OVER OUR HEADS AND LOOKING FOR A LIFELINE

3x3x3

Mother and child and mother to be and their reflections and their shadows

   In the impossible task of absorbing the shock of another mass shooting, many of us default to a worry about our kids and grandkids.

    Though we cannot grasp the agony of the survivors the mere thought escalates our concern about the world next generations will inherit.

    

       A lifetime as a journalist leaves me looking for something
beyond the loss. This time we hear coverage that draws the connection between spousal abuse and domestic violence and the shooter. In fact it is a damning link in most mass shootings.
       Will we-the collective we-the people and those we elect-finally do something?

california central coast rain season begins

    Heavy skies, morning banks of fog in valleys, cats who detest wet paws and lack of sunshine, signal a season change.

   It is a time when green begins to return.

hiding the green

    More than 90 media organizations around the planet cooperated in the latest iteration of the "Paradise Papers" and have discovered how $Trillions have been sheltered in off shore havens, mostly illegally at worst and sneakily, at best.

    Plenty of embarrassing stories and links have surfaced. We should expect some of the mighty to fall out of favor and perhaps into legal nets. We wonder how long Wilbur Ross and his top adviser will remain out of the fire since both have ties and have been profiting from a company with direct ties to the Kremlin. Ross, who was a king of predatory default practises should never have been appointed Commerce Secretary. This latest revelation is an offense to honest government.

     We wonder if the Mueller probe is looking at the business arrangements of the man child tweeter in chief. Do you think he has seen the orange lout's taxes?

speaking of the kremlin

and non-fake (that would be real) news

    We continue to learn how pervasive was and is the kremlin involvement in Facebook and Twitter. The scale of misinformation and disinformation is massive, and without precedent in modern history.

     Millions of social media users received, read, and perhaps believed lies. It has been part of the effort of Vladimir Putin to undermine US citizens' belief in American institutions and leaders. This is fact, regardless of whether or not the trump organization knew about it and/or willingly participated.

     And, the Russians continue to gnaw away.

and it happens as we euthanize traditional media

    The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University notes that between 45% to 85% of all original reporting is done by newspapers then picked up by other media. Now, factor in this fact-since 2000 20 thousand news jobs have been eliminated and revenues have dropped by some $20 Billion.

     When I retired as a news executive 10 years ago the trend had begun. The good old days are gone. Some of the problem is self inflicted. News by flavor, a horrible contribution of the sexual predator Roger Ailes, has helped to undermine believability. Deregulation of the industry turning news operations into "profit centers" did plenty of long lasting damage. The change in US lifestyle and new technology antiquated some delivery systems-afternoon newspapers-even some morning papers-the tired and frequently silly format of television news and the nature of the content itself. 

     As we look at the new information landscape and understand how many people take their information from social media and learn how contrived that is, it all points to the continuing dumbing down of the population. Poorly informed, mis-informed, and manipulated consumers make terrible choices. Our present political reality is the proof of all of that. 

      Artificial reality, altered reality, are coming in on the heels of this age of "reality" politics and we are wading into deeper trouble.

something wonderful

    Playing at an art theater near you is the extraordinary and brilliant film Loving Vincent.  It is billed as the first fully painted film and it is a marvel to see, a masterpiece in its own right.

    Take a look at the trailer here. Many artists spent thousands of hours creating something unlike anything you've seen. It is a fascinating mystery story as well.

    See you down the trail.

POST-TRUTH: NEWS FROM DYSTOPIA

     If there is nothing in this year to cause your brain to explode here's a try: The Oxford Dictionaries has chosen "post-truth" as the word of the year. Post-truth is when objective facts are less influential than emotion or personal belief in a person's choice.

     This coronation in the hall of lexicon happens as western society and the American media in particular suffer through an inquisition of "fake news," its purveyors, sources and impact. Twitter and Facebook lead all social media in being scrutinized.

      Joshua Benton, director of Nieman Journalism Lab wrote after the election; 

        "Facebook has become a sewer of misinformation. Some of it is driven by ideology, but a lot of it is driven purely by the economic incentive structure FaceBook has created: The fake stuff, when it connects with a Facebook user's preconceived notions for sense of identity, spreads like wildfire. (And it's a lot cheaper to make than real news.)"

