidates will be like in the most powerful office in the world.”
There are two obvious problems here. First, “what the candidates will be like” is a matter of speculation, not a fact that can be “ferreted out.”
Second and more important, the premise of Rutenberg’s column is that reporters have already made up their minds about Trump. If that is the case, then what they are ferreting out is facts that reinforce their preconceptions, and that they hope will persuade voters to cast ballots against Trump. That’s called “opposition research,” and it is a job for campaign operatives, not journalists.
Rutenberg acknowledges that the approach he recommends “is more than just a shock to the journalistic system. It threatens to throw the advantage to his news conference-averse opponent, Hillary Clinton, who should draw plenty more tough-minded coverage herself.” Well, yeah—though that would seem to be the objective, would it not?
The greater threat from the abandonment of journalistic standards is that it compounds the danger to the country if Mrs. Clinton is elected. In that event, our partisan press would no longer be oppositional. They would be mere servants of power, to an even greater extent than they have been for the past 7½ years.
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Editor & Publisher defends the news media in times in which the news media is (as usual) unpopular, and support for the First Amendment among presidential candidates is at a nadir:
When Donald Trump decided to revoke the Washington Post of press credentials in June due to its “dishonest” and “phony” coverage, the newspaper became the latest media organization to be blacklisted by the presidential candidate. The Post joined the likes of Politico, Univision, Huffington Post, Gawker, BuzzFeed, and the Des Moines Register—just to name a few.
Post executive editor Martin Baron responded in a statement: “Donald Trump’s decision to revoke the Washington Post’s press credentials in nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press. When coverage doesn’t correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organization is banished.”
Organizations such as the Newspaper Association of America and the American Society of News Editors publicly condemned Trump’s decision to ban the Post.
“Candidate Trump’s move to sanction coverage of his drive to win the presidency is an unprecedented dismissal of the First Amendment freedoms essential to our democracy. The public is best served when a fearless, unfettered and independent press is present at all campaign events, speeches and political forums,” according to the statement from the ASNE.
NAA president and CEO David Chavern commented that Trump’s “treatment of journalists and the press isn’t just offensive or rude or political theater. It is a danger to our Constitutional Rights.”
When Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan contacted Trump’s camp for further explanation of the ban, she didn’t receive a solid answer, but vowed she would keep trying to get Trump to answer her questions. She also noted that candidate Hillary Clinton has given no press conferences or very serious interviews during her presidential campaign.
“None of this bodes well for press access in 2017 and beyond,” Sullivan wrote.
And she’s right.
Press access is crucial, especially during a time where only 20 percent of Americans have confidence in newspapers (bit.ly/1Ua5RBQ). This “all-time low,” according to the Gallup poll, “marks the tenth consecutive year that more Americans have expressed little or no, rather than high, confidence in the institution.”
The uproar that occurred when Trump banned the Post made sense, but what about the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that resulted in Gawker Media’s bankruptcy? Filed by former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan (whose legal name is Terry Bollea), the lawsuit stemmed from a sex tape that was published on Gawker. In March, a judge awarded Hogan $115 million for economic harm, emotional distress and invasion of privacy, according to a New York Times report.
“Gawker got what was coming in a karmic sense,” criminal defense attorney and civil litigator Ken White wrote in the Los Angeles Times. But he also pointed out, “From a legal and constitutional perspective, even Gawker haters should be troubled by its fate.”
“We don’t need the (First) Amendment to defend popular speech, we need it to protect unpopular speech,” White wrote.
As this election year continues, I’m certain more “unpopular speech” will continue to be said from all sides. We need the press to document it, and we need to defend it. After the Post was banned, the York (Pa.) Dispatch’s editorial board actually challenged Trump to ban them as well (bit.ly/1UUMpTJ).
“We (believe) you’re acting like a spoiled-rotten child—the petty poster boy for why we need a strong Fourth Estate,” according to their editorial. “A spoiled, foul-mouthed child, we might add. You’re so quick to insult other members of the media for doing their jobs—‘sleaze,’ ‘loser,’ ‘scum’ — yet never once have you singled out The York Dispatch. Let ‘er rip, Mr. Trump. We can take it.”
Now if that’s not unpopular speech, I don’t know what is.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 