DUer niyad asked me to make this an OP. Why my background makes me despise trump.

[calimary]

I wrote this on May 19th and it pretty well explains what personally grinds my teeth about donald. And why I HATE his slamming the media as "fake news." I hate it with the proverbial burning fire of a thousand suns. Can't help it. I take that personally. That's where I used to work. And I worked in, and on, the media starting while I was still in college, and for the next at least 25 years. Indeed, I was one of the first women to break into broadcasting in this country, and indeed the first newswoman at several of the L.A. stations where I worked. And I worked with a LOT of people who had long before earned respect and admiration and imitation, along with truckloads of awards. I guess it all started with the high school newspaper... But I WILL NOT STAND FOR trump insulting and disrespecting badmouthing and besmirching and even literally endangering the lives and the personal safety of newspeople - since he started running for president. How FUCKING DARE YOU, donald. So here's my rant, which started with a complaint about those who still feel compelled to pussyfoot through this Acid Reign:


Sorry. As a retired journalist, I don't have much patience or forgiveness for squandering a few years trying to tiptoe around truth in order to avoid the wrath of the liar.

Sorry. NO EXCUSES FOR THAT, and YES, I'm SHOUTING!

DAMMIT! That's MY former profession to which he's laying waste. That he's almost literally (if not verbally) shitting upon. That's work I did and people I worked with and with whom I shared the workload. People with whom I stood out in the cold and near danger when we were covering high-rise fires, airplane crashes, and campaigns and Election nights, and glamour gaggles like the Oscars and Hollywood Boulevard Star Ceremonies. I stood behind rope lines with those people. I worked til 3am and 4am alongside them in newsrooms. I fought my way through obstacles alongside them. I covered death and grieving alongside them. I covered celebrations and glitz alongside them. I was elbow-to-elbow with them in small cramped spaces set aside for press, ropes behind which we were confined, police lines we had to have certified credentials to cross, and I even had a chance to throw an uncomfortable question to a slick-talking president in a room full of them.

I can say it now because I'm retired and no longer in a position where my opinion doesn't belong (covering actual news. Just the facts, ma'am. NOT doing commentary or generating editorials or other opinion-related material as I'm now free to do in places like this). I LOVED those people. It didn't really matter if we were "competitors." We ALL worked together. Somebody's mic fell off the podium? Whoever was closest scrambled up to set it back in place. Somebody's battery ran out on their tape recorder so they couldn't record the rest of the press conference? One of us invariably had extras to offer. OR, on occasion, some of us even had an extra tape recorder to lend out. One of us didn't get to the newser on time and missed the first half? One or more of the rest of us was happy to make them a dub or feed them the material back in the newsroom so they'd have it, too. Somehow, even in crowded rooms, there was always at least a little place for a late-comer, or a shorter person, to fit in so they could cover the story and see what they were doing, also.

It was just that way. After all, we were all sharing each other's soundbites, weren't we? There was a collegiality to the news community when I was working. We WERE all in this together, and all on the same side, even while being competitors. There were exceptions, of course. An exclusive interview, for example. Well, you got it? You use it, but after you've just run it, you share it. And let everybody else pick it up. They'll give you credit, as anyone can see when CNN runs something from ABC World News Tonight or CSPAN, or MSNBC runs something from Pox Noise or CBS's "Face the Nation." And so on. Attribution. There's a professional courtesy governing all.

I have heard of the cut-throat tactics, where somebody would actually pull out another reporter's mic cable and plug theirs in, instead. Mic cables have even been cut! When I was working, NO ONE did that. NO ONE did that! And if there wasn't enough room on the mult box to plug your mic in, somebody else patched you into their tape machine so you were in effect getting it through them. I saw situations like that frequently. Frankly, whenever the situation demanded it. And I saw a lot of those, especially A) working in a media market the size of Los Angeles, and B) covering the activities and business of the "company town" - being an entertainment reporter in L.A.

Sheesh ... it takes me back. Those were some pretty doggone cool times, especially when viewed from a distance (in time). AT the time, I didn't think about it much, because I was always too busy working! Trying to get the story, get it right, and get it on the air. I feel almost ridiculously lucky to have been able to be part of it.

DAMN YOU, trump! You've disrespected and slammed and smeared people I cared deeply about, and worked closely with, and studied, and tried to emulate and to learn from. And envied! Some of these people I was so intimidated by the very idea that I'd be working with them - or doing "that" - that I could barely even speak to them, and when I would merely have told them how thrilling it was for me to be working with them. Some of them were big names. But most of them were more of just working stiffs. A whole bunch of mild-mannered Clark Kents (especially at the AP). People who worked like dogs. And tracked like bloodhounds. People who were out, in all kinds of weather, and in dangerous places with an out-of-control brushfire in the background or even wading out into a swollen river after hellacious rainstorms, and late on a dark night in dicey places downtown. People who put in long, longer, and longest hours, often unpaid overtime. Maybe there was a crowd and lots of TV camera illumination at the site of the breaking story, but if you drove in, you had to find a place to park, and it was usually far enough away from the command post that you had to walk. Or you had to arrange rides, or you were with a crew in a remote unit. Especially late at night in odd parts of town.

