* As media, we’re used to dealing with news-maker spin. We don’t like it, but it comes with the territory of self-interest in a public forum. That’s why follow-up questions are imperative. And follow-ups to follow-ups. But what’s worse–as in infuriating and embarrassing–is media spin. As in by the media itself. A prime recent example: McClatchy Newspapers, which owns 29 dailies, including the Miami Herald, in 14 states. It just laid off about 10 percent of its workforce. We all know 21st century print reality, but that’s not how McClatchy spokeswoman Jeanne Segal couched her announcement. “(It’s) not a staff cut,” she said–possibly with a straight face. “It’s a chance to retire early.” Yeah, run that by certain early retirees at the Tampa Bay Times and the late Tampa Tribune.
Being bludgeoned by digital realities and paywalls is today’s grim publication reality. We all get it. But don’t make it viscerally worse with an insulting rationale as professional journalists, those who have had to combat disingenuous spin-meisters throughout their careers, scoop up their cubicle identities and exit the calling they used to love.
* It’s hard not to be a poll skeptic these days. Given political cynicism and the proliferation of cell phones, what exactly was the sampling? Who did the sampling? How were the questions phrased? Was it a push poll? Was it a media outlet that was trying to stay relevant and make a headline? This is not the age of Gallup with cooperative, land-lined participants who were willing, if not honored, to be able to participate.
* Like a lot of folks on the left side of the political spectrum, I watch comedian Bill Maher. He’s politically informed and caustically entertaining. He’s also a source of political therapy and vicarious venting in this tumultuous time of Trump. “Real Time with Bill Maher” has been an HBO staple for 17 years.
Having said that, Maher can also be–and increasingly so–annoying as he gratuitously carpet F-bombs his way through an hour-long episode that is too long by half. Maybe we shouldn’t give a shtick because this is HBO, but classlessness still matters even if you’re bashing Trump. Ask Michelle Obama. But it’s not all Maher, to be sure. Some of his guests need the exposure and some need to be heard; some have a book out and some are part of pop-culture activism. Some can contribute–and you want to hear more from–and some blatantly can’t. Yeah, I miss Mort Sahl.
* In watching former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe reference the possible relevance of the 25th Amendment as a means of removing Trump from office, I thought of the novel I recently read: “Night of Camp David” by Fletcher Knebel. It carries the tag line: “What would happen if the president of the U.S.A. went stark-raving mad?” He wrote it in the 1960s when LBJ was president. Knebel, not coincidentally, also co-authored “Seven Days in May.”
Perhaps I need better escape than Bill Maher and Fletcher Knebel. But Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here” now looms.
* Tampa Bay Times Executive Editor Mark Katches has announced that the Times will no longer be running the Non Sequitur comic strip. Seems that its creator, Wiley Miller, recently inserted an anti-Trump obscenity into one of the panels. It passed muster with editors, but then some readers caught it and complained, as they should have. The Times has replaced Non Sequitur with a Nancy reboot until it figures out a permanent replacement. Here’s a suggestion. Forget the reboots and variations on a Hi and Lois or a Dennis the Menace theme. Why not go local with something that’s as proven funny as it is pertinent. Why not create another forum for the cartoonist who is a weekly staple in Friday’s “Tampa Tribune” section. Why not max out on the home-grown humor of Charlie Greacen? He’s got plenty of material and an appreciative following over the years.