        Consider for a moment how much time millions of Americans spend on Facebook and other social media. It is where many get their news, only a lot of it is not news. It's fabrication, political spin on steroids and even fantasy. And even when confronted with facts people still continue to believe lies-President Obama was born in Kenya, climate change is not real, there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we never landed on the moon, etc.

       After each election the nation's media does a serious navel gaze. This year they should look into their combined fourth estate soul.

       In our lifetimes the media could be counted on. CBS Anchor Walter Cronkite was known as "America's most trusted man." When there were four major networks, a couple of international wire services and a handful of newspapers with strong Washington and international bureaus in a very competitive arena, getting it and getting it right was the currency that built a readership and viewership. Consumers were the arbiter. 

      As it was intended, the airwaves were public space and to have a right to do business there one needed to pledge to provide hours of informational and public service programming.

      Media deregulation brought a model that favored advertising and making money while shrinking the obligation to provide quality information and news. Then management decided news needed to be a profit center and ratings replaced the mission to inform as the priority and raison d'être. 

     24 hour news channels further "commercialized" news making it more of a "product." Social media with millions of blogs, postings, social chats, pages, and a blizzard of exchange further diffused and fractured the nature of information.  

     I have a petulant disregard for Roger Ailes and his news virus. He is the troll responsible for overtly politicizing news coverage and the father of the bastard "news with a flavor." Some will say Fox News came as an answer to the liberal media. That is malarky and those who believe it give proof to the propagandizing value of spinning news your way. It is a  mind control when beliefs and emotions count more than facts. Ailes first postulated the idea of a political control of network news back when he worked for Richard Nixon.

     In this "Post-truth, post-election" era consider the facts. The losing candidate had 2-4 million more votes. So unless the electoral college makes history, we will have a minority president, who either is a liar on occasion or indeed can own all sides of every issue or simply doesn't know what his position is. Whichever, it is a sure prescription for a lot of "news."

     We should watch for news organization to assert a legitimacy by dealing with truth, facts and being adversarial. That adversarial relationship is historic and has proven to benefit all parties, the White House, the electorate and most importantly the effectiveness of government. As much as ever, the media should play its role as a watchdog.

     Do we think the media is up to it? Good question. I expect little improvement in social media, it will continue to be the lowest common denominator. Another divide in this split nation is the fault line between those who consume diverse information wisely and those who hang around the sewer and/or listen only to that flavor they approve. 

     I saw CNN's Jeff Zucker mealymouth an answer about needing to do a better job. Ya, think so?  They spent much of the summer showing an empty podium with a clock counting down until the candidate who was shouting insults to races, religions and sexes took center stage. 

     It's time for the media to grow up and realize it's not about them and their addiction to hype, it's about reality, history in the making. A place to start is to look at their own archives and history, a kind of "back to the future." Election coverage was once sober, intelligent, issue focused. The last few cycles have been more about the horse race and personality and look at what our choices were.

     Users, even some of you gentle readers, get out of the echo chamber! Watch, listen to, read and consume a wider and even conflicting stream of information. The little visual at the top of the post is simply to suggest that beyond television and radio there are an infinite number of places once can find information. The internet is home to many real news sites, as well as those that are fake or fronts. There are many magazines and journals, research reports from think tanks and universities, and a multitude of newspapers and newsletters and pod casts. If you are paying attention to only one or two sources you are under informed. If you watch only a network that represents your take, you are not informed.

      There is no "post-truth." If it is not true, it is a deception!

   See you down the trail.

THE TROUBLE WITH NEWS

   Sunrise was too pretty to ignore. My admiration of it woke up that corner of the brain where vexing thoughts are caged, waiting to leap into a blank space. 

   One of the troubles with the news business is the derogatory but not inaccurate sobriquet for a style of news "If it bleeds it leads." To be clear that means if it is crime or disaster, tragedy, plane crash, wreck, fire, explosion, or etc. it's the first story of a newscast. Fortunately not all television news rooms operate by that ethos, but too many do. The more competitive the market, the more likely there's a station that follows that path.

   NIGHTCRAWLER starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a stringer (freelance) photographer is a well done examination of the pathology of that kind of news, as played out in Los Angeles.

