Monthly Archives: November 2016

Fake news in the news

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congress2There has been a lot of buzz lately about “fake” news sites and how they may have impacted the recent presidential election.

Multiple stories have been written on how to spot a fake news story and even President Obama has weighed in calling it a threat to democracy.

There’s only one little problem, fake news has been around since the birth of our nation.

Back in 1782, Benjamin Franklin, who was in France as American ambassador, put together an entirely fake issue of a real Boston newspaper, the Independent Chronicle. In it, Franklin made up a story allegedly from the New York frontier and concerned wartime atrocities by Indians at the behest of the British.

The fake story was sent to his friends and was picked up by real newspapers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island.

Columnist Leonard Pitts (who appears in the Houston Chronicle) wrote a piece on how fake news is “eating like terminates through the foundations of democracy”. He even goes on to quote Thomas Jefferson who said “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free; it expects what never was and never will be.”

It’s a great quote, but it’s hard to swallow when you learn Jefferson secretly gave money to newspaper editors to spread personal rumors about his enemies which may or may not have been true while the country was struggling to form a new government. Oh well, it still makes for a great quote.

Now in today’s inter-connected world wide web, it’s easy to see how a fake news story can take off like a wild fire. Websites like Facebook are trying to figure out how they weed these stories out (although some reports claim Facebook generates half its ad revenue from fake news sites), so I guess it will be up to us to decide what is true and what is not.

Democracy survived Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson’s transgressions, I suspect it will continue to do so after this election as well.

Soul Country is taking America by storm

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maxresdefaultAnybody want to take a guess at who has the number one song on iTunes today? Bruno Mars? The Chainsmokers? Andy Grammer?

Nope, it’s the pride of Porter, Texas; Sundance Head. Never heard of him? Then you must not watch NBC’s The Voice. The program is hosted by Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys and features various levels of competition to determine who America thinks has the best voice.

Sundance busted out “Me and Jesus” during Monday nights show. The song, written by Tom T. Hall, quickly rose to the top of the iTunes chart. Sundance  starts it off slow and than takes off like a freight train features a sound that is reminiscent of the Soggy Bottom Boys from the move “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou”.

Sundance looks like your atypical county musician, but there is much more to his repertoire than those cry in your beer songs. Check out his cover of Cyrus’s “Climb”. Not only does he perform it in front of Cyrus, it’s only his voice and guitar. No professional musicians backing him up, it’s just a guy and his guitar and he blows everyone away.

Sundance has music in his genes. His dad, Roy Head was in the band The Traits, best known for their 1965 hit, “Treat Her Right.” When he was 20, Sundance recorded with ZZ Top through a friend from his dad. 13 years later, Sundance started to play music professionally.

A contestant during season six of American Idol, Sundance finished in 13th place becoming the first American Idol contestant in history to score a recording contract with a major record label, Universal Motown, without finishing in the Top 12.

His band, aptly named Sundance Head plays all over Texas, but with his exposure and popularity on the rise, you better catch the self-proclaimed founder of Soul Country while you can.

Smart vs. pleasant

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“My number one priority is making sure president Obama’s a one-term president.”
— Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky

“We all want what’s best for this country. That’s what I heard in Mr. Trump’s remarks last night. That’s what I heard when I spoke to him directly. And I was heartened by that.”
— President Barack Obama

I believe you can judge a person not when they’re winning, but when they’re losing. How they respond tells a whole lot about their character. That’s why I was pleased to hear President Obama take the high road when meeting with reporters after the Trump/Clinton election.

It may just have been rhetoric and maybe he really doesn’t believe what he says, but tone matters. Back in 2008, Sen. McConnell felt it was in the best interest of the country to do whatever he could to not allow Obama a second term. You can argue that, blocking Obama would be in the best interest for the country, but do you really want to say it like that? Could we at least put some lipstick on the pig?

I may have missed it, but I don’t recall the kind of bombastic language this year by presidential candidates in the past elections. Deplorable and nasty soon became buzz words for both parties to rally around. I realize the country is divided, but maybe it’s because of our tone of discourse. Maybe if we step back, listen (now there’s a concept) and work at addressing our issues in a calmer manner we can get more things done. I understand not everyone will be able to do this, I’m just saying it would be nice to see a little more of it.

I think Elwood P. Dowd in the film Harvey summed it up best when he said; “In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.”

Changing the station

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djHaving spent most of my adult life in talk radio, I always like to keep up with what’s happening on the airwaves. People come, people go and there is the usual craziness, but then I came across two stories that make me glad I have no part of that industry anymore.

