ANOTHER TAKE ON MIKE WALLACE & BIRDS ON A LINE

  MIKE WALLACE AND THE HOMOSEXUALS

     I heard from readers after my Monday post on Mike Wallace. Some of you took me to task for my praise of his
contribution to American broadcast journalism.  Here's a 
portion of an email-

"You forgot to mention how he set back gay rights with his 1967 special The Homosexuals.  By the time he was done with the special which featured a doctor who stated the homosexuality was a choice and that they could never be happy....a number of parents stopped supporting their gay children, threw many of their own kids out and many gay adults lost their jobs.  At the time Mike Wallace associated socially with gay people including long time partners.  This was a news man who used sensationalism at the time to gain viewers.

He never countered that original show.  Later he said that he had made a bad judgment call.  That was it."

   And another:

"The old toughie is probably laughing

that he's getting a pass on some of his

outrageous sensationalism.  Look at 

how he bashed gays.  Think you could

broadcast that kind of stuff today?"

     I either forgot about the broadcast, or never saw it.  The piece, which aired in 1967, has a legacy and even has

a significant Wikipedia link and other commentary.

     One source has edited portions of the broadcast and

posted a short YouTube video.

        A virtue of this means of communication is the quickness of response, the depth of research accessible with only key strokes and the value of conversation.  So I amend my thought's on Wallace by expanding it to include this post.

I hope this now broadens the view and achieves more balance.

       It will be interesting to see how CBS handles it on their

60 Minutes broadcast on Sunday.

DAY BOOK

RIDING OUT THE STORM
The birds have created an interesting profile.

See you down the trail.

INFORMATION WARS

BATTLE LINES IN THE BRAVE NEW WORLD

A chasm sized absence has been launched as a defensive weapon in a profound and historic battle today.

Wikipedia has gone dark.

Link here for the Wikipedia rationale.

In summary a battle of giants is raging-

entertainment powerhouses of television, music and film versus Internet, tech and new media icons.

The focus is SOPA and PIPA-legislation designed 

to stop piracy and protect intellectual property rights.

Production companies, film makers, musicians and television networks want to stop uncompensated use of 

their material, primarily by foreign (outside the US)

web sites.  Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and other

cyber powers argue the legislation is poorly drafted

and will infringe upon free communication,

search, and the unfettered brave new world

of the Internet. Our parents would consider

this the stuff of science fiction, but information

wars are our reality. 

When I was ceo of a media and content production 

company I watched as some of our product was

pirated. It is theft, pure and simple.

Yet as we know the cure can sometimes be worse than

the disease and that is point of today's world wide

protest.

Many in the tech industry fear the legislation will

give too much power to the networks and film studios.

This is, as one account called it, a coming of age for

the world of tech, new media and the Internet.

A kind of wild west where anything that works, goes

is now faced with old fashioned power politics.

It is an historic battle and today's disappearance of

Wikipedia and other messages is an escalation.

DAY BOOK

MY OWN TECH EXPERIMENT

Today's study of the Cayucos pier is

from my smart phone, via e-mail.

Carry on cyber warriors.

See you down the trail.

A BAD SOURCE COULD HAVE IT RIGHT

A CONTRADICTION IN A TIME

OF FAILING MEDIA

Something to remember about the confused media today is that just because it comes from a source with a point of view, does not mean that it is not right.  Fox gets things right.  MSNBC gets things right.  So do all of the nets and even many on line sources despite the fact that some, too many  to my liking, have staked out a political or philosophical skew. Amongst the chaff is some real wheat but you must discern.

It used to be easier when journalists cared about

information first, before the tyranny of ratings

and the need to be a "profit center."

Objectivity used to matter.

Unless you only read the Economist and watch the BBC, about the only way you are going to get "the straight news" is to consume information from all over the spectrum.  We should be doing that anyway, but most of us rely on the same old...

Glass-Stegall ?  Remember your history?  Here's something the OWS has done well. Regardless of the "commercial like" close consider the historic clips and the point they make about banks.

Here's the wikipedia paragraph that lays it out.  Look what the repeals did and consider those in light of credit default swaps and other such scams.  The point is, we had strong economic growth without devastating recession UNTIL we began "repealing" and de-regulating.

The Banking Act of 1933, Pub.L. 73-66, 48 Stat. 162, enacted June 16, 1933, was a law that established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the United States and introduced banking reforms, some of which were designed to control speculation.^[1] It is most commonly known as the Glass–Steagall Act, after its legislative sponsors, Senator Carter Glass (D–Va.) and Congressman Henry B. Steagall (D–Ala.-3). Some provisions of the Act, such asRegulation Q, which allowed the Federal Reserve to regulate interest rates in savings accounts, were repealed by theDepository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. Provisions that prohibit a bank holding companyfrom owning other financial companies were repealed on November 12, 1999, by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, named after its co-sponsors Phil Gramm (R, Texas), Rep. Jim Leach (R, Iowa), and Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R, Virginia).^[2][3]

The repeal of provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act effectively removed the separation that previously existed between investment banking which issued securities and commercial banks which accepted deposits. The deregulation also removed conflict of interest prohibitions between investment bankers serving as officers of commercial banks.

We may not always like the source, but we are served by

remembering that sometimes the truth can come

in thorny packages.  Very few of the Old Testament

prophets would have won a popularity contests.

Political dialogue in the US has been hijacked by ideologues, zealots, hacks and cable news "personalities."  While most of it is bilious and not worth your time,

some of it is necessary to fully understand all points of

view, even those with which you disagree.  And

some of it is probably right, from time to time.

Even if the media is less objective than it should be

you can be as objective as you allow yourself in

considering, really considering, honestly considering,

all points of view.  You can always rest in your

 view, and if you've allowed opposing thoughts to

cross your mind and it has not nudged you a bit,

then you can take solace in the knowledge.

An open mind wont hurt.

See you down the trail.