DAMN YOU, trump! You sully the profession I loved and for whom some actually give their lives. I don't know a single soul among them in any capacity who was a "lazy moocher," much less a fake. And back then, I worked with everybody from every network, affiliate, and independent entity, TV, radio, print, cable, syndication, and the then-fledgling online outlets. You sully the only profession that's included, by name, in the Constitution of the United States. See the FIRST Amendment. Always lots of whoop-de-doo all the time about the Second Amendment. Sorry. We-the-news-media beat that. We're in the FIRST Amendment. Obviously whoever wrote all that up had THAT on his mind, not guns.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

And speaking of guns, I was working at NBC when the crew came back from Jonestown Guyana. What was left of them, anyway. Producer Bob Flick and sound guy Steve Sung were based in Burbank, where I was based, on NBC Radio. They were down there covering the Jim Jones/People's Temple story, when it turned deadly. Correspondent Don Harris, who'd been a local anchor before he went to network, was among those killed, along with cameraman Bob Brown (who had been romantically involved with the local TV female anchor - she was bereft for weeks, both off the air AND on). And I remember how Steve Sung would later show his wounds, talking about the "piece of meat" that was literally shot loose from his forearm, that he grabbed and pulled all the way off - it was in the way and he was still trying to cover the story WHILE taking cover as bullets were flying. He and Bob Flick both survived. Congressman Leo Ryan from Northern California was among those killed in the attack. Dedicated journalists like Flick and Sung and Brown and Harris - donald, you will NOT smear them OR their latter day colleagues working now, OR the business where we all hung our proverbial news hats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown

Sorry this is so long. DAMN donald. He hollers "Fake News". HE'S the Fake. Make that FUCKING Fake.


Thanks for suffering this with me.

[Stuart G]

1. Thanks for posting this...It is a great post..Thank You for sharing this.

[calimary]

3. I told niyad that as I read through it again, it brought back a few more memories.

Most glaringly, the Jonestown massacre. The crew sent down to Guyana was based on the third floor of NBC Burbank, where I worked.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Wow, my dear calimary! THANK YOU.

I can feel your heat coming off my screen. Well done! Right to the point and beyond.

You pulled no punches, you stepped right up and you let donald have it.

Damn, that was so great.

Thank You.

[calimary]

5. That means a lot, CaliforniaPeggy.

too!

Stay well.

[Atticus]

4. I did not think it was possible for me to respect you more than I already did,

but I do after reading that not-at-all-too-long post. I suspect you feel better having finally said what needed saying.

Thank you.

[calimary]

10. Thank you back, Atticus.

Yeah. And ironically enough on Memorial Day Weekend, I'm thinking about other journalists who've died while still at it.

We just recently saw what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. That was October 2018 that he was murdered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Khashoggi

And remember the massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris (January 2015)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting

People actually died doing this job.



I was one of the lucky ones. We'd only die of embarrassment.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

14. You made me think of the many journalists killed in Mexico.....

a nation that desperately needs an honest investigative press. Those murders are committed mostly by drug cartels fueled by America's drug habit.

Also revived were memories of the murder of Daniel Pearl.

Thank you for writing this article.


KY.......

[chowder66]

6. Reading this was cathartic. I hope it was for you too even though it won't stop Trump

from being the dick that he is.

[calimary]

23. Thanks, chowder66!

It won't stop trump. But maybe WE can.

November is coming. And because of the pandemic, he's smelling more and more like dead meat every day.

[snowybirdie]

7. Wonderful post

You say it all and exhibit the frustration of us all. We're with you and will all work to make sure he'll be gone in January.

[calimary]

24. Thank you, snowybirdie.

Let's make sure WE get the last word. In November, as you said.

[UpInArms]

8. The birther crap

Started and ran on and on ...

Like a Hawaiian newspaper made up a birth announcement...

What crap ...

It undermined what a paper does ... and no one ever called BULLSHIT ...

I owned and edited a local paper and kept trying to explain to people that I did not make up births, deaths, accidents ... etc ..

My hair has been on fire for years

[calimary]

27. It's really been agonizing, hasn't it!

I always like it when Rachel Maddow promotes local newspapers. They really need some love.

Frankly, my hair's been on fire so long I'm amazed I still have any.

[cayugafalls]

9. Great OP. We need to take back the narrative.

You are exactly right, they say Fake News, we say Fake President or Fake Leader. Throw it back at them.

He is the fake.

Simple messaging. When he says Fake news, we reply, Wrong! Fake President! The news media needs to start hitting back.

[calimary]

34. Thank you, cayugafalls!

Hey, it's a red-letter day when somebody in today's media actually uses the "L-word" - "lie." As in what trump does, like the rest of us breathe. Sometimes it's put into use in its various forms: lies, lying, lied, which as I've noticed has been happening with more frequency. But MAN have they tiptoed around that!

My favorite moment of shame was, I believe, either a New York Times or Washington Post front-page headline, below the fold, during the bush/cheney years, that inquired "Prevaricating President?" That was the headline. I was a little bit gratified that they finally came out and called it like it was. But I was a lot steamed in how long it took 'em to get there, and for Pete's sake, why use a word like "Prevaricating"??? Hell, how many even know what that means? Why cantcha just freakin' say it? "He LIES"?

[Ferryboat]

11. Thank you for posting

Journalists have always been up there covering the story. Working their tail off on some obscure tip to get a story that attracts attention. Working the trenches. Getting tossed in jail on trumped up charges. Shot at, etc.

You brought up a good point. The press is mentioned in the 1st amendment. This has to be hammered home relentlessly whenever "fake news" is cavalierly tossed out.

[calimary]

35. Thank you for reading it, Ferryboat.

You just made me think of that old cliche - "don't shoot the messenger." I worry about practicing journalists now. I remember when Katy Tur needed to be escorted out of one trump event by security - for her protection. They were concerned for her safety, what with the way trump had singled her out by name AND where she was standing, to a crowd of increasingly agitated yahoos who he'd been relentlessly stirring up for an hour and a half. Who knows who's concealed-carrying at one of those things, and how tight a lid they keep on their tempers.

