REICH COMMUNICATIONS

Words Do Matter

This post is personal, not political.

I am an American Jew.  Not a Jewish-American, but an American Jew. 

I am a 2^nd-generation American.  This country welcomed my grandparents more than 100 years ago when they came to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, fleeing pogroms and terrorism against Jews in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.   

This country enabled my grandparents and my parents to raise their families in peace, with each generation moving up the financial and education ladder.  I was the first in my family to graduate from college.

As a kid, I sometimes felt isolated because of my religion – mostly around Christmastime when so many friends and neighbors put up decorations and trees and we sang Christmas carols in school.   Outside of the house or synagogue, I rarely heard any mention or acknowledgement of Chanukah.

By the time my children were in school, things were very different and people – at least here in the New York area – acknowledged that some of us held beliefs other than Christianity, and the shared values as well as the differences were celebrated.

I’ve been fortunate that, except for some stupid incidents when I was about 10 or 11, I haven’t faced anti-Semitism directly.  And even at 10 when I and some mostly Jewish friends were chased off a neighborhood ballfield by some Catholic school kids who threw rocks at us and called us Christ-killers, I held no grudge, since I had so many Catholic friends and neighbors who I knew would never condone such behavior and who always treated me and my family with affection and respect.

Despite feeling a part of this great nation, I’ve always had a nagging fear – way down deep – that what happened in Germany in the 1930s could happen here.  The Jews in Germany were assimilated, like Jews are here, and they were a vital part of that nation’s cultural and economic life.  Most of them felt what eventually happened there could never happen to them.

That’s how many of us Jews here in America feel.  We love this country and we cherish the freedoms it affords.  But we can’t ignore history and as much as I couldn’t imagine discrimination or worse for Jews here in America, deep down is the knowledge that to some, we are different and perhaps viewed with suspicion or even hatred.  Usually, I feel secure because civility and the law will protect me and my loved ones from anti-Semitism that might turn violent.

Now here’s the part that may look political, but I’m just speaking honestly…  The rhetoric that we’ve seen from the president over the past 3+ years has alarmed me.  If he talks hatred against Latinos and Blacks, we know what eventually follows… the Jews.  And in his rallies, he has made some statements that could be seen as dog-whistles for anti-Semites. 

The Anti-Defamation League has documented a startling increase in hate crimes against Jews in America over the past 2 years  -- up almost 60 percent in 2017.  Part of it is attributed to the tenor of the president’s talk. Words do matter.

Many people in public life and in government, including many Republicans, have called him out for talk that might encourage prejudice.  The nut-job who shot up a synagogue in Pittsburgh Saturday didn’t take direction from the president, but he may have been emboldened to act by the hateful rhetoric, just as we’ve seen an alarming increase in violence against black people brought on by the rhetoric about “taking our country back.”  Back from who? 

I’m pretty sure we’ll feel comforted by an outpouring of sympathy and support from most Americans over these next few days.  The vast majority of Americans are horrified by prejudice and violence toward minorities.  (And yes, we Jews are a minority.)  But the sympathy and support and brotherhood must also come from our nation’s top leaders, and it must be honest support rather than hollow words mandated by the situation.

I’m an American Jew.  I would hope I and my loved ones will never be made to feel isolated from the mainstream because of our religious beliefs.  I would like to think it could never ever happen here in America.  But that’s something we all have to continuously work toward – all of us, from the top down.

 

"The truth emerges"

"The truth emerges."

 

Bob Woodward, talking about his new book, quotes his former boss, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, about the decision to publish the Watergate stories 46 years ago.  He said those words remain in his mind as his new book is being published.

A Sad Weekend

 

This weekend America says farewell to two great heroes.

Aretha Franklin gave us all so much pleasure with her music.  She's been the soundtrack for our lives.  And her fight for good -- for civil rights and women's rights -- was a tremendous help.  And now, as we are hearing, she did so much to help others, in a quiet and unheralded way. 

We call out to her with R-E-S-P-E-C-T as she goes home, probably in a pink Cadillac.

At the same time, we say farewell to Senator John McCain.  He was a hero and a patriot in many ways, from the skies over Viet Nam to the halls of Congress.  He has set an example of courage, class and compassion, which we hope some of our leaders today would follow. 

