There is a lot of doomsaying about the rise of Donald Trump, with people declaring this is the end of the republic. Consider Andrew Sullivan’s recent piece in New York magazine, arguing that the nation is ripe for despotism—and Trump will deliver.
But what if this were not the case? What if it were in fact the opposite? What if ‘President Trump’ sparked massive and renewed political energy and interest—protest and newfound vigilance, in contrast to the alarming political apathy on display in much of the electorate today?
Morley Safer, the veteran "60 Minutes" correspondent who was equally at home reporting on social injustices, the Orient Express and abstract art, and who exposed a military atrocity in Vietnam that played an early role in changing Americans' view of the war, died Thursday, according to Kevin Tedesco, a CBS News publicist.
No further details on his death were immediately available.
Safer, who once claimed "there is no such thing as the common man; if there were, there would be no need for journalists," was 84. "60 Minutes" aired a tribute to Safer on Sunday after he announced his retirement earlier this month.
In 1970, Safer joined "60 Minutes," then just two years old and not yet the national institution it would become. He claimed the co-host chair alongside Mike Wallace.
During the next four decades, his rich tobacco-and-whiskey voice delivered stories that ranged from art, music and popular culture, to "gotcha" investigations, to one of his favorite pieces, which, in 1983, resulted in the release from prison of Lenell Geter, an engineer wrongly convicted of a $50 holdup at a fast food restaurant who had been sentenced to a life term.
A memorable 1984 profile of Jackie Gleason took place in a bar around a pool table, where "the Great One" showed Safer and his viewers how it's done.
A pair of essays in the 1990s — "Yes, But Is It Art?" — examined the relative merits of representational and abstract art.
A 1991 story close to Safer's heart reported a not-yet-popular view among some medical experts that regular consumption of red wine can be good for one's health. As with many "60 Minutes" stories, this piece had an immediate impact: Dropping by his neighborhood liquor store the day after it aired, Safer learned there had been a rush on red wine.
And in 2011, he scored a coup: a sit-down with Ruth Madoff, offering her first public description of the day she learned from her husband, Bernard, that he was running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.
Safer won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for his 2001 story on a school in Arizona specifically geared to serve children who are homeless.
Other honors include three George Foster Peabody awards, 12 Emmys and two George Polk Memorial Awards.
Safer was born in Toronto in 1931, yet nonetheless insisted he was "stateless" and, as a reporter chasing stories around the globe, claimed, "I have no vested interests." He eventually became an American citizen, holding dual citizenship.
He began his career at several news organizations in Canada and England before being hired by Reuters wire service in its London bureau. Then, in 1955, he was offered a correspondent's job in the Canadian Broadcasting Company's London bureau, where he worked nine years before CBS News hired him for its London bureau.
In 1965 he opened CBS' Saigon bureau.
That August, "The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite" aired a report by Safer that rocked viewers, who, at that point, remained mostly supportive of the war effort in Vietnam. Safer had been invited to join a group of Marines on what a lieutenant described as a search-and-destroy mission in the tiny villages that made up Cam Ne.
But what he encountered there, and captured on film, was the spectacle of American soldiers employing their Zippo lighters to burn the thatched-roof, mud-plastered huts to the ground, despite having encountered no resistance from village residents.
Safer's expose ignited a firestorm.
President Johnson gave CBS President Frank Stanton a tongue-lashing and suggested that Safer had "Communist ties" and had staged the entire story. Safer feared for his safety in the company of angry U.S. soldiers.
"The Cam Ne story was broadcast over and over again in the United States and overseas. It was seized upon by Hanoi as a propaganda tool and by scoundrels of the left and right, in the Pentagon and on campuses," Safer wrote in his 1990 memoir, "Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam."
Safer served two tours in Vietnam, then, in 1967, began three years as London bureau chief.
In 1970, he was brought to New York to succeed original co-host Harry Reasoner on an innovative newsmagazine that, in its third season, was still struggling in the ratings, and would rely on Safer and Wallace as its only co-anchors for the next five years.