[sheshe2]

12. Thank you, calimary.

He is the Fake. The news is not. I appreciate all you have done for our First Amendment.

[calimary]

36. Thanks, my friend.

Virtual all-this-stuff:

[niyad]

13. Kicked and Recommended with all my heart. Thank you so much for laying out the truth

about what these insane attacks on journalists, on the news, is all about.

I think this should also be LTTE or opinion piece in all the major publications, if you possibly can. This deserves the widest posible visibility, speaking TRUTH so powerfully.

[calimary]

38. Love you, niyad. Thanks back atcha!

I've always enjoyed your posts.

It took me a few days to work up the nerve to repost this. And I may have to clean up the swearing and shouting a little bit.

[blm]

15. He acts out because he KNOWS he is a fraud.

He thinks all the acting out covers up for it. It works.....but, only on STUPID people.

Great post, kiddo.

[calimary]

39. Thanks, my friend.

And yeah, it works. Unfortunately. But I keep reminding myself that there are more of US than there are of THEM.

Now, if we can just get 'em to vote! Might even be mostly by mail, by then. Multiple states have taken steps toward it with the coronavirus in mind.

[dweller]

16. roaches run from the light of day

you guys are the sunshine of the truth

✌🏼

[calimary]

40. That's IT, dweller. "Shine a light!"

That's what we still say as we work up the next "Call to Action" email to send out from my Indivisible group every weekend!

[nolabear]

17. Journalists have been my heroes all my life.

I hoped to be one when I was a kid. I switched to creative writing but have never lost my love of your art. It is a service. You deserve nothing but respect and gratitude.

I’m sorry this monster found a foil in journalists but it speaks volumes about the power you have, and should have, wielded.

Truth lasts. Despots don’t. Stay strong.

[calimary]

41. Sheesh, nolabear, you have no idea how many times I've mumbled to myself

"this, too, shall pass."

On second thought, you probably have a perfect idea of how many times I've mumbled that to myself! You've probably done it, too.

Good reminder you offer, though!

[nolabear]

55. I know. I don't say it lightly. It's an atheist's prayer sort of.

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on...❤️

[bucolic_frolic]

18. Catharsis is just the beginning of how this country will let it rip by election day

This is no time to hold back. Feel the outrage, tell the public, let it encourage others, we've been suppressed for 4 years and hoodwinked for far more. Thank you calimary for the inspiration. Americans must each take a home run swing and don't stop until the pustule is lanced.

[calimary]

42. As long as we can do it collectively, and decisively, in November, my friend!

Sometimes I feel like a hostage!

Hah - this just took me back to when the hostage crisis in Iran dominated the news. For 444 days. We thought it would never end. It was the 8,000-pound gorilla in the (news)room. It so dominated everything that there was even an orer from on high that every newscast MUST include some report-or-other about the 52 American hostages in Iran. So we did. But after awhile, the uproar, and the angles from which the story was examined, started to fizzle a little. There was other news. There's ALWAYS other news. Something else always comes up. And some of it was big, and the hostage crisis story really wasn't moving the meter very much anymore. No fresh angle. We'd all gone over every inch.

So eventually, in order to satisfy the directive, the only story left became The Count. It usually was the last item in the newscast, when you could throw in "and finally..." or "and as we close..." or "and in the midst of all that..." followed by "the 52 hostages have now been held for 317 days." (And you'd read the script in such a way that the POINT was the aghast-ness of "they've been fucking held hostage for fucking-three-fucking-hundred-and-seventeen-fucking-DAYS?????" And then you'd sign off.) Like a punctuation mark.

But by Jove, that was the order so that's what we did.

[Solly Mack]

19. You rock.

[calimary]

83. As do you, my friend!

[Arkansas Granny]

20. Thanks for posting. I had not seen this before.

[calimary]

44. Glad it found you!

Thanks, Arkansas Granny.

Virtual

[smirkymonkey]

21. Thank you calimary!

Excellent post and righteous rant! I was never a journalist, but the way he treats them makes me furious as well. I can't even begin to imagine the outrage that you and others in the business must experience when you see and hear it.

[calimary]

46. Thanks, back atcha, smirkymonkey!

It really burns me up. It does. But I figure I don't have to try and not react or not let it stir me up, at this stage of my life. You're always supposed to be objective, unless your job is as an editorialist or commentator. Then you're paid to give your opinion. Otherwise, just covering the news, your job is to keep your opinion out of it. Just the facts as clearly as you can understand them.

[oasis]

22. Glad to have your knowledge and accumulated experience on our side.

[calimary]

47. Thank you, oasis!

I just hope it serves. And that I don't annoy too many people.

[MyOwnPeace]

25. Among all of the atrocities IQ45 has done .......

what he has done to the 4th estate is among the most deplorable. We, as a "nation" - NEED someone we can turn to to find the truth.
The WAR that he has fought against the press only shows how important a free press is. I'm guessing you've gone through a few TV's after throwing something at them for another idiotic "blast" that he's made.
I certainly love and appreciate your sharing your own story - and I can only hope that those still out there in the battlefield of "following the Prez" have the same dedication and commitment that you did.

You are a gift here at DU - THANK YOU!