We salute Sen. McCain as we thank him for a lifetime of service to this great nation and to the world.

On a more personal note, this weekend marks a time I say farewell to Steve Miller, my California cousin who died Wednesday.   Although we lived nearly 3,000 miles apart, we always enjoyed a special connection.  When we'd see each other, even if several years had passed, we'd pick up the conversation as if we had just seen each other the week before.  "73," Stevie.

 

Photo:  Steve, Michael and me in Hollywood, Dec. 2017

Fighting Back in the War on the Press

 

Media people, as well as all Americans who cherish our freedoms and our democracy, have been troubled by the president’s ongoing war on the media.  His tweets and his rants at his rallies about the media being “the enemy of the people” raise fears among many of us that he is trying to move this country toward a fascist dictatorship.   A free and unfettered press is a key element in keeping a democracy a democracy.

The Boston Globe has launched a campaign to battle those destructive words from the White House.  It is urging other papers nationwide to run editorials on Aug. 16 that condemns the president’s anti-media rhetoric.   So far, more than 100 papers have joined the effort, including major market dailies like The Miami Herald, The Denver Post, The Houston Chronicle and The Star-Tribune in Minneapolis.  Small town papers are also joining.

Marjorie Pritchard, the editorial page editor at The Globe said it’s not a political move.  “It’s not about being a Democrat. It’s not about being a Republican.  It’s about the importance of a free press, enshrined in the Constitution.  It’s something we should all get behind.”

In an editorial yesterday, The Globe reminded readers about a 1974 book by political theorist Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism.”   “A people that can no longer believe anything cannot make up its mind,” Arendt was quoted.  “It is deprived…of its capacity to think and judge.  And with such a people, a leader can do what you please.”    

Thus, the editorial continues, an ill-informed, frightened public is precisely the audience an authoritarian president hopes to cultivate.  Losing public trust in a free press leaves unprincipled leaders with unprecedented powers and control.

Does anyone still not understand the importance of a free press here in the U.S.? 

Strange Days

 

When I saw the news reports and then began seeing clips of the statements and news conference by Putin and Trump following their secret meeting, I was, like probably most Americans, shocked.  Our president stood there in front of the world and said he believed Putin over all of our law and intelligence agencies and committees from both our Senate and House.  He told the world that the U.S. is equally to blame for bad relations between us and Russia’s government.  He then devolved into his tired litany of people to blame – the Democrats, Hillary Clinton, President Obama.  And, as the world watched, he said the biggest threat to U.S. – Russia relations has been the “witch hunt.”

I was heartened when I saw responses from our nation’s leaders.  Even Paul Ryan said, in a statement, that “the president must appreciate that Russia is not our ally.”  A few other Republicans called out the president - albeit gently, for the most part.

Watching the network news and then CNN and MSNBC last night, I saw the dismay voiced by not only political pundits, but by international relations experts and past national security and CIA leaders.

Out of curiosity, I jumped over to FOX News to see how they were reporting this incredible story.  The first time, they were reporting on something else – a crime story, I believe.  I tried again, and I got the Laura Ingraham show.  There she was, with two or three pundits, mocking the nation’s and the world’s reaction to the president’s remarks.  She showed clips of reporters and analysts on CNN and MSNBC and one of the major networks voicing their dismay and their concerns over how this can impact us on the world stage and at home.  And then Ingraham and her guests smirked and laughed, saying this is much ado about nothing and that Trump has done a wonderful thing by sitting with an enemy and trying to be friends.  They called the concern by Democrats and others as simply overblown hysteria and more partisan politics to try to hurt the president.

No wonder we have such disconnect between left and right in this country!  Many on the right rely solely on FOX for their news – certainly Trump’s base does – and they are being fed information and comment that is simply wrong.  Talk about fake news!!

So thanks to FOX and the other far-right media like Breitbart, Sinclair TV and Limbaugh, many people will simply continue believing there’s some “deep state” that’s trying to undermine the president and that he is doing amazing things on the world front as he, in reality, harms relations with our friends and allies and ignores what may have been the most significant attack on our nation since 9/11 – an attack that didn’t kill people but instead is part of an ongoing attempt to kill the basic principles and core beliefs of this great nation.

