Fixing it through coverage

January 18, 2024 By: Nick Carraway Category: Uncategorized

It occurred to me that I made a New Year’s resolution to offer more constructive suggestions in the new year. It’s hard not to complain these days, but at least we can offer some suggestions in the meantime. I talked about concentric circles yesterday without offering any constructive ideas to fix that. That’s on me. I need to do better.

Our mainstream media also needs to do better. They are caught up into a both sides narrative where they feel the need to give exposure to all points of view. In normal circumstances that seems okay. Furthermore, the idea of covering the horse race nature of this thing makes sense. It sells ad space. It sells newspapers. It gets subscriptions to the subscription only services. There is a reason why Steve Kornacki is a thing.

When we were going through journalism school, one of the things they taught us was that it was the journalist’s job to call balls and strikes. Somehow that evolved into making sure there were as many balls as there were strikes. We had an equal number of walks as strikeouts. That has been the case whether it was Greg Maddux on the bump or Nuke Laloosh (from Bull Durham).

Someone came up with another analogy that made more sense. Let’s say that it is pouring rain outside. It makes no sense to run a story where you have one expert saying it’s raining and another ”expert” saying it’s not raining. Look outside. You can see it’s raining, so why in the hell are we quoting some jamoke saying that it isn’t raining? Why do we need to both sides objective reality?

What that does is allow people to believe that objective reality isn’t all that objective. In a free society it is difficult to do anything about right wing media. That toothpaste is out of the tube, but this falls into another false narrative. People just naturally assume that both sides do it. Left wing media may distort the importance of things. They are certainly guilty of overhyping certain stories and ramping up the hysteria, but they generally don’t make shit up.

It’s about pushing back. Both sides don’t operate the same way. One side lies and the other side doesn’t. Period. End of discussion. Then, the mainstream media simply reports what is actually going on. The economy is doing well. Report it. Immigration is not nearly as bad as what it seems. Report it. The so-called crime riddled cities really aren’t all that crime riddled. Report it. Unfortunately, both sidesing this thing just isn’t creating an informed public.

Again, you aren’t reaching everyone. You have a segment of the population watching a steady diet of Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax. They might be reading Breitbart on the interwebs. There is no way you can watch a steady diet of that stuff and come away informed. Still, you can inform everyone else. You can at least allow them to have access to accurate information. If the right isn’t producing truth or building arguments on facts then don’t give them a lifeline. If they aren’t participating in substantive debate then they don’t get coverage. There’s only one serious party right now and they are the only one worthy of coverage.

The Illusion of Justice

March 27, 2023 By: Nick Carraway Category: Uncategorized

There is a famous bit in the Peanuts cartoons that probably best describes what many of us are feeling at this point. Lucy Van Pelt repeatedly convinces Charlie Brown to try to kick a football. Each time she promises that she won’t move the football at the last moment. Every time he barrels full speed ahead and every time she moves the football. Charlie Brown will lose his balance and land on his backside.

On a seemingly weekly basis we are told that Donald Trump is about to be indicted. He has been sued well over 100 times in his lifetimes. Sometimes he is forced to pay a minimal amount, but he has never been held truly responsible for any his financial crimes. He has committed fraud, treason, and has been credibly accused of numerous sexual crimes as well. As we sit here, he has a grand jury looking at his “perfect” phone call where he blatantly tries to interfere in an election and strongarm the secretary of state into falsifying the results. Then, there was the theft of hundreds of documents he had no rights to. The Justice Department could charge him with illegally possessing those documents, obstruction of justice when he refused to return them, and probably much more. Then, there was the illegal campaign expenditure where he paid off a porn star and former playmate.

Of course, because he is a brazen jackass he didn’t stop that. He released a post on social media showing himself holding a bat next to a picture of the district attorney. Legal experts have said that this broke an additional four laws by itself. Obviously, apologists will argue that he really wasn’t being serious. That’s what they all say before someone actually attempts to harm the district attorney. He did the exact same thing when he called for his followers to storm the capitol. It wasn’t serious until it was.

Here in Texas we know this story all too well. Our attorney general has been under indictment every day of his term. He then was able to run for reelection and was given another term. He will never go to trial. Donald Trump will never go to trial. We know this too. In this situation we find ourselves being the sucker and shill. Yet, every week we see the reports that an indictment is imminent. The mainstream media is playing the role of Lucy Van Pelt and Charlie Brown at the same time. Even if indicted, there will be no perp walk. There will be no jail time. There will be no justice.

This is where we need to reframe and readjust. Partisan media will frame this as a right vs. left issue. Fox will point out all of the crimes that the Bidens have supposedly committed. MSNBC will continue to tell how a Trump indictment is imminent. Whether the Bidens have done anything wrong is not really the issue. The issue is that there has always been a two-tiered aspect to our justice system. Some are able to buy their way out of facing justice. The rest of us must face the music when we screw up. If the mainstream media focused on that and admitted what all of us know to be true then they could simply outline the crimes that the rich and powerful commit and just move on. They could look at the disparate results that depend on how much any one person has to shirk their culpability. Don’t cry wolf. Don’t hype up a possible indictment we know isn’t coming. It never does. That’s more the point.

Say What?

June 16, 2017 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

Okay, I am sort of ashamed to say this but … I know lots of lawyers.  However, they are a worthless lot of writ twits because not even one of them can explain to me what this means.

“Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous ‘officials,’ particularly when they do not identify the country — let alone the branch of agency of government — with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated. Americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. The Department of Justice has a long established policy to neither confirm nor deny such allegations.”

That’s Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein explaining God only knows what.

One lawyer suggested that it mean that Rosenstein can take presidential dictation very well.