[calimary]

50. Actually, I didn't go through any TVs, but I worked with someone who did.

This guy who came down from the CNN San Francisco bureau to the L.A. bureau after our bureau chief (who'd hired me) got moved to Washington. And this new guy, I became convinced, was the reincarnation of Beelzebub, rising from the 7th Level of Hell. Sweet God in Heaven he was horrible! He was an equal-opportunity human chipper-shredder. I thought he was terrible, but if he mistreated me, back then at the lowly nighttime assignment desk (I actually closed and locked the place at 10pm every weeknight), he was an absolute nightmare to others in the bureau.

I remember when he made a grown man cry. Ordered the guy into his corner office and shrieked at him at the top of his lungs, so loudly that we could hear him through two sets of closed doors - the ones to his office AND through the newsroom and out the front entrance with THOSE doors closed. I remember when he was finished with the unfortunate reporter, who quickly made his way out to the hallway, his eyes red and swollen. He was actually crying. LORDY I would have been a mess, too! And this bastard was that level of bully all over the place, except to the rare few he liked. Heck, you couldn't even get into the ladies' room down the hall - which had a lounge area outside of the room with the commodes - because there were too many young interns hiding in there most of the time! Driving home every night, down Fountain Avenue in Hollywood, I cried most of the way home. To the point where I renamed Fountain Avenue Cry Street.

But the day he finally fired me (guess he'd run through everybody else by then), that drive home was the first time I did NOT cry all the way home.

We knew there'd be trouble when we'd heard he'd won Emmys for covering the Vietnam War, and probably got a little too closely involved with some weird scenes and chemicals, and was known in San Francisco for throwing typewriters out the window of the high-rise offices where the CNN bureau there was located. I just hope everybody down below ducked in time!

A LOT of my work was fun and exciting and challenging in a good way. But THAT? Definitely NOT! Glad it wasn't all like that. There were LOTS of worse things than getting fired. Like having to stay working for that violent sadistic asshole.

[brer cat]

26. Thanks for sharing this, calimary.

You are a credit to your profession.

[calimary]

51. Many thanks, brer cat!

Last edited Tue May 26, 2020, 02:49 AM - Edit history (1)

Always tried to live up to the people I worked with. And MAN there were some real human monoliths.

Bob Thomas, when I was there, was the "dean of Hollywood reporters," with an address book others in the business would have paid uber-megabucks for. He was also the reporter who broke the story that Bobby Kennedy had just been shot. He was covering RFK's post-California-primary rally at the then-legendary Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. That was where the Cocoanut Grove was - in its star-studded heyday. Bob Thomas was first to phone that one in. And shit - there he'd be, at his work station, sometimes on the phone, typing away on some story he'd be fleshing out. Just like everybody else in the room. Yet another mild-mannered Clark Kent.

And Nick Ut. I think I've mentioned him before, here. EVERYONE knows what he did. Because EVERYONE, at one time or other, has no doubt seen "THAT" photo. Remember the wartime shot of the little screaming Vietnamese girl, running naked up a desolate country road toward the camera? She had just been napalmed. Nick Ut worked at the AP Saigon bureau as a photojournalist, and took that picture. He'd later describe the debate that the bureau executives had, over whether to run the photo because the little girl was naked. Poor little thing had probably torn her clothes off in a panic, trying to escape the horrible burning. They decided to run the photo because of the singular agony of the Vietnam War that it depicted. It won a Pulitzer Prize. And he was the same Nick Ut who I later spotted, crouched down on hands and knees - under the red velvet rope and right in front of me - to catch shots of Cybill Shepherd getting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was just another day in the life.

Mind-bending sometimes, really.

[warmfeet]

28. K & R

[calimary]

52. Thanks, warmfeet!

Stay well!

[FM123]

29. Thank you for your service.

What journalists do every day so we can stay informed is more than appreciated.

[calimary]

53. That's very sweet.

Thank you FM123!

[malaise]

30. Well worth the read

Thanks

[calimary]

54. Thanks back atcha.

It was a lot of fun! Except when it wasn't...

[H2O Man]

31. Recommended.

Beautifully expressed. Powerful. And I'm glad that you made it an OP. Thank you very much!

[calimary]

65. Thank you, H2O Man.

That means a lot coming from one of my favorite DU thinker/writers.

[Mickju]

32. I wish I could rec this a thousand times.

Thank you!

[calimary]

66. Thank you a thousand times, Mickju!

Sometimes there are things that just have to be said.

[grantcart]

33. Fascinating and informative

[calimary]

67. Thanks, grantcart!

I imagine some aspects are a LOT different now than when I was still working.

In my last few months at the AP, they were just starting to introduce the WAVE format in audio production - taking in a feed from a reporter in the field, editing and processing, all electronic, all online, on the monitor in the studio with the keyboard and mouse. I never thought I'd completely get the hang of it, and stumbled through it as best I could. Gotta make it work somehow. I was relieved that this was when I'd decided to retire.

I had been very good with a razor blade and splicing block. But it wouldn't be done that way anymore. And I'm still kind of a Luddite.

[JoeOtterbein]

37. Thanks for posting this...

....my daughter is a journalist.

[calimary]

70. WOW! Your daughter is a journalist? COOL!

What does she do? Print or broadcast? Just starting? Or has she been at it for awhile? I'd love to hear more!

[Hekate]

43. Thank you so much for this post, Calimary, & thank you for your long service to the First Amendment

I think it was no accident that Superman's creator made him a reporter -- and your post brought tears to my eyes for "Truth, Justice, and the American Way." (I'm sure that reference really dates me )

Thank you

[calimary]

71. Aw, Hekate - I'm such a fan! That means a lot.

And yes indeed, I think there was a reason why his alter-ego would be a "mild-mannered reporter." I worked with some showboaters and reckless types, but most of 'em were simply about the work, especially those who weren't on-camera types. The camera changes everything.

