The number one single today in 1955 was banned by ABC Radio stations because it was allegedly in bad taste:
The number one album today in 1961 wasn’t a music album — Bob Newhart’s “The Button Down Mind Strikes Back!”
The number one album today in 1965 was “Beatles ’65”:
The Beatles had the number one album, “Rubber Soul” …
… and the number one single today in 1966:
First, The Score in Chicago Tuesday morning:
Longtime reporter and Associated Press MVP voter Hub Arkush started a firestorm by saying in a radio interview on Tuesday that he wouldn’t vote for Aaron Rodgers for reasons unrelated to his on-field performance. …
But Rodgers himself had plenty to say on the matter when asked what he thought of the comments to begin his Wednesday press conference.
“I think he’s a bum. I think he’s an absolute bum,” Rodgers said. “He doesn’t know me. I don’t know who he is. No one knew who he was, probably, until yesterday’s comments. And I listened to the comments. But to say he had his mind made up in the summertime, in the offseason that I had zero chance of winning MVP — in my opinion, that should exclude [him from] future votes.
“His problem isn’t with me being a ‘bad guy’ or ‘the biggest jerk in the league’ — because he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know anything about me. I’ve never met him. I’ve never had lunch with him. I’ve never had an interview with him. His problem is I’m not vaccinated. So if he wants to go on a crusade and collude and come up with an extra letter to put on the award just for this season and make it the ‘Most Valuable Vaccinated Player,’ then he should do that.
“But he’s a bum. And I’m not going to waste any time worrying about that stuff. He has no idea who I am. He’s never talked to me in his life. But it’s unfortunate that those sentiments — it’s surprising that he would even say that, to be honest. But I knew this was possible. I talked about it on McAfee weeks ago. But…crazy.”
Rodgers did mention in one of his regular appearances on the Pat McAfee Show that he figured he’d be “canceled” for lying about his vaccination status. But the reality has been different, as the vast majority of criticism has been directed at Arkush after he shared why he disqualified Rodgers from his MVP vote.
Rodgers is the frontrunner to win his second consecutive AP MVP award and fourth overall. In 15 games, he’s completed 69 percent of his passes for 3,977 yards with 35 touchdowns and just four interceptions. He currently leads the league with a 111.1 passer rating.
Arkush was singing a slightly different tune Wednesday:
So in case you haven’t heard, I’ve spent the better part of the last 24 hours making a pretty nasty mess.
Actually, and much to my surprise, that may be the understatement of the year. There is absolutely nothing clever or remotely entertaining about it.
I made a terrible mistake. It was completely my fault. There is no one else to blame, and I am here to try and apologize.
I own this and I couldn’t be more sorry.
I expect some clarity on exactly what I am apologizing for might be relevant and welcome.
There is no more respected bastion of journalism in the world than the Associated Press, and from where I sit there are few greater honors in my business than being chosen one of the 50 members of its panel that selects the NFL’s annual All Pro teams, MVPs, etc.
It has been my privilege to be a member of that team for some time now and Tuesday I violated a trust.
Our marching orders are to cast our votes as reasoned and thoughtfully as possible for those we believe to be the most deserving in our own considered judgment. All that is asked of us is not to discuss our votes publicly until after the awards have been announced.
On Tuesday, at 670 The Score in Chicago, where I am regularly employed as an analyst and host, for reasons that I am still trying to come to grips with but were completely my responsibility, I allowed myself to be walked into a conversation about an MVP candidate I knew I would not be voting for. I said some things that while not unreasonable in the context they were said, I voiced them in totally inappropriate ways.
I couldn’t possibly be more sorry for joining the conversation at all and some of the childish things I said about Aaron Rodgers.
Most of the other 49 AP voters are acquaintances, many are friends, and the reason we are asked not to do what I did is it now puts undo pressure on some of them to comment, not comment, agree, disagree or take grief for doing the right thing and remaining silent.
Worse yet, I’ve apparently unleashed a small army of self-styled social media and talk radio experts who have no clue what they’re talking about to challenge the quality of the voting process and would attempt to invalidate any vote or thought process that doesn’t agree with their own.
A sign of the times I guess.
To everyone in any way associated with the AP awards, you couldn’t possibly do the job any better or be more respected by anyone who actually cares more about getting it right than getting what they want
To any player or coach that’s ever won an AP honor, you couldn’t possibly be more deserving and don’t ever let anyone call that into question.
To Aaron Rodgers, you are one of the greatest players of this generation and one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.
Whether or not you are this year’s MVP is up to the 50-member panel, neither me, nor my critics.
I couldn’t possibly be more sorry for dragging all of you into my mess and I hope you will accept my apology.
Why or how this became a national news story I don’t understand, and while I would love to be able to explain what I meant to say and butchered so badly, any further conversation about my own vote now would just throw another log on the fire and cloud what matters at the moment
I was wrong, I own it and I couldn’t be more sorry
I’ll be happy to discuss my vote and my reasoning with whomever would like to after the awards have been announced.