    One of the brilliant elements of this film is the extraordinary visual treatment of Los Angeles at night. Oscar winning Cinematographer Robert Elswit offers a rich and stunning essay. Seeing his work, especially the open sequence, is worth the price of admission. 
    Director Dan Gilroy plumbs the exploitative, crass world of sensationalism that passes as a kind of tabloid television.  Rene Russo, who coincidentally is married to Gilroy, is marvelous as a desperate news director, once a beautiful young reporter now trying to hang on to a job at a low ranking station by spiking the ratings with overnight gore gathered by Gyllenhaal.  

     Gyllenhaal's character is a solitary whacko. I think of him as a slick cousin or even brother to Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. Gyllenhaal's performance is incredible. As Jon Stewart joked he only blinked twice in 2 hours. Indeed Gyllenhaal's eyes and manic delivery are so riveting it'll give you the creeps.  It is a great character by which Gilroy can explore the senselessness of exploitative content and the tyranny of ratings.

     I know of situations where station reputations and staff integrity have been destroyed by this cheap and trashy management and style. Still, there are enough viewers who thrive on tabloid journalism that it exists.

PROFESSIONAL and/or Citizen Journalists

  How deeply should newsrooms go in utilizing or pandering to social media? The debate continues and the first episode of NEWSROOM, the excellent Aaron Sorkin HBO drama mines the issue set against the Boston Marathon bombing.  

   NEWSROOM is to journalism what WEST WING was to politics, only much better because it is more realistic, drawn from real critical judgements and experience. Plus the acting, writing and directing are all worthy of the multiple Emmys.  

BEEN THERE-DONE THAT

   As a television news director I guided an evolution of a traditional and historic news organization into digital news gathering, processing and dissemination.  We changed the technology on which we wrote, edited and the cameras we used to capture the pictures.  Our remote trucks changed from microwave to satellite. We changed our work flow from television only to television and Internet. We moved from thinking only about the big screen to feeding computers, pads, and phones. We changed our graphics, our presentation style and our pace. In changing how we worked, we also advanced the output and our approach to thinking about what is news and how we cover it.  

    I've been retired a few years now, but even back then we were starting to wrestle with blogging, the ethics and legality of using material from personal phones or on line chatter. Now Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other micro blogging and social networking realities impinge on how a news shop operates. I'm not sure they've got it figured out, or properly.  But as my old friend and former broadcast journalist the Catalyst AKA Bruce Taylor cajoles me, don't worry about it. You can't do anything about anyway.  It's another generation's problem. Yea, probably so. But it makes great fodder for film, television or having a drink and bullshitting, or posting about.

     It may still wake me, but Bruce is right. It's someone else's job now.

DIVERSIONS

Late Afternoon

 Evening

Post Sunset

Neighbors
could have been the national bird

Heavy Weather on the way

Turning on the night lights

THROWBACK TO A GOOD DAY

    My late brother Jim, at the wheel and yours truly enjoying a day of golf in the late 70's or early 80's.  Dad was an extraordinary golfer, Jim and I not so much.  But we had fun.

      See you down the trail.

THE ROLLING STONE FIRE-TWEET TALK NOT ENOUGH & WALT DISNEY LIVES

SOME THINGS ARE MORE COMPLICATED   

Courtesy of Rolling Stone & Huffington Post 

    Mainstream and social media are afire with comment about Rolling Stone putting the alleged Boston Marathon bomber on the cover.  

  "Making him a star" some cluck. Phooey! As more than one respondent said, it's good journalism to probe as the sub title says, "How a popular, promising student was failed by his friends, family, fell into radical Islam and became a monster." I want to know and more than a few of my friends have asked the same thing, in some wonderment.

   And to those cluckers and tsk tskkers, the same photo has played front and center in a lot of other media since April.

   I love Twitter and it's almost instant presentation of events.  As I've written, it's like the new version of the old wire machines that filled the radio and TV newsrooms of my youth-a constant stream.  But, where the AP and UPI and Reuters wires were detailed and in depth, social media is brief and in the case of the Rolling Stone cover, the trend is fueled by personal comment, often snarky and usually always too brief on which to base logic or argument. 

    And Rolling Stone has published a few other "controversial" covers.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone & Huffington Post 

  In fact the Huff Post found a few other historic covers that generated talk, and sales!

Courtesy of New Yorker and Huffington Post 

Courtesy of New Yorker and Huffington Post 

Courtesy of Huffington Post and Texas Monthly 

Courtesy of Esquire and Huffington Post

THE WORLD CHANGED ON THIS DAY

     Sunny southern California was the site in 1955 when Walt Disney gained a kind of immortality, at least in part.