I picked up three lessons when I was starting out, from some wise folks I worked with and after whom I tried to model myself. I worked as a summer intern between sophomore and junior year of college, at this big full-service personality AM station where people like Wink Martindale and Gary Owens and Geoff Edwards had Monday-through-Friday time slots. They rotated me around the news ops. One week I'd practice in the newsroom, rewriting the wire copy for air. Then I spent a week assigned to accompany the City Hall reporter, a fellow named Lou Morton, to observe and eventually try to do what he did. He had me write up the stories he was covering, with soundbites, and then he'd voice both his and mine and phone them both in. He told me when covering a story, one always needed to ask "what happened?" Good advice #1.

Then, I went back to school in the fall and the campus station management made me news director. And I did that til the end of senior year when I started looking around for possible work. Eventually I worked my way on air, and my second job was my big break - the big ABC FM O&O in L.A. The station of my dreams! They had the news guy/partner with the morning jock, and the afternoon news guy with the afternoon drive jock, and decided to open up the weekends - drop the ABC news feed and hire somebody. They took a chance on me because it was an easy way to hire another female voice. They had ONE female on the air - as a jock. The news director explained his view of how the station's news programming should sound, mindful of the on-air personality and the 18-34 demographic group the station catered to. He told me that being mindful of that target audience was why you always had to ask yourself a key question when choosing stories and how you'd present them: "who cares?" Good advice #2.

Then, several jobs and turns of fortune later, I wound up as a writer/producer on the local Tribune TV station. I noted with pleasure and relief, not long ago when that station's corporate owners decided not to let the conservative-slanted Sinclair Broadcasting take them over. WHEW! Anyway, the executive producer of that newscast served as kind of a conscience of the newsroom, making sure everything was done to the liking of the anchorman he served, veteran newsman and airplane pilot Hal Fishman. And he'd always ask the video editors and us writers - "what do we see?" Good advice #3 - especially for a visual medium.

And those three basics served me well. Talk about learning on the job...

[mountain grammy]

45. K & R

Thank you! So very well said.

We're a dumbed down country. It's not all Trump ...62 million voters drank the Kool aid, an event described your post, and another 100 million or so, for wherever reason, didn't vote at all. I honestly don't want to live here anymore I've encouraged my granddaughters to seek lives elsewhere. America won't survive the stupidity I'm afraid.

[calimary]

72. Thanks, mountain grammy.

Last edited Tue May 26, 2020, 02:51 AM - Edit history (1)

It started downhill when Reagan canned the Fairness Doctrine and the Equal Time provisions. AND the ownership restrictions. Hey, freedom-freedom dontchaknow. Unfettered predatory capitalism. The American Way! And that shining city on a hill schtick. And America smiled and dozed off, while he started us down the road having the foxes guarding all our henhouses. Those poor foxes needed freedom-freedom, too, after all. Right? Nothing like getting a slick, seasoned TV actor and pet pitchman for General Electric to move on up into the White House and start dismantling the protections we all took for granted.

Ironically, now we have an entity whose very NAME is Fox, guarding an entire henhouse network, and setting the example for that nice new freedom-freedom presentation of information brokering that's "fair and balanced" (they always forget to finish the phrase. In full, it's "fair and balanced TO ONE SIDE ONLY: OURS" ).

[MustLoveBeagles]

48. K&R

[calimary]

73. Thank you, MustLoveBeagles!

And a tip of the hat to you as well!

[SunSeeker]

49. K & R

[calimary]

75. Thanks, SunSeeker!

[Aussie105]

56. I talk to Trump a lot.

When he comes on TV, that is.

You have to realize every time he says something, you need to protect yourself from the poison he exudes.

Trump says Fake News? I say 'Just because it doesn't agree with you, it's still real.'

Trump lives in a bubble. A shrinking, insane world, where paranoia and fighting against reality are his main pre-occupations.

He cannot undo the good work of journalists around the world have done, and are doing, with mere words.
And mere words is all Trump has.

Soon his self made insane world will crumble around him and he will be left a blubbering, complaining mess. He is most of the way there already.

[calimary]

76. So do I, Aussie105!

We both do! Yell at the TV whenever he's on, remind him he's a LIAR, he's a national disgrace, he's a serious and palpable hazard to our health, our lives, our standing in the world, and our precious Constitution, and I can't wait to vote against him a second time!

I HOPE his self-made insane fantasy world crumbles, and the sooner the better - probably in November, although we need it NOW. YESTERDAY! WEEKS, if not MONTHS, ago, actually!!!

[bluestateboomer]

57. I worked in LA TV News for 30+ Years.

I can't say I got along perfectly with everyone I worked. But each and every person I worked with, whether they worked inside or outside was dedicated to bringing the most accurate story, within the restraints of time, to the audience. And they did it everyday five or six times a day.

[calimary]

77. Indeed? I wonder if we ever crossed paths?!

I was still in it, actively and full-time, til 1996.

Dan Rather always said the mission was to "get it right and get it first." The "getting it right" part CAME first. And there were lots of times when wherever it was that I was working, they'd cover somebody else's breaking news, but would work to confirm it for themselves. And then, of course, it turns into "Outlet XYZ can confirm that..." so it's a handy way to keep the story alive. Always look for a fresh lead if you can find it or develop it.

