Tag: #Media

  • Here We Go Again…

    Not that I claim I know more than everyone else, but I was not surprised that Trump gave in a stopped the government shut down just hours after Roger Stone was arrested. I pointed out that this is Trump’s behavior back on my January 10th post.

    The day started off with really, and I mean really, bad news for Trump; another person was arrested who took part in his campaign. There was no way the President could let the news cycle for this weekend be dominated with stories of the walls closing in on Trump, and what does Mueller have next up his sleeve? No, Trump had only one card to play today to stop the press from going nuts, and that was to end the shutdown. “Hey look, America! Another bright shiny object to obsess over for the next 24 hours, while you forget about all that really awful stuff!”

    And it will work. All the news about the Roger Stone arrest will just become background noise as the press and people start their stories about getting their checks back, and paying bills, and the wall fight that will be protracted for three weeks. And what does this mean for the State of the Union Address? Ahhh… Roger Stone who?

    Trump is a really awful president, (Only Trump could make James Buchanan look good) but he knows how to make the media do his bidding even when they don’t want to. It really is too bad, and we just can’t shake free from it.

  • Cohen to Testify for Congress; Trump Will Try to Divert

    According to The New York Times, Michael Cohen will now testify publicly for about his work for Trump on February 7th for the House Oversight and Reform Committee. This could be huge. This could be Watergate or Iran/Contra huge. This could impact Trump’s ability to do his job, or open up more investigations, or start an honest and serious debate about impeachment.

    Or…

    And this is my predication…

    The day before, day of, or day after, Trump is going to do something really crazy to try and divert attention from Cohen.

    He has done it before…

    Remember how he tweeted about Obama wiretapped him to make everyone forget about the start of the Russia investigation?

    Remember how he tweeted about NFL player’s protests to make everyone forget about the failure to repeal Obamacare?

    The stock market started to fall, and then he tweeted that the military was leaving Syria. Anyone remember that one?

    This is what Trump does, and it will happen again. What I would hope to see is that the media won’t take the bait. That whatever created controversy that Trump comes up with won’t get plastered all across the airwaves.

    I keep thinking that news editors and produces will see this pattern of sham, and then choose not to go down the rabbit hole of Trump nonsense.

    I keep thinking people are smarter than this…

  • More FaceBook Thoughts

    I am still thinking about the FaceBook NYTimes article that came out yesterday. What has stuck with me, or what I keep turning over in my head is what protections do we have from corporations when we seem to be living in a time where an individual seems to have less and less power to stand up to them.

    “Seem” is the word I am using as I am not sure if that statement is true. It sure does feel that way, but is that the reality?

    If I try to be objective when it comes to the formation of my opinions, there are two major camps. The first is from my Grandpa Lawrence, who was a union man, a Democrat, and who said that if there wasn’t a check on corporations, then they would run amuck and destroy everyone and everything to make a profit. The other thought camp is my Grandpa Delmore who was the manager of a quarry, was pro-business, believed that individual liberty was key to being an America, and was a Republican.

    These are the two voices that debate in my mind when issues like this come up. Delmore would say that you don’t need FaceBook to live and work, so don’t sign the agreement and you won’t lose any of your data. Lawrence would say that unregulated corporations lead to corruption and destructive behavior.

    In this situation, I see myself siding with Lawrence on this issue, but how do I want government to weigh in on this? If I want to use an internet service, and it is being offered for free, does that mean I have to surrender my personal info to use it? IS there another business model that will work? Or is this just a matter of we have to start paying for what was once free.

  • News Media

    I am not a fan of VICE Media. There is something about the organization that has always rubbed me the wrong way. It’s like they want to be the more adult Buzzfeed, but what they come across to me is a Dan Cortese BK Tee-Vee commercial from the 90’s. Now, I do fully admit that they do get it right when it comes to their reporting, especially in regard to how they covered all the Charlottesville violence. I might not like the package it’s in, but it is a solid product.

    I bring all of this up for a good reason, and it’s that I think news media will start to function more in the VICE model. Not in the sense that traditional media will hire a bunch of millennials with weird glasses and bad haircuts… I think traditional media will start to be more of a combination of print, video and social. Diversifying their reach.

    The New York Times has started to do this with some of their feature reporting. Their story, “Deliverance From 27,000 Feet” is a piece that has to be read online to get the full impact of the videos, photographs and images. The use of all these different forms of media, enhanced the reporting when it came to this specific story, and I think it is only a matter of time before more newspapers start moving in this direction.

    Furthermore, to take this all back to VICE again, as they now have their own cable network, VICELAND, this is what traditional media will end at; just becoming all-encompassing media companies. Though focused on news, I would not be surprised if The New York Times soon start their own cable channel with 24-hour news, and programming, which is all tied together in a social media way with the newspaper and the website.