        DISNEYLAND opened on this day back then.  The Disneyland legacy is profound, more than just the amusement and wonder of the parks and entertainment complex. A virtual science of crowd management, logistics, marketing, concept development and much more has followed.  You know there is something magic about being the happiest place on earth.  Still works.

ANOTHER HAPPY PLACE

     See you down the trail.

AN OLYMPIC MEDIA DIVIDE

TECHNOLOGY HAS PASSED THE OLD WAY

     It is probably time for Olympic organizers, the IOC, and their media partners to get fully into the 21st Century.  Their old fashioned approach is silly.

       CASES IN POINT

       Viewers are already all over NBC for their multi hour tape delay of the opening ceremony and the rounds of competition.  I was angry, because as a regular BBC Internet viewer/reader, I was unable to see the Beeb's stuff because of the US deal with NBC.  

       Still tape delay in the the age of Twitter creates a real problem as Fred Wilson of AVC writes in this blog.

        Techcrunch.com weighs in on the flap calling the delay STUPID in this link.

       It's a fascinating, even if painful example of how social media platforms have outdated the thinking of Network executives and business hustlers.  Why tape delay in a 24/7 world of instant media?  Sure, the answer is ad dollars are higher if the Olympics play in prime time, instead of real time, which half way around the world could mean the middle of the night or the middle of the afternoon when viewership is down. But that old business model, may be just that-old and out of date.

      PaidContent.org, which watches the economics of digital content reports in this link how Twitter activity has jeopardized broadcast coverage.

        Here is Reuter's take on the embarrassment.

        If nothing else, this Olympiad should signal a new way to approach coverage of the games.  Instead of add ons or afterthoughts, new media platforms should be a key strategy for those nations where time zone differences

are important.

     

DAY FILE

BLOOMS ADD CHEER

See you down the trail.

TOO PICKY? & HIGH ADVENTURE

TWEETED OUT OF THE GAMES

    OK, so the joke about West Nile Mosquitoes wasn't in the best of taste, but neither was it dangerously offensive. It seemed a harmless attempt with an unintended racism, but it cost Greek triple jumper Voula Papachristou her trip to the Olympic games and earned her ignominy.

     This is troublesome.  It once again moves private communication, in this case via Twitter, into the public arena.  In truth the joke was intended only for her followers, in a sense a private arena.  However we can no longer pretend that social media, even if directed to specific users, is like an old fashioned snail mail letter.  One more encroachment upon personal space perhaps, but the way it is in this age. 

     But even given the questionable nature of the joke, is that really grounds to ban an athlete from participating?  If she had told the joke just to fellow triple jumpers, or her coach, it probably would not have resulted in her expulsion.

      I question the fairness and proportionality of the move to kick her out of the games.  As another athlete said, it is a new age.  So it is, and if you are an athletic star, I guess you should be on your best behavior- always.  Just like Soccer, NFL Football, NBA Basketball players always are, right?

       I think she could have "scolded", but being expelled is

an Olympic blunder.  

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF

LUKE AND HEMINGWAY

HIGH ADVENTURE

     Luke-climber, hunter, fast and preferring the high ground.

    Tree, car, fence, house-all places from which he can watch.

        Brother Hemingway follows older brother.

    But as far as core competency, Hemingway rests well.  He's an expert at taking it easy.

    Luke, in his solitude.

See you down the trail.

DID TWITTER COMMIT SUICIDE? & BIG KIDS AT RECESS

NEWS FROM THE FRONT LINE

OF THE INFORMATION WARS

It's probably a result of my decades in journalism,

broadcasting and documentary production,

but I'm super sensitive when there are 

rumblings in the "force," that is

communications and information flow.
Veteran readers may recall a couple of 
posts that shook up a few people-
Posting (link here) about the convenience of algorithms and a kind of "thought control."  
Or about the danger of cyber crime
Read the post by linking here.
Now a new battle line has been drawn.
Here's the Forbes blog on what has set off many recriminations.