It's really amazing - when Ted Turner launched CNN, everybody scoffed. "How on earth are you gonna fill 24 hours with news?" When I was at NBC, some would dismiss CNN as "Chicken Noodle News." But before too long, that became the go-to news outlet throughout the business. Soon enough, nobody was scoffing anymore. I worked there briefly during its early days and I can still remember a phone conversation with a former colleague who moved to San Diego for work. I told her I was at CNN. MAN! She was so excited and thrilled, and admitted being a little bit jealous. I kept thinking - "if you only knew what I did... and what I don't get to do, and the kind of individual running this joint here in L.A. into the ground right now..." (the violent and abusive nutcase from San Francisco was in charge by then).

[bluestateboomer]

103. KNBC

Most of it as video editor. Moonlighted at CNN couple of times.

[calimary]

104. Hmmm... worked at CNN in 1982 when its offices were in a high-rise at Sunset and Vine.

Near Motown Records L.A. HQ. The most miserable summer I've ever endured, professionally. UGH!

KNBC was on the second floor. Network was one floor up. 1979-1982. I had to walk past Johnny Carson's parking place, which was right at the studio entrance, with the sign that featured his name and a star underneath it. He had to walk a few feet to get inside. I'm surprised they didn't bring a litter out to carry him in. At one point, Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" was responsible for one-fourth of all NBC's annual revenue. Twenty-five cents out of every dollar the network made came from him.

When the Delorean was parked there, you knew HE was in. But that was the path I took from the huge parking lot out there, past the mobile units for KNBC and into the building and to the elevators up to the third floor. The "Tonight Show" studios were on the ground floor as you entered the building. And there was a floor-to-ceiling likeness of Johnny Carson's face covering the wall heading into the studio, including its doorway. When you walked by there, you knew you were in Johnny's House. King Johnny.

A pretty long time ago - at least two "Tonight Show" hosts ago! I'm old.

[DFW]

58. Add my voice to yours. My father was a journalist for 52 years

Columbia Journalism, class of 1947. Joined his small paper in a one-horse town located on the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1948, and became one of the first permanent Washington correspondents from a small regional paper. He stuck with them all his life, too, even though he received offers from "all" of the rest, big and small.

He was on Meet The Press back when the show lived up to its name. He always chased stories relevant to his paper's constituency, and had to be on a first name basis with most Senators and Congressmen from Great Lakes states. He was president of Washington's Gridiron Club. There were two Senators he called "Bob" in private. One was named Dole. The other was named Kennedy. He was cited in the Congressional record by members of the House and Senate of both parties for his fairness, even though they would sometimes call him up at his office and complain, "why did you write THAT?" He would answer, "well, is it true or not?" They always had to admit that it was, because he checked his sources.

"Fake News" wasn't even a concept, except when Nixon--someone he also knew from the 1959 trip to Russia--started trotting out Ron Ziegler to explain that some of Nixon's recent statements were "inoperative," a new Republican expression for "lies."

When Trump assumed the office of President after getting THREE MILLION less votes than Hillary Clinton, the title of "Fake" clearly can better applied to him than to any journalist making an honest attempt at doing their job. Assigning the label of "fake" to someone like my dad is the height of perversity, and "disgust" is far too mild a word to describe my reaction.

[calimary]

80. Eagerly, DFW!

Where I went to college there was no journalism department. Nothing at all, except for one single class in magazine writing, in the English Department.

But we had a VERY capable, scrappy little FM station - "10 sour-cream-fed watts" that actually allowed us a signal that took us into all the surrounding cities and big chunk of our county - at least until KCRW in Santa Monica got a boost to 100-thousand watts, and then our station was drowned out of many places. But that was after I graduated. I originally wanted to be a rock deejay, because women were just barely starting to break in there.

But the summer internship at the L.A. station and then being named news director at the college station that fall sorta switched my ambitions around. I figured if the door was opening in the news departments instead of programming, then maybe that's where I was supposed to go. So, for me, anyway, it quickly became clear that news was the way in. Soon enough, there were many women who got on-air jobs as deejays, blowing past the old (and stupid) presumption that a woman's voice wouldn't work on the air, and would alienate listeners. People didn't want to listen to a woman. That was the prevailing feeling at first. But these women were GOOD! And knew what they were doing. And knew their stuff, and their music. And sounded great on the air. And they deserved those jobs. And many of 'em got ratings as good as their male counterparts, if not better. I remember when Ellie Dylan got hired to do mornings in major market radio (WNBC in New York). That was an earthshaking moment in broadcasting! Look at the first few sentences...

The new “morning man” at WNBCAM weighs 82 pounds, stands barely 5 feet tall, and has a soft, Georgia‐accented voice very much on the order of Rosalynn Carter's. The new morning man is very obviously not a man, and her name is Ellie Dylan.
But radio lingo being radio lingo, Miss Dylan is, her employers trumpet, “the first morning man on AM radio in the country who's a woman.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/09/16/archives/am-radio-gets-a-siren-in-the-morning.html

When I was starting out, I was referred to as "Girl Reporter." I didn't like that. Ummm... how 'bout just "reporter"?

[DFW]

89. In D.C.

After Helen showed up on the scene, you NEVER heard the expression "girl reporter" or "woman reporter."

One of her favorite JFK stories (remember, he was only 3 years older than she was), took place on Saint Patrick's day. Kennedy was supposed to participate in a St. Patrick's day parade, but was in the middle of an interview with Helen when it was time to leave. He asked Helen to walk with him. Helen (who was Christian Arab) reminded him, "but I'm not Irish!" Kennedy just told her "nobody's perfect," and brought her along anyway.

