REPUBLIC OF SNARK and THROWBACK TO NEWS JUDGEMENT

HAIR TRIGGER NASTINESS

     Maybe it's all the caffeine, or 24 hours of cable news yackers. We are wired and wireless and trending and our analytics are almost important as the Dow. Whether it's the spirit of our tweet or post or actual comment in a meeting, we've become a nation obsessed with snark, the 2015 version of snide. Invective has infected.

     It will take social archaeologists to explain why. In the meantime we all seem to suffer through a prolonged season of nastiness.

     Television maybe the greatest purveyor, or perhaps it's social media, but its omnipresent and it is making jack asses out of many of us and it threatens civilization. At least it threatens civilized conversation, dialogue and even debate. So many seem driven to be, dare I invoke a 20th Century and politically incorrect phrase, bitchy.  No gender reference here, simply the attitude. Nasty.

     The Brian Williams sadness has been a magnet for a lot of invective and scorn. It doesn't take much, but this has been a bonanza for snark masters.

     The masters of nasty live in the comments section of the Internet. I picture desperately unhappy and unbalanced people unloading on all the failures, misery and unhappiness of their lives with their lethal toned diatribes and rants. Most of this carping deserves to be ignored. But for many it is bait and thus the word battle of the nasties ensue. 

     "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!"  If we can genre and time hop and borrow a sentiment.  Life is too precious to permit others to show their butt headedness.  It's time for an attitude change, on tv, in social media, at the coffee shop and anywhere else where sarcasm has replaced reason.

Let's get back to plain old fashioned arguing without the snide, eye rolling, tongue clucking, sassiness.

IT'S THAT TIME

 A tribute to California spring as an antidote to those of you caught in winter.

  Things are growing well in "Indiana" with a bumper crop of lettuce.

THROWBACK TO JUDGEMENT

   As the sad destruction of Brian Williams and NBC's credibility plays out before us I post a shot of what I will call the "safety bench."

   This is the conference table where for 3 years I presided as the News Director, the senior news executive, of a division that provided programming for CBS, CW and Univision affiliated television stations. 

    We met here in the morning with our day side staff and again in the early afternoon with our evening staff.  We were responsible for at least 7 hours of programming each day across three stations and the accountability started here.

     Reporters, producers, photographers, editors, graphic artists, assignment staff and promotion people would gather as we planned a days coverage and approach.  But we also evaluated.  What did we do well in the previous 24 hour cycle?  Where did we mess up?  Why?  How could we have done it better?  What can we bring to coverage that will make the viewers investment of time worth it?  Every day.  It is not common for the senior executive to guide the session, but I thought it needed to be done. I had the best support staff available in my assistant News Director Kevin, executive Producer Stacy, Assignment Manager Jim, unit managers and a great team of producers.  

     There was a tendency in many shops to "get rolling," to get out of the meeting.  We took the time to evaluate, analyze, criticize, compliment and to measure our work product against our mission/vision statement and our operating principles.  

      Our team did well, very well. As I read about the Brian Williams credibility issue, I can't help but wonder how it might have been different if he had been held accountable by a process that didn't allow ego, big salary or title to filter him from the scrutiny our staff sustained everyday.

            I am thrilled to hear from former employees and colleagues who say those were great years. Some tell me they were the best of their careers. It was all about a mission, a purpose and putting the interests of viewers above all else.

       See you down the trail.

      

TELLING IT LIKE IT IS

CAPTAIN OF THE WALK

Twilight in Morro Bay

TIME FOR A CAPTAIN TO GO

     Naming Walter Cronkite and Brian Williams in the same sentence is somehow inappropriate but now inevitable. 

     They had the same job title, but the world between them is profoundly different. Williams appears to be a likable guy, big personality, glib and facile mind but he's no longer right for the job.The NBC Nightly News anchor and managing editor has benched himself for a few days during the furor over his indiscretion. As hard as it would be to do, he should step down and find another role. 

     In the age of Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley, Smith, even Jennings, Brokaw and Rather he'd be out. Rather's demise at CBS News was linked to his voicing a report, prepared by a producer, that claimed documentation they did not have. Later those documents were evident, but not when CBS claimed they were. Williams, kindly put, exaggerated. More pointedly he hyped or lied about being on a helicopter hit by ground fire. His credibility is shot.

     Back to my lead sentence.  Walter Cronkite was a journalist who spent years in the field and learned the craft first as a writer and reporter. Eventually he became a broadcaster.  Williams is of an era of "studio babies."  There are many of his generation who have spent most, if not all of their career in studios. That is not a skill to be discounted, but it is nothing like being in the field, gathering facts and data and sorting through experiences.  

    I know the difference. I've been a reporter on his own and I've been an anchor in the field, surrounded by producers, and other support staff.  When a network anchor leaves the studio for the field  there are many who accompany them.    

    The current gold standard for a television anchor today is personality, looks, style and communication skills. There was a time when journalistic tools, writing and reporting were the skills that moved a person to the anchor desk. It is a different world and while standards and roles have changed, an appearance of credibility still matters. 

     I can't begin to understand how Williams could have confused reality. I don't know why he would need to inflate his resume and experiences. I don't buy the excuses he offered. 

    I've covered stories with gun fire. I've reported from war zones. I've had a gun jammed into my chest by a young combatant. My crew and I were the only unarmed people in some situations. Memories like that remain focused, even when you try to forget or bury them. 

    I'm sorry for Brian Williams, but I'm old fashioned enough to expect my anchor person to be honest and to understand the most important part of the role is the news, not them-self. The task is to get it right and to be honorable and honest.