Twitter Commits Social Suicide
By Mark Gibbs, Forbes
27 January 12
Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country - while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.
ith those words earlier today, in a blog posting titled "Tweets still must flow" the management ofTwitter's went over to the dark side and may well have dug their own grave
In what can only have been a fit of corporate insanity, Twitter announced that it has the ability to filter tweets to conform to the demands of various countries.
Thus, in France and Germany it is illegal to broadcast pro-Nazi sentiments and Twitter will presumably be able to block such content and inform the poster why it was blocke
Quite obviously, Twitter's management believes that there is some kind of value in being able to filter in this way but given that, over the course of 2011, the number of tweets per second (tps) ranged from a high of almost 9,000 tps down to just under 4,000 tps, any filtering has got to be computer-driven.
So, consider this tweet:
@FactsorDie Nazi Germany led the first public anti-smoking campaign.
Could that be considered to be pro-Nazi? How will a program accurately make that determination?
What concerns me is that if the algorithm Twitter uses registers a false positive (i.e. determines that the tweet is pro-Nazi when it isn't) and the tweet has any time sensitivity to it then that attribute will be completely nullified by the time the tweet makes it out of tweet-jail if it ever does.
On the other hand if the software makes a false negative (i.e. determines that the tweet is NOT pro-Nazi when it is) then the filtering is useless and Twitter will be held accountable by every political group with an axe to grind.
Now it might be argued that some percentage of false positives or false negatives will be acceptable but what is that percentage? 0.0000o01%? That equates, at a minimum of 4,000tps, to 3,456 misclassified tweets per day or 1,261,440 per year!
And will the filtering software be able to detect irony and sarcasm? I rather doubt it.
And what about the fact that Twitter will be implicitly editing all tweets? Doesn't that attract legal issues in that they are taking on an editorial responsibility and therefore become a lightning rod for lawsuits?
I see Twitter's management having made a huge epic, mistake. In trying to appease the demands of political pressure they've dug themselves a huge hole that they won't be able to climb out of. The mere fact that they have published a blog posting claiming that they can filter seals their fate.
I really like Twitter; it's a unique and amazingly rich social platform but Twitter's management may have just diminished if not wiped out their edge and their global relevance.
You can't service all of humanity if you allow the needs of politics to triumph over the needs of the people. And if you can't service all of humanity, what is your relevance?

What do you think?
It is certainly a different world from when most information flowed from major news gathering organizations dedicated to the proposition of the public's right to know and adamant about the First Amendment. That was of course a time before news organizations were expected to be profit centers and before mergers and group ownership of once competing media.  And certainly before the sophistication of data mining and social media.


DAY BOOK
ANOTHER FLASH MOB BIRTHDAY 
AND THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE GETS A NEW CUPOLA.

The historic San Simeon school has been spiffed up.

While the Friday Lunch Flash Mob has grown to 4 tables.

 With the tradition of a candle in the chocolate chip cookie continues.

It's like big kids at recess!
See you down the trail.

DECIDING FOR YOURSELF OR A PRIORI

OLD IS SOMETIMES BETTER
Have you followed the almost other worldly debate between
Twitter and Google about access to data and subsequent
sharing of that information?
Link here for background from Reuters news.

This very medium that we are sharing at this moment is 
extraordinary in its depth, reach and ability to be 
instant. It continues to change how we live, inform ourselves and think.  And yet as we rely on its
capacity, it begins to replace some of our
own intellectual command.  Decisions are being made for us.
This video appeared here earlier, but many of you missed it,
according to the analytics available to even a blogger such as me.  And that is part of the point.

The technology is impressive, even if inevitable.
But I wonder what happens as the decision making, fed by 
 data mining and analytics, continues. Will
we become like the humans depicted
in the Pixar masterpiece Wall-e?
What happens to the human specie if everything
is done based on convenience, prior patterns
and algorithmic decision making?
I fear that anything that begins to shape or trim 
our curiosity and free exploration leads us
to being intellectual chia pets.


HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW IT HAS CHANGED
The video was recorded during a break
on the NBC Today show in January 1994.
Bryant Gumble and Katie Couric ask
WHAT IS THE INTERNET ANYWAY?

I assume Bryant and Katie now get a kick out of 
their naivety. In those days
there was no threat to the media from the new
technology platforms that today call
institutions like the network news "mainstream" or "lame stream" media. Of course all news organizations
calculate how to survive.
Computer mined and manipulated data leads to 
a kind of apriori decision making,
but how free or unbounded is it?
What price for convenience?
I hope you sometimes visit the 
21st Century Intelligence component at the
very bottom of this page.  It does a great 
job of tracking the business of our tech future.
See you down the trail.