[calimary]

93. Great story!

I got to meet her at one of the AP Regional conferences where she was the keynote speaker and very special guest. Such an amazing woman, and a hero of mine.

She worked at UPI, and was the Dean of the White House Press corps. She started every presidential press conference, with the first question, sitting in the front row in HER special place that no one ever challenged. They respected her that much. And every press conference ended with her closer "Thank you, Mr. President." At that, everyone was dismissed (even the president!). That continued for decades up until bush/cheney stopped recognizing her, and effectively banished her - must have been those pointed questions that they would have preferred to avoid. SOBs.

[DFW]

102. Cheneybush was the first (and last) White House occupant that buckled under her pressure

Every other president took her verbal beatings.

And they were NOTHING compared to what she had to say about them in private!! Get her in a relaxed private setting, and she'd let Cheneybush have it with both barrels!

By the way, she gave Howard her highest compliment: "He's not a politician." She REALLY liked him, and it was a big regret of ours that we never got to do a repeat of our lunch together. It took me 18 months to find a date when Helen, Howard and I would all be in the same city (Washington, as it turned out) on the same day. I never managed to arrange it again while she was still alive.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

59. Great post calimary, thanks 🙏🏾

[calimary]

82. Thanks, BlancheSplanchnik!

I appreciate that a lot, my friend.

[Duppers]

60. K & R

Respect. 🙏

[calimary]

85. Back atcha, Duppers.

Respect.

[Botany]

61. Trump's "great people" @ work

What we are dealing with in a large part goes back to Ronald Reagan's getting rid of the fairness
doctrine and so now we have had people bath in misinformation for 2.5 generations.

BTW nice post!

[calimary]

86. Thanks, Botany!

And you could not be more spot-on. A lot of our woes in the world of information brokerage began with Ronnie-baby.

I'm still proud that I was never taken in by his slick, smooth, conversational style, and his faux front of aw-shucks benign, harmless dear old "Uncle Dutch" schtick. Didn't fool me ever, but it was very uncomfortable. I felt very much alone back then. Everybody just LUVVVED kindly old "Uncle Dutch." NOBODY believed he was feeding us poison. With sugar and honey and pretty colored sprinkles drizzled all over it.

And he started his own political career in earnest - on the radio: "...this is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening." Most damaging President we've had - until this so-called one now. I'm not forgetting bush/cheney and their deliberate lying about taking us to war, and then into a whole new identity as torturers. But even that regime isn't as deeply toxic as this one now. But in my opinion, anyway, it all traces back to Reagan. He opened Pandora's Box and let all the evil spirits out to frolic, freely, and unrestrained. In the guise of "freedom." He turned greed, selfishness, and short-sightedness into new "American" sacraments.

[Botany]

91. And never forget these Reagan deals:

He took down the solar panels on the White House and to think where we would be now
if we had been working on green renewable energies for the past 40 years. Again this
pandered to the right wing me first dumb fuck crowd .... we don't need any of those stupid
hippy ideas.


And he sent H.W. Bush to Paris in Oct. of 2000 to tell the Iranians to hold onto the hostages
until after the inauguration which they did, a plane load or loads (?) of jet parts and weapons
landed in Tehran abut 10 days / 2 weeks after the inauguration, and Iran Contra was born.

[calimary]

92. Yep.

Reagan rigged the game, too.

[pansypoo53219]

62. may the ghost of helen thomas haunt coiffure nixon.

[DFW]

63. Helen was a great personal friend

If there are ghosts out there, you can count on her haunting a great many of them!
With Helen at her favorite Lebanese restaurant, Mama Ayesha's, near her home in D.C.
[IMG][/IMG]
And, a year later, introducing her to a friend of mine that Helen had never met;
[IMG][/IMG]

[calimary]

87. Agreed, pansypoo53219! I love that "coiffure nixon" label!

Yet another good brand to impose upon Agent Orange - with the yellow rat's nest flattened on the top of his head. Or is it an extra large shredded wheat biscuit?

[Gothmog]

64. Thank you for posting this

This is a great post.

[calimary]

88. Thanks, back atcha, Gothmog!

An honor to have you weigh in here!

[AllaN01Bear]

68. he is fake news , faux noise is fake news , sinclair radio is fake news .

many of the tabloids who are butt buddies of his are fake news. points to this post , truth. truth hurts dosent it?

[calimary]

94. And don't forget OAN. "One America News."

It's been around for - what? About 25 minutes, but its decorative young female "correspondents" still managed to get into those White House COVID briefings and get called upon to ask their predictably-fawning softball waste-of-time questions.

I swear, I saw more than my fill of those. They got into TV news with advanced Revlon or Max Factor degrees, I guess. But they photograph well. Whenever I see people like them, it makes me angry, because to me they're taking jobs that really ought to go to seasoned and highly credible reporters - who may or may not photograph well.

[turbinetree]

69. Wado---------------thank you

for sharing this and a thank you niyad to convince calimary to make it op...............

[calimary]

95. And thank you back, turbinetree!

I have a big thank-you for our niyad, too!

BOTH of

[cp]

74. Great post.

Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

[calimary]

96. Thank you, cp - glad you enjoyed it!

I did, too, frankly. It started me thinking back to that "me" of those days. And it's been really cool seeing so many of my DU faves here on this thread! Sure love the feedback!