The president is not making America great again.  It’s always been great.  Rather, he’s working to chip away at that greatness because it doesn’t align with his vision of America as a place that favors the wealthy over the poor and a place where people from certain countries (like Norway) are more welcome than those who come from nations where the predominant skin color is black or brown. 

We can only hope that, despite the hate-filled rhetoric spewing from the likes of FOX and Limbaugh, more of our elected officials, on both sides of the aisle, come to their senses and forcefully speak out and – better yet – initiate some action to censure the president for what he’s done.  Former CIA chief John Brennan, who Trump just moments ago called “a very bad guy,” is right when he called Trump’s actions yesterday “nothing short of treasonous.”

Finally...

Bad Policy...Terrible PR

 

 

A bad policy regarding families seeking asylum from violence in Central America is being made even worse by the horrendous public relations efforts from the White House and from the president himself.

I can try to understand the thinking on both on sides of the issue. Those who have come here via legal means and are now citizens or legal aliens can feel frustrated that others now try to come in illegally to take their jobs by accepting lower pay.

But let's add a few kernels of accuracy... many of those trying to come here by are seeking asylum from horrendous and life-threatening conditions at home. And this great country has traditionally offered refuge for people fleeing violence or starvation. That's how many of our own grandparents and great-grandparents got here from elsewhere. Lady Liberty awaited them in the harbor, offering a light of peace and hope.

There's no statue to welcome refugees along our southern border, but rather the reputation of America as a land of immigrants, long welcomed to help us grow and be better.

The Administration's new get-tough policy has not worked. The number of people trying to come in from the south has actually increased noticeably since the policy was put into place in April.

The image of families being separated is not a good one for people around the world to see, where we have for centuries been the place that welcomed the "tired and the poor."

Worse yet is the image being played worldwide that we are now a nation torn apart, with our president turning it into a partisan fight by falsely placing the blame on the Democrats. Despite what he and Fox News say, this is 100% a White House policy and not, as he says, "the Dems' law."

Placing the blame, falsely, on Democrats is a cowardly and divisive PR strategy. It also avoids coming up with a humane solution. Using poor and helpless parents and children as leverage in a quest for billions for a needless wall is disgusting and flies in the face of principles that have made America great.  Instead of sitting down with both parties to come to a fast and fair solution, the president simply places blame where it doesn't belong and further divides us, even as families are ripped apart.

This is the sort of thing the U.S. has condemned other nations for doing, yet the president's response to a UN statement criticizing it is simply to threaten to withdraw from that UN committee.

Once again, the president is drastically harming our hard-earned reputation as a land of decent and compassionate people, as a beacon of right for other nations to look to as a model.

It's not too late, though. Fast and compassionate and non-partisan action can alleviate the immediate human crisis and put us back on a path on which we belong as a trusted and fair leading partner among the world's nations.

Sinclair Broadcasting... Pushing the Idea of "Fake News"

 

About a month ago, I wrote about some things happening on the "fake news" front.   One was that Sinclair Broadcasting, the largest owner of local TV stations in the U.S., was planning to have its local news anchors read scripted editorials implying that much of the mainstream news media are not truthful in their reporting.  Sounds a lot like what we hear from the White House and its occupant, as well as from the conservative movement's mouthpieces -- Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh and, of course, FOX News.

It finally happened the other day ... dozens and dozens of local anchors at Sinclair's 193 stations read the same message, fomenting distrust in our news media.  

It made the news -- at least the media that report real news. It's also gone viral as someone put together a video that shows anchors from stations around the country voicing exactly the same thing.  I'm not sure if FOX did anything on it.

From what I've read in trade journals, many local news anchors were upset, but most read the pieces because their livelihoods -- and their families --  depend on them.  A few refused to do it, and I haven't heard if there have yet been any repercussions.

I'll repeat what I wrote about this a few weeks ago...

 

 

Even though these pieces are being labeled as “opinion,” it is still extremely harmful to our democracy and to the public interest to have on-air reporters and anchors demeaning other media and promoting the idea of them being fake news.