In 1971, Safer won an Emmy for his "60 Minutes" investigation of the Gulf of Tonkin incident that began America's war in Vietnam.
He became a fixture at "60 Minutes" — and part of that show's rough-and-tumble behind-the-scenes culture. (A former producer for Safer kept on display a framed remnant of the curtain that was the landing place for a cup of coffee Safer once threw at him.)
By 2006 Safer had reduced his output. But he remained with the show after the departures of Wallace — who retired in 2006 at age 88, and died in 2012 — as well as legendary "60 Minutes" creator-producer, Don Hewitt — who stepped down in 2004 at 81, and died in 2009.
And as late as 2012, he still held forth daily in his office on West 57th Street, where he banged out "60 Minutes" stories as he had done for more than 40 years.
He is survived by his wife, the former Jane Fearer, and his daughter Sarah.
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited May 2016
To be absolutely fair, there have to be a couple of fact checkers on staff that care about journalistic integrity. They are drinking harder and longer than the Onion staff.
To be absolutely fair, there have to be a couple of fact checkers on staff that care about journalistic integrity. They are drinking harder and longer than the Onion staff.
Cirrhosis has to be a hiring requirement at places like that.
"We have declined Fox News' invitation to participate in a debate in California. As we have said previously, we plan to compete hard in the remaining primary states, particularly California, while turning our attention to the threat a Donald Trump presidency poses," Clinton's spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri said in a statement to Bloomberg.
Sanders agreed last week to the network's debate, tentatively planned to take place May in California, ahead of that state's June 7 primary. Both Sanders and Clinton agreed to a total of four more debates back in February, three of which have been held already.
"We believe that Hillary Clinton's time is best spent campaigning and meeting directly with voters across California and preparing for a general election campaign that will ensure the White House remains in Democratic hands," Palmieri said in the statement.
...that's just sad, even for the Breitbrats. "Woman uses profanity, news at 11" - what is this, the 1950s? Also, they use an image of the wrong woman with the story.
Benen has a good piece on the "schmooze theory" of politics that the Village has, and why it really needs to die:
Is there any harm in the media believing a thesis that’s obviously wrong?
I believe there is. The schmoozing thesis creates a misguided set of priorities: members of Congress who refuse to consider compromise, and who reject the very idea of cooperative policymaking, can act with impunity, knowing that the media won’t hold them responsible, preferring instead to blame the president for not making the White House the Friendliest Place on Earth.
As regular readers know, the notion that schmoozing will lead to progress rests upon the assumption that congressional Republicans are responsible officials, willing to negotiate and work in good faith, fully prepared to find common ground with Obama. All they need is some face-time and presidential hand-holding. Once they can get along on a personal level, a constructive process will follow.
It’s a pleasant enough fantasy, and I wish it were true, but it’s not.
The Guardian has a longform piece on structural racism in the newsroom, and how impacts reporting, including political reporting:
The intersection between America’s age-old race problem and the crisis of race in journalism takes two forms. The first is a simple failure of integration: the news organisations that have traditionally comprised “mainstream” journalism have done little to welcome or encourage African-Americans, who are substantially underrepresented by comparison to their numbers in the overall population. This problem is obvious to anyone who cares to look – and it has become sufficiently embarrassing for a number of publications to make sporadic but ultimately ineffectual efforts to redress it. As soon as one or two hires are made, attention inevitably shifts elsewhere, much as the focus of the press drifted away from racial bias in the criminal justice system once a whiff of the campaign season could be sensed in the air.
But the second and more subtle issue is a persistent problem of typecasting – a deeply embedded view that regards certain topics as “black” and the rest as “white”. Those black people who make their way into the business are heavily concentrated in stereotypical roles. This has meant sport, entertainment and especially what is euphemistically called urban affairs, often meaning reporting on black people. By contrast, there are very few black journalists writing about politics and national security, international news, big business, culture (as opposed to entertainment) or science and technology – they are essentially absent from large swaths of coverage, and even more sparsely represented among the ranks of editors. This is not a trivial matter, or a subject of concern solely to journalists: the overwhelming whiteness of the media strongly but silently conditions how Americans understand their own country and the rest of the world.