GRANDEUR IN DECLINE

 A once stately building on Oahu provides an interesting photo op.

  

A MOST INTERESTING FILM

   JC Chandor seems to have mastered the art of making a film that has a mostly singular focus, immersing you in a tight and enthralling struggle and delivering extraordinary and unique work.

    A MOST VIOLENT YEAR is not for everyone, but if you enjoy a compelling tale, realistic in style and scope and full of brilliant acting, you'll want to see this.  Chandor wrote and directed A MOST VIOLENT YEAR. His previous work was the solo performance of Robert Redford in ALL IS LOST.

   Oscar Isaac is marvelous as the New York fuel dealer who trys to play it honestly in a business full of corruption and violence.  Jessica Chastain is also superb as his wife who's family ties are to the other side of the street. Albert Brooks demonstrates his great acting chops as Isaac's partner.

    The film is not full of violence, despite the title, though it is a marvelously taut script, brilliantly directed and unpredictable through out. And it is a tribute to honor and honesty.

    See you down the trail.

   

DUBIOUS CONFUSION

TRUTH IN THE SHADOWS

 AND HARD TRUTHS

     We are at a couple of challenging junctures in American history. 
     The growing clamor and controversy over vaccination of children is evidence of a profound division.

     As social commentators have noted, the far left and the far right have found common ground in their skittishness toward vaccines. The nexus of the issue is the right of individuals to think and act as they wish vis a vis the well being and greater good of the general society.

     The other issue came to mind as we made our annual visit to the Monarch winter migration grove in Pismo Beach.

    Again this year fewer of the winged beauties were evident. There are a couple leading explanations and they are related to what civilization has done and is doing to the natural world.

    Decimation of wild spaces, pesticides, herbicides and other effects of changed agriculture and modern building have thrown nature out of balance for these winged beauties.

     That is the point of Naomi Klein's latest book,This Changes Everything:Capitalism vs. the Climate. 

     Even liberals and environmentalists are gun shy in raising her premise, for fear of being considered "too radical."

       With a lot of research and scientific scholarship Klein says the world's economic system and our planetary system are at war. 

       She covers food production, consumption, energy use and production, pollution of air, water and land, resource management practices and can measure how the bottom line of economics and especially profit motive trumps rivers, lakes, landfills, oceans, crop management, and etc. Protection of resources, even to worry about something like monarch butterfly populations, costs money and corporate boards are there to maximize earning and stock value. Regulations that might mitigate natural damage add costs and/or decrease earnings. 

       People are frightened by what Klein says. Her research should be read.  Truth is sometimes a 2x4 over the bridge of a nose or more gently an annoying prophet disturbing the peace of a dinner party or social tea.

      People are entitled to their views but when we live in a wired global village there are instances when the commonweal takes precedence.  Health is one such instance. 

       It is preposterous that suppressed or eradicated diseases are making a comeback in an age when science has never been more advanced.  There may be genuine concerns about efficacy and delivery of vaccinations, but this strange stew of resistance based on conspiracy theory, fear, superstition, half baked notions and now politics is frankly evidence of how silly we have become. Silly, maybe even stupid and with extraordinarily dangerous consequence.

THROWBACK SWEETHEARTS

   Not sure of the occasion in the early 90's, but it pictures,

 front to back, my youngest, Katherine, now finishing nursing school after a BS and a year of advanced permaculture study, my god-daughter Celia, now a PhD and working in Childhood Trauma psychology, my sainted late mother Mary Helen and a younger less gray version of your blogger. 

     I'm still concerned about the future that awaits those two bright, and still bright, faces.

    See you down the trail.

RIDING POWER

SEEING IS BELIEVING

    It's the look in their eyes or the tone of voice. When I talk with friends from elsewhere I can tell they just don't get surfing. 

    Maybe they are thinking of media "Hey Dude, gnarly man!" stereotypes, or they've never seen the extraordinary athleticism required.

    Tangling with 20 to 40 foot waves is serious business.

    An article in an Island paper detailed more than 120 serious spinal injures on Hawaiian surf beaches. Getting crushed in a wall of water like that pictured above can also kill you.

   The memorial near the famous Pipeline on Oahu's north shore pays tribute to those athletes killed there.

    Along with traditional surfers are boogie boarders, using flippers and a short board.  They too ride the wave and when successful, as seen below, flip up and over the roaring Pacific curl.

    On Oahu's North Shore we watched at the Banzai Pipeline, Sunset Beach and Waimea, three of the world's best surfing sites.
     I was surprised to see the scope and depth of the "surf culture" and joked about the traffic and jammed parking, "does anyone work up here?"

   At least some do, as professional surfers. Several "surf shacks" commercially owned homes housing professionals, sit along the Pipeline. 

    They compete, do product endorsement appearances and live only feet from some of the best surf in the world.

      A few of the pros are veteran champions.

  Followed by many young chargers

 During the winter on the north shore they are well observed

  Even watching can come with potential difficulty. The next two frames are a case in point.  I took the first shot at the end of the steps leading to the Pipeline. My friend Jim shot the second frame a day earlier when those rocks and stumps were being used by professionals shooting a competition. 

  The people above are unsuspecting of how quickly the beach can change.  The pros below will remember, and fishing for their gear.

Photo Courtesy of Jim Cahill

   So yea, it's exciting and the rides look thrilling, even appealing.  But this boomer knows his own limited abilities and respects the power of the sea.

    The best I can offer you are pictures, from a safe distance and my admiration for those who catch a wave.

   See you down the trail.