The first comes from Miami and WAXY (790 The Ticket). It seems Dan Le Batard is furious with management because they told him not to talk about a penis surgery story. Le Batard supposedly went on a rant, challenging the station to fire him.

“Nothing matters to me more, than you don’t control what comes out of my mouth,” Le Batard said, “and we’ve got someone going crazy locally right now, saying they’re gonna yank us off the air if we continue to talk about this.  And what I’m telling you right now is: fire me.  Not only never do that again, fire me now if you want to control me that way.  NOW…. yank me off the air now.  Fire me now, cancel my contract now…. because this is infuriating….  you do not control what comes out of my mouth.”

Nice to see him take a stand on such an important issue.

And then there’s St. Louis talk host Bob Romanik.

In recorded ads played this week on AM station KZQZ, sandwiched between ads for local St. Clair County “Freedom Coalition” politicians, Romanik referred repeatedly to County Board Chairman Mark Kern as a cross-dresser and “faggot.”

The ad, which has Tiny Tim’s 1968 recording of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” as background music asks

“Have you also been lying about your sexuality and sex life? … Mark ‘Sweetcakes’ Kern, not a wolf in sheep’s clothing but a very small man in women’s clothing. You have now earned a new name. … To all the people of St. Clair County, you’ll be known as Mark ‘The Faggot’ Kern, a faggot forever.”

According to the St. Louis Dispatch, At least one listener complained. Romanik responded on his talk show Tuesday that anyone who thinks he doesn’t have the right to speak his mind can “kiss my red, white and blue, hairy, stinky old ass. … I can question anybody’s sexuality.”

Romanik, who claims he is not perfect, pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud in 1999, admitted to defrauding two banks of about $1.5 million to build topless nightclubs in the metro-east. He was ordered to serve 20 months in federal prison.

Fortunately, there is a solution to all this; turn off the radio.

Why are NFL TV ratings down?

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NFL LogoSomething strange is happening with the NFL. No, it’s not that the Dallas Cowboys have a shot at playing in this year’s Super Bowl at NRG Stadium with a backup quarterback, but rather TV ratings are down.

How down? Ratings giant Nielsen is reporting Monday Night Football is down 20 percent. Sunday Night Football is off by 18.5 percent and Thursday Night Football is down 21.8 percent.

The NFL is blaming the “unprecedented” interest in the presidential election, but someone who knows a little about sports and broadcasting has a different theory.

Back in 2014 when the NFL signed an eight game Thursday Night Football deal, Mark Cuban predicted that the NFL was overreaching and would soon see an implosion.

“I’m just telling you: Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they’re getting hoggy,”said Cuban. “Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I’m just telling you, when you’ve got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That’s rule No. 1 of business.”

Now to be fair, there could be many reasons for the decline if viewership.

  • Games are filled with commercials and penalties and take way too long to play. Back in 2013, The average length of a game was three hours and 12 minutes and included 20 commercial breaks with more than 100 ads.
  • The match-ups have been terrible. When the announcers are talking about whether or not they make their beds in the fourth quarter of the Tennessee – Jacksonville game, you know it’s a snoozer.
  • Smart phones give fans access to game information with real time scores, stats and news without having to watch the actual game.

Granted we are only talking about a handful of games so far, and now that the election is here and the World Series is done, ratings could return to last year’s numbers. Still one wonders how worried the league is over what could be a ratings tremor, or seismic shift.

What the hell was she thinking?

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The longtime Democratic strategist Donna Brazile was shown the door at CNN (technically she resigned, but the saying “don’t let the door hit you in the ass when you leave” comes to mind).

Brazile, who enjoyed offering her opinions on politics like Kim Kardashian likes selfies, was a mainstay for the network for many years. While you might not agree with her opinions, most reasonable people could respect her intelligence and knowledge of current events. So what happened?

Brazile informed/leaked/tossed a bone to the Clinton campaign about a question they could expect during a Democratic primary debate. CNN claims no one from their channel tipped her off, and suggested it came from TV One host Rolando Martin who co-moderated the debate or someone affiliated with Martin.

Not mincing words, CNN president Jeff Zucker reportedly called her actions “unethical” and “disgusting” In an editorial meeting.

This calls into question the practice of news organizations hiring partisan operatives. Their loyalties are not to the network, but more to their parties and candidates. While they may have educated opinions, that’s all they are; opinions.

“CNN never gave Brazile access to any questions, prep material, attendee list, background information or meetings in advance of a town hall or debate,” a CNN spokeswoman said Monday. “We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor.”

While not surprising, it continues the narrative that what we see on so-called “news” channels, really isn’t news. It’s a bunch of talking heads who enjoy trying to be the smartest person in the room.