...Around that same time, I was sent to cover the aftermath of a huge shootout in the Bronx between a notorious drug dealer, Larry Davis, and the police, in which the suspect briefly escaped. My reward, after Davis was captured, was being assigned to cover one of his trials, which an editor advised me not to take too seriously, regarding it as a foregone conclusion – despite Davis hiring a famous civil rights attorney, William Kunstler, who tied the prosecution up in knots by emphasising what most black people intuitively knew or suspected: a rich history of police abuse and procedural irregularities. After this, I was briefly assigned something called “the race beat”, which was basically intended to mean covering black civil rights complaints against the city in that highly polarised era. This was in keeping with perhaps the oldest tradition in the business, since its integration began tentatively in the 1960s: let black people cover black topics, which were perceived as impenetrable, if not outright dangerous.
In those days, a tiny coterie of black reporters often huddled together to fume over coverage of the 1988 presidential race by an all-white political staff, whose dismissive treatment of Jesse Jackson, the sole black candidate, often bordered on insulting – repeatedly describing him with code words such as “street smart”. Early one morning, a pair of black colleagues successfully goaded me into challenging the brilliant and deadly serious managing editor, Joseph Lelyveld – then the second-most-powerful person in the newsroom – over one story’s description of Jackson as “flamboyant”, which seemed to us gratuitously pejorative. Approaching Lelyveld to challenge him was as forbidding as seeking an audience with the Wizard of Oz. My friends stood in the wings, watching as the two of us, side by side, looked at the definition of “flamboyant” in a giant tabletop dictionary, which led Lelyveld to admit our complaint was correct.
Because now she needs to consolidate the divided democratic base and prove that shes reliable, trustworthy, and will deliver on her promises. The Bernie Crowd isn't guaranteed to vote for her in the General. The Sander's base can make or break her in the general, especially in those battleground states. Alienating them, talking down, and bewiddling that base/crowd is asking them to vote GOP. Voting out of spite for Trump hurts Hillary and not voting at all is a vote for the GOP in general.
Because now she needs to consolidate the divided democratic base and prove that shes reliable, trustworthy, and will deliver on her promises. The Bernie Crowd isn't guaranteed to vote for her in the General. The Sander's base can make or break her in the general, especially in those battleground states. Alienating them, talking down, and bewiddling that base/crowd is asking them to vote GOP. Voting out of spite for Trump hurts Hillary and not voting at all is a vote for the GOP in general.
I'm sorry, but liberals should not be walking into the lion's den. The fact that Sanders wants to let Fox News run the debate removes any sympathy for the argument that she's breaking her promise.
Because now she needs to consolidate the divided democratic base and prove that shes reliable, trustworthy, and will deliver on her promises. The Bernie Crowd isn't guaranteed to vote for her in the General. The Sander's base can make or break her in the general, especially in those battleground states. Alienating them, talking down, and bewiddling that base/crowd is asking them to vote GOP. Voting out of spite for Trump hurts Hillary and not voting at all is a vote for the GOP in general.
I don't think Sanders had any intention of letter her do this if she went through with the debate. It's have just been more of him calling her out for being friends with Wall Street.
After the dot-com crash, the company’s stock price plummeted, and it has struggled financially ever since. But despite business challenges, it remained influential for years, with a stable of respected names — Miller, Heather Havrilesky, Jake Tapper, Glenn Greenwald and Joan Walsh among them — and a knack for picking talented young writers who would go on to become big names, like Rebecca Traister, Alex Pareene, Irin Carmon and Steve Kornacki.
But that has changed, according to many former readers and Salon employees who spoke to POLITICO.
