Letters to the Editor
veteran novice
Published Letters: 38
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Corporate pressure
[Read the article: The Bill Moyers documentary on our failed and barren press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I recently experienced two things that gave me insight the modern television newsman on corporate dominated television news.
First, last week the very elegant lady, and early star of broadway and television, Kitty Carlisle passed away. So, while flipping through the cable channels yesterday I stopped when I came across the old game show "To Tell the Truth" on which Ms. Carlisle was a panelist and watched a bit for old times sake. Gary Moore was the host (you have to be at least as old as a boomer to remember these people). Anyhow, while I was watching, Mr. Moore told an anecdote about a dog food commercial. It seems that in the days of live TV during a dog food commercial on his show, the dog refused to eat the sponsor's dog food. So, explained Mr. Moore, he himself ate the dog food so that the show's sponsor would not get angry. Mr. Moore claimed it tasted pretty good. The frozen smile on Ms. Carlisle's face at the end of Moore's recitation was priceless.
Second, I came across an article Jan. 2007 at the Mercury Rising blog (well worth reading at: http://phoenixwoman.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-moonie-times.html ) in which former GE prsident Jack Welch and his influence was discussed:
From Mercury Rising:
Jack Welch is the guy who was CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 2001. He acquired NBC for GE in 1985 as part of the RCA deal, and in 1993 had hired former Republican National Committee chair Roger Ailes to rework NBC's news division, particularly its CNBC channel, to be more to the GOP's liking. (Ailes was then hired in 1996 by another right-wing media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, to create and run FOX News. Funny how that works.) Welch took great pride in corrupting former liberals like Chris Matthews and Tim Russert, seducing them with cold hard cash and then boasting about it:
In private, Welch was proud to have personally cultivated Tim Russert from a “lefty” to a responsible representative of GE interests. Welch sincerely believed that all liberals were phonies. He took great pleasure in “buying their leftist souls”, watching in satisfaction as former Democrats like Russert and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews eagerly discarded the baggage of their former progressive beliefs in exchange for cold hard GE cash. Russert was now an especially obedient and model employee in whom the company could take pride.
So, here's what I learned. First, that right wing corporate bosses are putting pressure on their television personalities to tow the right-wing line, and second, that people will eat friggin dogfood to keep their television jobs.
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Jonathan Alter can remember what he can't remember
[Read the article: Answers for Joe Klein]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jonathan Alter: I don't remember him calling Broder "the voice of the people," but if he did, it was said with a pleasantly arch tone, neither serious nor sarcastic.
If Alter does not remember it, how would he know what tone it was said in? This reflexive defensiveness undercuts his entire column. It sounds much like Alberto not remembering how all of those attorneys got fired -- but he assures us he knows nothing illegal or wrong happened.
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The south and the electoral college
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As long as we are discussing the south, I think that the use of electoral college in the presidential election makes it harder to change democratic opportunities in the south. Since there is no chance for the democrat to win many of the southern states those states are usually written off early in a presidential campaign. There are less visits there less campaigning by democrats there of any sort.
Moving to a popular vote would make everyone's vote count, not just those in tossup states. It would make spending money on persuasion worth it in the south, where in fact there may be an opportunity in each election to change a few minds. The way it is now, election campaigns in the south merely reinforce the status quo.
I might add that it would be harder to fix a national popular vote than the vote in a single swing state like Florida or Ohio, (that did not really use to be a concern for me).
With our ongoing disaster of a president elected by a minority of the population, but aided by electoral college shortcomings, plus the advantage of campaigns having more opportunities in places other than swing states, I think that moving to a national popular vote is important to this country. Not that I expect to see it happen, entrenched interests and all of that. But do not think the south will move until we make the effort to change some minds, and that will not happen until there is an advantage to try and do so.