Time to Think

The End Of An Era #389

By Hank Silverberg

It's Memorial Day weekend. For many people that will mean picnics and flag waving, and for some a visit to the graves of those lost in America's wars.

Those men and women who gave their lives for this country were, in most cases ordinary Americans who did what they were called on to do. We should honor them for defending our freedom to speak our minds, practice or not practice any religion, and peacefully protest any policy of our government.

I could go on about this for paragraph after paragraph. But I want to talk about what those folks died for. The United States is still a free country.

We have seen in recent months small little erosions of those freedoms, which when you add them all up, should raise an alarm of Americans on all sides of the political spectrum.

Just this past week there were two events that are part of that gradual erosion.

Stephen Colbert was forced off the air, not by low ratings as some have said (he was #1 in late night), not specifically because his show was losing money (it was), but indirectly by a new group of people in charge of Skydance, the new parent company of CBS. They have ties to Donald Trump, who Colbert has sharply ridiculed for a decade. They found reasons to cancel The Late Show, perhaps to get a merger with Warner Brothers approved tainting their decision with politics.

By itself that does not seem terrible. Colbert is likely to bounce back in another forum, though not so prominent.

The same week, CBS Radio, a legacy network, which invented broadcast news, was killed. It had been broadcasting balanced, professional news for 99 years and was one of the few places you could still count on professional, objective reporting without a political agenda.

But CBS Radio News died, not because of money (it was breaking even), and not because no one wanted it (CBS had 700 radio station affiliates across the country and reached about 22 million Americans every day.)

It died because those same leaders at CBS are restructuring the company to be more Trump- friendly, and balanced news that wasn't making any money doesn't fit that ideology. It started with the attacks on the editorial content of 60 Minutes, the most distinguished news program on television. And if you have been paying attention, you can see the slight twist in the editorial content of the CBS Evening News as well, starting with some layoffs of veteran journalists.

For the average viewer or listener, there are other places to go both on the air and online, though they are rapidly evaporating. But the loss of a major objective radio news source like CBS Radio News and the loss of a major spotlight for a comedian who could joke about the follies of power, have cut just a little notch out of our ability to judge for ourselves what is good and what is bad. And that is a sad day. (See story below.)

You can listen to an historical retrospective on CBS Radio News here:

CBS News Radio looks back on its 99-year history - WTOP News

News You May Have Missed

Influencers or Shills?

One of the places many people now get their information from are so-called "influencers" who have thousands, or sometimes millions, of followers on social media. Most of them make money on their posts. Most of them have no training in journalism and don't know how to be balanced. But some did get press credentials to the political conventions for both parties in 2024. That did have an impact, since most viewers think of influencers as ordinary people who just want to have their say. This is particularly the case with young voters.

But now a story in the Los Angeles Times reports that some of those "influencers" have taken payments from the campaign of Democratic candidate for California governor, Tom Steyer, who then did not disclose that they were paid to create the posts. According to the Times story, there are no rules mandating such disclosures in most places. The nonprofit Campaign Legal Center has filed a petition with the FEC asking for such rules requiring disclosure. Ironically, California is one of the few places where there are regulations regarding paid content creators and politics, but the commission set up to enforce the rules hasn't made any decision on the Streyer case.

What's the problem? A Pew Research Center study done in 2024 found roughly one in five Americans get their news from social media influences.

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/news-influencers-fact-sheet/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-influencers-rise-in-politics-some-call-for-tighter-regulations-on-payments/ar-AA23WvZd?ocid=BingNewsBrowse

Space Race!

Most people interested in space have been paying close attention to the competition between SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, the private companies bidding to dominate the American space program. But the Russians and the Chinese still have space programs of their own, and this week
China launched the Shenzhou 23 spacecraft, sending three astronauts to a Chinese space station for a year. It's part of the Chinese effort to put men on the Moon by 2030, while the United States is still pushing for a lunar landing by 2028. The Chinese mission includes an in-orbit rotation with the crew of Shenzhou 21, who have been at the Tiangon space station for more than 200 days.

Of note: 118 countries including the United States, Russia and China signed a treaty in 1984 not to put military bases on the Moon. A 1967 international treaty bans weapons in space. But the race for the Moon and Mars at this point is really about potential natural resources.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/china-launches-shenzhou-23-spacecraft-161449820.html

Dumbest Quote of The Week!

Donald J. Trump says something stupid at least once a week, but I avoid posting them here because that would be redundant. His dumb quotes are to numerous. But this week I could not let it go, mainly because Congress is debating a $1.8 billion slush fund to be used by anyone who thinks the government has wronged them. That would include hundreds of people convicted and later pardoned by President Trump for their role in the January 6th, 2020 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Here's what Trump said on his Truth Social page:

(the capital letters are his, not mine)

"THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6. If this is so, which it is, a lot of very good people will be owed big apologies. What a SCAM-DO SOMETHING."

The quote once again brings up the question of the President's mental abilities. Donald Trump was THE president on January 6, 2020, so Trump, not Biden, had control of the FBI that day. Biden did not become president until January 20th, 2020 and played no role in any law enforcement that day.

(You suggestions and comments are welcome)

My recent book "The Campaign" can be purchased at the links below. Or you can buy a copy by emailing me at: HankSilverberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get a copy at a reduced price and with my signature)