For now please don’t tarnish anyone else with my mistake. Think of me as you will, but I hope my responsibility and regret are clear.
As always, the way to avoid having to apologize in public is not to have done something that required an apology in the first place. Note, though, that Arkush is apologizing primarily for causing his fellow AP voters problems and for possibly besmirching the AP’s NFL awards in some people’s eyes, not for his bad take about Rodgers’ being a “bad guy.”
Some readers might say that Arkush is entitled to his opinion. But Arkusb has more responsibility than someone sitting on his couch on social media while drinking beer to know what he’s talking about, since Arkush’s readers assume he knows what he’s talking about.
Wrong opinions are the result of bad information and/or a bad thought process. In a league that has employed domestic abusers, illegal drug users and, in two cases, murderers (see Carruth, Rae, and Hernandez, Aaron), what about Rodgers makes him a “bad guy” in Arkush’s opinion? Because he apparently disagrees with Arkush about the pan(dem)ic? (Rodgers’ teammates certainly have moved on from “immunized” vs. “vaccinated.”) Because he reportedly doesn’t get along with his family? Because of the media-generated sturm und drang that began this season over where Rodgers wanted to play? Nothing Rodgers has done, including being an independent thinker, warrants a “bad guy” label.
Bill Huber adds:
What’s funny is, other than probably postgame interviews for his duties writing about the Chicago Bears and national radio broadcasts for Westwood One, Arkush probably doesn’t know Rodgers at all. So how does Arkush believe Rodgers is a “bad guy” when his coaches and teammates say otherwise? Has he not listened to Davante Adams and others talk about Rodgers? Did he not see Lucas Patrick hoist Rodgers in the air after Rodgers broke Brett Favre’s touchdown record? Has he not talked to former Packers receiver James Jones, who is part of the same Packers pregame segment? Is he unaware of the millions of dollars he’s given for various charitable causes? …
For those who scoffed at Rodgers’ talk of “cancel culture” just because he doesn’t share the mainstream opinion, isn’t what what’s at play with Arkush? He doesn’t like Rodgers, for whatever reason, so is choosing to ignore the fact that Rodgers has led an injury-plagued team to the best record in the NFL while leading the way in passer rating, touchdown percentage and interception percentage?
The interesting side part is that Arkush has a segment on Packers’ radio pregame. (Arkush used to do color for Da Bears when Wayne Larrivee announced for Da Bears. I generally don’t listen to pregame shows, but this one might be wroth a listen, assuming the Packers don’t tell him to not work Sunday.
Arkush may be done with the Packers since WTMJ radio won’t be the Packers Radio Network flagship after this season, and Arkush committed the formerly cardinal sin of a reporter’s becoming the story.
First: The song of the day for those who understand what the 12 days of Christmas really mean:
The number one album today in 1968 was the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour”:
The number one single today in 1973 included a person rumored to be the subject of the song on backing vocals:
The number one British single today in 1979 was this group’s only number one:
Today’s first song is posted in honor of the first FM signal heard by the Federal Communications Commission today in 1940:
Today in 1968, Jimi Hendrix was jailed for one day in Stockholm, Sweden, for destroying the contents of his hotel room.
The culprit? Not marijuana or some other controlled substance. Alcohol.
Today in 1973, Bruce Springsteen released his first album, “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.” It sold all of 25,000 copies in its first year.
Jason Rezalan writes ni the Washington Post:
The year 2022 is not looking particularly promising for press freedom. In fact, the United States is one place where journalists could start seeing an increase in the types of threats that many of our colleagues in many illiberal societies already face.
If we don’t take corrective measures quickly to increase media literacy and slow the spread of disinformation, journalists working in the United States will become bigger targets for those who disagree with the information and perspectives we disseminate.
It’s already happening.
Last month, a judge in New York sentenced a man to three years in prison for threatening dozens of people, including journalists and members of Congress, for accurately reporting the results of the U.S. presidential election. The man, Robert Lemke, 36, sent text messages and voice mails, including pictures of the gravesite of CNN reporter Brian Stelter’s father and a message that described his mother’s house, implying Lemke was there.
Lemke believed the “big lie” and was prepared to threaten others for disagreeing with his demonstrably false views.
Traditionally journalists have wanted to stay away from the center of the stories they cover. Most of us would like nothing more than to do our jobs of chronicling and analyzing events with some measure of privacy. But that’s becoming impossible.
The pressure is on to make our work stand out, as success is increasingly linked to web traffic. And as journalists’ profile and perceived influence rise online, leaders with authoritarian mindsets, and their followers, see the reach and independence as a threat to their power.
Many journalists have endured years of online harassment and abuse in silence. The industry has become desensitized to these attacks, accepting them as an occupational hazard. We see the opportunity to inform a wide audience as a privilege that comes with responsibility — and you have to have thick skin, we tell ourselves.