On social media, some have ridiculed the site for its questionable hot takes on the 2016 election and torqued-up lifestyle pieces that wouldn’t pass muster at any serious publication, like “Farewell, once-favorite organ: I am officially breaking up with my penis.”
After the dot-com crash, the company’s stock price plummeted, and it has struggled financially ever since. But despite business challenges, it remained influential for years, with a stable of respected names — Miller, Heather Havrilesky, Jake Tapper, Glenn Greenwald and Joan Walsh among them — and a knack for picking talented young writers who would go on to become big names, like Rebecca Traister, Alex Pareene, Irin Carmon and Steve Kornacki.
But that has changed, according to many former readers and Salon employees who spoke to POLITICO.
On social media, some have ridiculed the site for its questionable hot takes on the 2016 election and torqued-up lifestyle pieces that wouldn’t pass muster at any serious publication, like “Farewell, once-favorite organ: I am officially breaking up with my penis.”
After the dot-com crash, the company’s stock price plummeted, and it has struggled financially ever since. But despite business challenges, it remained influential for years, with a stable of respected names — Miller, Heather Havrilesky, Jake Tapper, Glenn Greenwald and Joan Walsh among them — and a knack for picking talented young writers who would go on to become big names, like Rebecca Traister, Alex Pareene, Irin Carmon and Steve Kornacki.
But that has changed, according to many former readers and Salon employees who spoke to POLITICO.
On social media, some have ridiculed the site for its questionable hot takes on the 2016 election and torqued-up lifestyle pieces that wouldn’t pass muster at any serious publication, like “Farewell, once-favorite organ: I am officially breaking up with my penis.”
Well, they're not wrong.
No, but after Politico's own well documented crackup, well..hence the title.
I'd rather read an article with the opening "Farewell, once-favorite organ: I am officially breaking up with my penis" than anything bewailing the lack of bipartisanship support in Washington for a package that cuts taxes and benefits, because Social Security is broke and so is the Post Office.
Posts
Yes, he put his whole master plan on the voice mail of an OSF staffer.
Oh, Politifact.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Cirrhosis has to be a hiring requirement at places like that.
Not really. It's all Everclear as far as the eye can see.
Good. Fox News deserves to be told no.
I'll go with B there.
Is it for soemthing specific, or was he just opportunistically cashing in on the controversy?
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
After he harassed two women, he went full Bernie bro, you never go full Bernie bro.
pleasepaypreacher.net
...that's just sad, even for the Breitbrats. "Woman uses profanity, news at 11" - what is this, the 1950s? Also, they use an image of the wrong woman with the story.
(facepalm)
pleasepaypreacher.net
but you're normally so sweet-tongued
Trust me as the father of a new son I'm forever worried I'll have to talk to so many teachers about my sons mouth.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Man, you and me both.
I'm so worried my kid's first word will be some variation on "fuck."
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Well I wasn't before... THANKS OPTIMUS!
American Political Media. David Brooks writes an entire column on why Hillary Clinton is disliked didn't use the word woman once.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/opinion/why-is-clinton-disliked.html?_r=1
pleasepaypreacher.net
*cough*
I think he meant in general.
Steam: pazython
This gonna be you Preacher:
You know it to be true.
This man is a goddamned treasure, and your state should be proud of itself for him alone.
Because now she needs to consolidate the divided democratic base and prove that shes reliable, trustworthy, and will deliver on her promises. The Bernie Crowd isn't guaranteed to vote for her in the General. The Sander's base can make or break her in the general, especially in those battleground states. Alienating them, talking down, and bewiddling that base/crowd is asking them to vote GOP. Voting out of spite for Trump hurts Hillary and not voting at all is a vote for the GOP in general.
I'm sorry, but liberals should not be walking into the lion's den. The fact that Sanders wants to let Fox News run the debate removes any sympathy for the argument that she's breaking her promise.
I don't think Sanders had any intention of letter her do this if she went through with the debate. It's have just been more of him calling her out for being friends with Wall Street.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Well, they're not wrong.
No, but after Politico's own well documented crackup, well..hence the title.