And ironically, I actually DID get the chance to be a rock jock at my then-dream station, the ABC FM powerhouse KLOS. They hired me for weekends, to do the news every other hour all day. That was the station where they had the guy with the morning news and another guy with the afternoon news, Monday through Friday, and piped in the ABC network news breaks on Saturday and Sunday, til they decided to drop the ABC news breaks and hire a live person who could also fill infor the two full-time guys all week. And because they were both male, they thought it'd be a good idea to bring a woman in. Maybe give some new kid a break but certainly also a good way to "check the box"! So that's how I got my first really big high-profile break.

So I'd carried forward for months doing the weekend news until there was a staff shuffle and one of the weekend jocks got promoted to the "big" job anchoring morning drive. He had been busy polishing his persona and was SO pleasant and engaging to listen to and he was a terrific choice. His weekend duties included a live Sunday night/Monday morning public affairs talk show. Midnight to 2am. Then the weekday-afternoon news guy, Marshall Phillips, would come in to take 2am to 6am, when the Monday morning show took over. But Marshall lived WAAAAAAAAAY out on the far end of the "Inland Empire" and it took him two hours to drive into the station. And sometimes he wouldn't make it. Like the first night I ever tried it out, myself. I'd gone into the PD's office to ask if I could do the two-hour Sunday night/Monday morning show. And he said, "sure!" And then I remember all the blood draining from my face - OMG WHAT THE FUCKIN' FUCK DID YOU JUST DO??? SHIT YOU'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE!!!! GOOD GRIEF, YOU'RE NOT READY FOR THIS!!!!! (are you?). It felt like one of those always-look-before-you-leap things. But the weekend came and I prepared to go back on at the midnight hour, and I'd done some preparation during the week, so I had some subjects to talk about. I'd chosen some opening theme music and had one of my weekend jock friends voice an intro. And oddly enough, everything worked! Including me! And the phones rang and listeners were calling in to join the discussion, and it was BEYOND COOL! It was suddenly so easy and so comfortable to settle into that I hardly notice the time whizzing by.

Til Marshall called the booth and told the engineer to tell me he wasn't gonna make it into work that night, so I had no one to relieve me when my midnight-to-2am shift was over. I had to stay, and wing it. And astonishingly enough, I did! And people kept calling and the phones stayed lively and I had answers for whatever anybody asked me about, til after 4am when things tapered off. We took a break and I asked my engineer what usually happens by now. She said they usually just play music til the morning crew comes in. So we did! But nobody ever explained the music format to me, so I just played some of my favorites, and my engineer's favorites. In whatever order I wanted. And so for about an hour-and-a-half I actually achieved my original early college radio dream - to be a rock deejay. And on THAT station that I'd longed to work for, for years.

And the morning crew started arriving when we were expecting them to, and I signed off and stepped aside about 5:30am, and gathered up all my stuff and headed to the parking lot to drive home. HIGHER THAN A KITE! And having not smoked a thing (which did go on there). I wasn't able to doze off for hours! I felt like I'd been shot out of a cannon and was still airborne. And nobody said anything for the rest of the week while I came in to prepare for the next show except to ask what I had planned. Evidently I'd gotten away with free-form jocking at that tightly formatted rocker for a very brief time WAAAAAAAAY late Sunday night (or early Monday morning, whichever you prefer). And nobody said a word about it. Nobody ever said a word about it, other than that they liked the talk show I did. How 'bout that.

[dameatball]

78. I don't read a lot of posts twice. This one I did. Thank you.

[calimary]

97. I'm so glad to hear that! And honored.

Thanks, dameatball.

[sellitman]

79. Not much he does frosts me more than his treatment of the Free Press

Thank you for your piece. It wraps up my feelings in a nice tidy package with a bow.

Have I told you today how much I hate him?

[calimary]

98. It just keeps me on a slow fury all day, every day.

And I shouldn't take it personally, but I do. And I just keep flashing back on people I worked with who deserve serous respect and have certainly earned it.

[Fla Dem]

81. You and your colleagues are the backbone of our freedom.

Last edited Tue May 26, 2020, 09:26 AM - Edit history (1)

Without you we would be no better that Russia or any other country with a strong armed ruler. It's no coincidence that a free press is the first thing to disappear in countries ruled by dictators.

[calimary]

99. Thank you so much, Fla Dem.

I'm always so proud of the news media now. There are some really good people on the air these days, including CBS correspondent Weijia Jiang!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weijia_Jiang

By Jove she held her own at that White House COVID briefing where trump tried to give her a hard time. MAN, she really spoke for all of us! Young, but didn't give an inch! I always enjoy Yamiche Alcindor of PBS, Jeff Mason of Reuters, Jim Acosta of CNN, and Steve Herman of VOA - used to work with him. The AP crowd is terrific but then I'm kinda biased. There's a bunch of 'em who are extremely impressive, and they don't back down! Even Jonathan Karl has found his inner backbone.

[jmg257]

84. Ah the good old days, when media was respected. Good rant!

[calimary]

100. Thanks, jmg257!

Those were some good old days, indeed!

You sometimes got a tangible sense that you had a front row seat to history.

[enigmania]

90. great post

This really touched my heart. My Father, who would disturb all the cons with his scathing editorials, would be having a field day with Fat Nixon. He spent decades in radio, TV, and print. It's funny, but the only threats he ever received were from crooks and the KKK (in NC). Also, he was at Parris Island for basic training in the early 50s, something the Orange One couldn't do if you held a ... you know.

[calimary]

101. OMG - enigmania! Welcome to DU! This is your first post?

How cool that you posted it HERE! Thanks!

Virtual