The stakes, though, keep getting higher as our society becomes more polarized. Of course, this was most evident on Jan. 6, when Trump supporters attempted a coup at the U.S. Capitol.
Acknowledging the gravity of the moment, Post publisher Fred Ryan honored 38of our colleagues who covered the Jan. 6 insurrection with The Post’s annual Ben Bradlee Award for Courage in Journalism.
The award honored their commitment to carrying out the job in a volatile and dangerous environment, and also acknowledged the tremendous personal risk they took. These journalists need recognition, but they also need care and support. We tend to forget that as an industry.
We don’t talk enough about the trauma many journalists endure — in large part because we are not supposed to know about it: Journalists never want to eclipse the subjects and broader themes at the heart of our stories.
As journalists covered the insurrection, documenting the most direct threat to our democracy since the Civil War, people hurled threats and insults in their direction. “Murder the media” was scratched into a door of the Capitol. Some in the mob chanted “CNN sucks” as they destroyed equipment owned by the Associated Press.
“I’ve covered conflict abroad and it wasn’t until reporting on social unrest throughout 2020 that I had to consistently go out with a military-grade gas mask, a bulletproof vest and eye protection,” Maranie Staab, an independent journalist who has been covering protest movements that erupted in different U.S. cities, including Pittsburgh, Portland and Syracuse, told me.
Staab says she witnessed “countless instances where the press was targeted, attacked and obstructed by law enforcement as well as groups on the far right and factions of the far left.”
Without proper accountability, we are bound to face more and better organized assaults on our democratic institutions. And that includes the free press.
I have written about the decline in press protections in Mexico, Iran and many other countries. The dehumanizing treatment of critical journalists by the nationalist Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has led to India becoming one of the deadliest places in the world to report. In 2021, four journalists were murdered and no one has been held accountable for those crimes.
We monitor press freedom to shine a light on those who want to obstruct the free flow of information in different societies. And that knowledge offers important tools for press freedom defenders across the world.
The United States, which prides itself of having a constitutionally enshrined right to freedom of the press, is seeing the tactics of dehumanization and intimidation long deployed by nondemocratic states.
Discrediting the press isn’t new, but this country is entering a new and darker chapter. President Donald Trump didn’t write it, but his brand of hateful showmanship was uniquely successful at fanning the fire. Putting it out will be difficult and, frankly, less “catchy” — headlines about disinformation and attacks on public figures don’t get a lot of sympathy, or clicks. But that’s precisely why it has to be a priority. Because if press freedom crumbles in the United States, if journalists feel threatened and vulnerable for speaking truth to power, then the outlook for democracy — here and abroad — will become bleaker than it already is.
In other countries, journalists get killed, beaten and imprisoned. That is not generally the case in this country, which makes journalist fears for their skin rather over the top. (I write that as someone whose skin actually has been threatened, in contrast to most in my line of work, and as someone who has had to stand up to authority in person, in contrast to most in my line of work.)
My suggestion is that journalists learn self-defense, including buying and learning how to shoot a gun if necessary. That, and figuring out that more than one-third of voters are not the enemy, in contrast to what this writer believess.
The number one single today in 1959, which (1) extended Christmas beyond where non-Episcopalians (who would tell you that Christmas lasts until Epiphany) would want it, and (2) proves yet again that there is no accounting for taste:
Today in 1970, the Who’s Keith Moon was trying to escape from a gang of skinheads when he accidentally hit and killed chauffeur Neil Boland.
The problem was Moon’s attempt at escape. He had never passed his driver’s license test.
With the Packers’ 37–10 win over Minnesota last night Green Bay finished as NFC North champions for the third consecutive season and with the number one seed in the NFC for the second consecutive season.
Last night’s win also improves coach Matt Lafleur’s regular-season career record to 39–9. with one meaningless game left in this season.
Which means this 2019 take from alleged sports expert Colin Cowherd was full of cow … well, you know.
Yes, Lafleur hasn’t won.a Super Bowl (which places the Pack in the same place as 30 other NFL teams the past two seasons), and there are reasons to believe the Packers won’t win the Super Bowl this season. But Cowherd’s opinion has been proven spectacularly wrong, and not for the first time.
I used to think Cowherd knew more than, say, Stephen A. Smith or Brainless Skip Bayless. I may have been mistaken about that.
This is why I neither listen to nor watch sports talk. Too many opinions, too few informed opinions, and far too little insight.
The number one single on both sides of the Atlantic today in 1957:
Today in 1964, NBC-TV’s Tonight show showed the first U.S. video of the Beatles, two months after NBC News’ first report:
Today in 1967, Beach Boy Carl Wilson got his draft notice, and declared he was a conscientious objector.
Today in 1969, Jimi Hendrix appeared on BBC’s Lulu show, and demonstrated the perils of live TV:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 