It’s unfortunate and it’s dangerous, since it further pushes the concept of our news media doing fake news, ironically from one of the media companies that has been most guilty of disseminating fake and biased news.

My advice… check to see which station in your market is owned by Sinclair and be forewarned.

Wayne Friedman, who covers TV for MediaPost, has an interesting take on it.  Worth reading what he has to say.

More on Fake News

 

Over the past several days, I’ve seen several stories relating in some way to how to deal with fake news.

A few days ago in the New York Times, tech writer Farhad Manjoo wrote about a two-month experiment -- getting news the old-fashioned way by reading about it the daily newspapers and not looking at online news or social media. The headline neatly sums up the outcome… “Opting for Yesterday’s News Today: Deep, Informed, Accurate and Inky.”

Getting his news mostly through daily newspapers via their print editions enabled him to get information more fully developed and reported, with fewer inaccuracies and errors. In other words, slower but the truthful, or at least more truthful. He also got insight and context that fast-breaking news coverage can't always provide. And by avoiding posts about news on social media, he says he missed out on the slanted and sometimes intentionally misleading representation of information that we’ve all fallen victim to online.

It’s a good read and it does make me wish we could go back to the way it used to be. I know we can’t – that genie’s been let out of the bottle. But it seems that we as a nation might be better off if we could go back.

...

About two weeks ago on C-SPAN I caught the last few minutes of a conference from London about fake news. There was talk of an effort in the U.K. to create grades of truthfulness or accuracy for digital media so users might have a better idea if what they are seeing is truthful or biased. I thought, what a great idea! I wish there was something like that to assess U.S. media.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see a story in The Wall Street Journal a few days ago. It was bylined by a former WSJ publisher L. Gordon Crovitz, and it said that he and journalist Steven Brill -- best-known as founder and publisher of American Lawyer – have started a company called NewsGuard that will rate news organizations and sites based on their accuracy, bias and other things that might impact their accuracy, including ownership and affiliations. Rather than relying on algorithms, NewsGuard will have real people monitoring news and what passes for news, rating media green, yellow or red depending on their truthfulness and transparency.

They plan to rate some 7,500 news brands that account for about 98 percent of traditional and online news in the U.S. It’s a much-needed thing that will help most of us see what’s real and what’s fake.

Of course, it won’t stop those who prefer to believe fake news because it lines up with their own viewpoint. But it should help the vast majority of us who do want accuracy and truthfulness in the news we consume.

...

And finally, as we speak of fake news, there’s something that Sinclair Broadcasting, one of the largest owners of TV stations nationwide with nearly 200 stations, is starting to do. Sinclair’s owners are conservative and have been inserting into local newscasts brief “must-run” segments reporting on national political news, but with a strong conservative slant that is not always a truthful slant. They also insist that their owned stations run “terrorism updates” that repeat and spread the latest conspiracy theories. The pieces carry no identification as “editorial” or “opinion pieces,” but are presented as hard and unbiased news stories.

And now, according to the latest reports in the trade media, Sinclair plans to have its local news anchors -- people who are known and trusted in their local markets -- read pieces echoing the complaints we hear from the White House, some Republican politicians and from conservative media like FOX that the “traditional media” like the networks and major daily papers are reporting fake news.

Even though these pieces are being labeled as “opinion,” it is still extremely harmful to our democracy and to the public interest to have on-air reporters and anchors demeaning other media and promoting the idea of them being fake news. According to a CNN report, many Sinclair TV stations news anchors aren’t happy about this, calling this forced move “manipulative.”

It’s unfortunate and it’s dangerous, since it further pushes the concept of our news media doing fake news, ironically from one of the media companies that has been most guilty of disseminating fake and biased news.

My advice… check to see which station in your market is owned by Sinclair and be forewarned.

There's still more work to do ...

 

Our friends at The National Safety Council just released their unofficial estimate of traffic fatalities for 2017, and it is down by less than 1% -- 227 lower than 2016 - for a total of 40,100.  

That's more than 109 people killed every day on our roads and highways!

Any decrease is good, especially after the increases of 8 and 9 percent in 2015 and 2016.  But it is still a lot more than 2015's total of 32,485, which had been the lowest number since 1949.

We still have more work to do.