The Ignorant Journalist

Generally, forty years ago.....what the AP, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, US News and World Report, Washington Post, NBC, CBS, and ABC said.....mattered.

Folks sat around, and talked about this article or that news piece, in a factual way.  They sat on front porches and discussed what the US News and World Report said this week, and it MATTERED.  Watergate was Watergate, because the Washington Post made it topic number one for almost an entire year.

Then you watch this transformation occur in the 1990s and over the past two decades.  Drudge, NPR, social media, 'evil' Russians, CNN, Fox News, and forty-odd dozen micro-news organizations (like the micro-brewery business in a way) stepped onto the stage.  Being a journalist changed....you didn't need to really be factual.....you needed to just convince people of something....whether true, false, or something 'else'.

It reached some point in the past year where the news groups started to drag back onto the stage,  the collosal 'kings' of journalism of the 1970s, who most people today don't recognize or even care about (sorry for that slam).

Journalist connecting with people?  No.  Most haven't talked to regular people in a decade.  They've heard that these people exist, but the idea of talking to them and finding common grounds?  No.

So this odd thing occurred.  We just dissolved the relationship.  It's like having IP service and dumping our carrier.  Or having a cable package, and dumping them for bad reliability.  Or having some kid mow our grass and be fed up with his attitude.

Upon watching this CNN exchange with Allison Camerota and John Sununu....it was obvious that Sununu was not going to give respect to Camerota.....kinda like saying just because she thought she had a talking dog or a magic unicorn.....didn't mean it was so.  She repeated that demanded respect, and it was an obvious moment that he didn't believe in giving them any respect.

For well over two years, the news media has blasted onto Trump and he's treated them like juvenile delinquents....pushing them around and labeling them 'losers'.  The public thinks of it as some circus entertainment situation.  Trump is the guy in the center-stage, and the news media acts as clowns.

I don't think this will be corrected anytime soon, and might go on for a full decade. 

The 'Confederacy'

Florida Democratic Governor nominee Andrew Gillum spoke up and said that for Florida needs a Medicare for all system, saying:  “we would have to do it as a confederation of states. We could not do it by ourselves solely here in the state of Florida.”

I sat there and read the comment five times....a black Democratic candidate saying....yes, we need a confederacy of states.  Course, he meant something different, but here's the thing....100,000 idiot Floridian redneck guys will read this comment and think....yeah, he means a Jefferson Davis 'Confederacy'.

Well....this is how stupid we've become and how we use words in the wrong way.

Over the next month or two.....thousands of Florida guys will gather at bars and backyard grillings.....chatting over the enthusiasm for the confederacy, and we finally have a guy to offer bringing it back. 

Social media?  I suspect the Russians are hard at work....trying to figure some social media message to chat up about the confederacy and how Gillum is the guy who will deliver the new confederacy.  Some crazy Russian will suggest that it requires a black guy to bring back the confederacy and the idiots will all buy into this fake confederacy idea, with the black guy in charge.

CNN Story

In the last hour, I sat and looked over some clip of CNN's Camerota talking to John Sununu....over John McCain.

She spent about four minutes doing the honor-McCain chatter, then she shifts over to the anti-Trump chatter.

Sununu?  He basically says no....he's not there to chat over anti-Trump stuff.

Camerota pushed back, and Sununu kinda smiled, and pushed her back a full step or two.

Here's the general spiral of CNN....it's like a network of 9-year-old kids who were put in charge of something and there's no adult leadership in the room.  They fumble around....impress you with graphics....then bring on some characters who were apparently noted journalists of the 1970s/1980s....who most people don't really recognize today, and seem to think they can sell you something without any factual information. 

Court Story

I sat this morning and gazed over news, and this one small item lay there....a C-SP*N/PBS survey.  They went out and asked around a thousand 'likely voters' (hint: not regular people but people who say they usually vote)....about how familiar they were with the Supreme Court.

Roughly fifty percent could not name a SINGLE member of the current court. 

I would suggest that if you'd based the poll off just regular people at some flea-market....it would have even gone down to maybe 20-percent naming one single guy/gal off the Supreme Court. 

But the real question here....is it important to know the members of the court?  Basically....NO.  It doesn't change your life or improve your disposition.  It doesn't comfort you at 11 PM at night when your husband is still out drinking, or having to talk to some idiot teacher in the school because of a poor grading system with your kids.  Frankly, it doesn't matter for the bulk of us. 

For journalists, or the PBS crowd?  Well....they'd like for people to get all pepped up and care. 

Can folks name all the NFL teams?  I would imagine among likely male-voters...more than sixty percent can name two-thirds of the teams.

Can folks name their two senators?  I would take a guess that barely a third of all likely voters can name both senators from their state. 

Does any of this matter.....that's really the big question.