Ready For Another Presidential Campaign? #262
By Hank Silverberg
I wrote a novel in 2015 about a fictional political campaign. It has a complex plot about a female vice-president getting ready to challenge an aging president who has health issues. The story centers on the reporters covering the election campaign with some sidebar plot twists that include a terrorist, and dirty tricks.
Then along came the 2016 presidential race, and by the time the novel was first published in 2017, the truth became stranger than my fiction.
But I have hesitated to write a sequel because it could not compete with the unpredictable and destructive nature of real American politics right now.
Let's look at it as if it were the plot to a novel.
You have a former defeated president who is now seeking the job again despite being impeached twice and with a possible criminal indictment hanging over his head. Donald Trump continues to manipulate the far right-wing of his party who continue to run off a cliff for him--at least for now.
You have an aging incumbent president with a long political track record who has done an adequate job coming out of the worldwide pandemic. But President Biden, who has never really caught fire with a good portion of his own party, remains the only viable candidate simply because no other Democrat seems up to the job.
Then there are the GOP wannabes, like newly announced Gen-Xer Nikki Haley. Her first shot out of the box is to throw the Boomer generation under a bus, despite our long-standing record of high percentage voting (she thinks those of us over 75 need competency tests to run for office).
We can throw Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis into the mix. He appears to think the 1950's are ready for a comeback, complete with barefoot pregnant women in the kitchen, homosexuals in the closet and schools that ignore sex, gender and race, and teach the mythical history of White people.
I'm sure the plot will thicken with more characters as 2024 gets closer.
I'd love to continue my sequel to "The Campaign," but just like last time, the truth of the next election may be stranger than my fiction.
(The book "The Campaign" is still in circulation and there are instructions how to order it at the bottom of this blog.)
Fake News And The Big Lie, Versus The Truth!
When I was growing up, Journalists were my heroes.
Walter Cronkite told us, "That's the way it is." He was right about the Vietnam war, pollution and Watergate, and we believed him.
Woodward and Bernstein exposed corruption and crimes in the White House and helped bring down Richard Nixon, and that was good for the country.
That's why I chose journalism as a profession. It meant something. We would spread the truth so that the public could decide what needed to be done, and who were the best people to move us forward. The truth mattered.
But now the truth seems to have disappeared, at least in the minds of much of today's public.
A new survey released this past week by the Gallup and Knight Foundation https://knightfoundation.org/reports/american-views-2023-part-2/ found that only 26% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the news media, and 53% have an unfavorable view. That's the worst rating for news organizations in the past five years.
The rise in unfavorable ratings is especially pronounced among Independent voters, but also among Democrats who traditionally have had more favorable views of the media.
Young people, who are getting more of their news from the internet, hold more negative perceptions than the older generations.
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One key factor here: when asked if national news organizations do not intend to mislead, 50% disagreed. Only 25% agreed. That means the public thinks news organizations are lying on purpose. That's a startling figure.
Overall, 55% of the respondents said there was a great deal of bias in news coverage, compared to 45% in 2017.
And here's one more:
Only 23% of those asked agreed that national journalists are acting in the public's best interest.
Please note though, that the survey did not separate Cable TV news from Broadcast news, and there is a significant difference between the two in coverage and bias.
The only bright spot in this survey deals with local news.
*65% say local news have the resources and opportunity to report news accurately and fairly.
*53% say local news organizations care about how their reporting affects their community.
*44% said local news organizations do not intend to mislead or misinform or persuade the public.
I spent my entire career in local news, so those last numbers help me feel a bit better. But there is a really important message here for those who work in the news business.
The Radio, Television and Digital News Assocation (RTDNA) and the Society of Professional Journalist (SPJ) both have codes of ethics.
Number one on the list for both--the truth!
RTDNA Code of ethics: Truth and accuracy above all
SPJ: Seek the truth and report it.
Note to my former colleagues and competitors:
Get back to the truth, avoid speculation and keep your opinions to yourself.
(Note: There are journalists who do write opinion pieces, like this one, but they should be clearly marked as commentary and not passed off as objective news. I have written many times in this blog that this is my opinion.)
There's An APP For That?
Why would police want to pry into a woman's menstrual cycle? A lot of people in Virginia were
Democrats pushed for a bill that would prohibit use of menstrual cycle data from any search warrant issued by law enforcement. But the GOP, with support from Governor Glenn Younkin, defeated it.
The explanation? It's all about restrictions on abortions. If the state should pass a law that bans abortion after 15 weeks or some other term, such information could be used to prosecute a woman who is suspected of violating that ban and went ahead with an abortion after the limit.
Once again, the GOP is prying into a woman's right to privacy. I can't think of anything more private. Seizing such information, even through a subpoena, might not pass Constitutional muster. The 4th Amendment, prohibiting illegal search and seizure, would be in play. Then again, with today's conservative U.S. Supreme Court, you never know how they would react.
Dumbest Quote of The Week!
Every now and then a journalist will say something really dumb on the air. And that's the case this week. This week's dumbest quote comes from CNN Anchor Don Lemon. Since it was made live on the air and immediately challenged by his female co-host, the best way to highlight it is to post the exchange. So here it is from Youtube!
Lemon is known for some pretty off-the-wall comments, and it's getting us all a bit nauseous since he's a news anchor, who isn't supposed to make comments at all. This one got him suspended for several days and he was forced to make an on-air apology to Haley and women in general. Best advice to Don--shut up and just read the news.
(Your comments and suggestions for this blog are welcome, see comment section below)
My NEWEST book is now available. It is designed for use in Public Speaking and entry level communications classes.
HankSilverberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get a copy at a reduced price and with my signature)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084Q7K6M5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-campaign-hank-silverberg/1126429796
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