- insightful works that shed light on some important public issue.
- creative works that deserve a wider audience.
- informative works that provide eye-opening education on a difficult topic.
- courageous works that speak truth to power.
- humorous works that skillfully provoke laughter and thought at the same time.
- local works that promote community and civic engagement.
I would like to dedicate this year's Tony Awards column to the memory of the late journalist William Greider. A former editor and journalist for the Washington Post, Greider died at the age of 83 on Christmas day 2019. He wrote a number of important books, but his Who Will Tell The People: The Betrayal of American Democracy (Simon & Shuster 1992) remains, for me anyway, a classic examination of how our government was taken over by the very interests it was supposed to be regulating. The politicians did not listen to Greider, and of course the situation has become much worse.
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| The late William Greider's 1992 Who Will Tell The People: The Betrayal of American Democracy described the forces impacting government dysfunction in the United States. Greider's "speaking truth to power" style is unfortunately rare in modern mainstream journalism. |
*Best Local Journalist: Miles Maguire. With this third consecutive Tony Award, Dr. Maguire has become the Bryan Cranston of the local press. (Cranston won three consecutive Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Walter White in Breaking Bad.). It's amazing that one person with a blog (The Oshkosh Examiner) can produce high quality, rigorous journalism that is more useful and credible than anything produced by the region's profit-driven newspapers, radio stations, and television networks.
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| Miles Maguire's Oshkosh Examiner blog is a vital source of credible reporting in the Oshkosh region. |
*Best Media Criticism: William Arkin's Letter of Resignation from NBC News. In early January of 2019, NBC national security analyst William Arkin resigned from the network, and released a 2,228-word letter explaining why. In the letter he called the mainstream press "prisoners of Donald Trump," lamenting the stories missed due to the daily Trump obsession. More important, Arkin called out the huge error made by NBC in its uncritical promotion of national security state actors (generals, former CIA agents, etc.) to the status of mainstream media pundits.
That "liberal" news organizations ended up embracing the chief architects of the disastrous national security policies of the last twenty years--in some cases even making these shady characters into anti-Trump "resistance" fighters--might go down as the single worst programming decision ever made by mainstream news outfits. Back in the day the national security establishment had to engage in behind-the-scenes manipulation of journalists and news executives to frame the major stories of the day. Now they do it right out in the open, often on stations supposedly representing some kind of small-d democratic opposition to the neo-fascist tendencies of the Trump Administration. As Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi put it: "The cause of empire has been cleverly re-packaged as part of #Resistance to Trump, when in fact it’s just the same old arrogance, destined to lead to the same catastrophes."
*The Tell Us Something We Don't Already Know Award: The Washington Post's The Afghanistan Papers. So it turns out that for pretty much the entire duration of the war in Afghanistan, government and military leaders have repeatedly announced progress, while off the record admitting the complete failure of the operation. I'll bet you're surprised, eh?
The Afghanistan Papers is award worthy not because of any new revelations, but because it confirms what critics of the war have been saying for years. Post journalists released six articles based on the revelations ("At War With The Truth," "Stranded Without A Strategy," "Built to Fail," "Consumed By Corruptions," "Unguarded Nation," "Overwhelmed by Opium"), all of which confirm the bleakest estimates of what has been going on over there for almost two decades.
Someone in a position of power needs to apologize in public to Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis. Some of you may recall that in 2012 Davis put his reputation and career on the line when he released the report "Truth, Lies, and Afghanistan" in the Armed Forces Journal. Everything Davis concluded in that report about the deception of the war planners has been validated. He concluded that report by saying, "The American people deserve better than what they’ve gotten from their senior uniformed leaders over the last number of years. Simply telling the truth would be a good start." Seven years later, the Afghanistan Papers requires the same conclusion, though given our overall apathy it is not clear to me that WE actually "deserve better," though the Afghan people certainly do.
*Best Wisconsin News Site: The Wisconsin Examiner. Back in August I wrote about the Wisconsin Examiner for the Oshkosh Independent. Thanks to the Wisconsin Examiner, Wisconsinites FINALLY have a daily news source rooted in the Fighting Bob LaFollette tradition of searching for the truth and then speaking that truth to power. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Not surprisingly, the higher ups at MLB have threatened to shut Jomboy down (or at least make it more difficult for him to use video clips), even though it's pretty clear that what he does helps baseball connect to a younger, more social media savvy fan base.
*Investigative Journalism of the Year. The Guardian's "How Monsanto's 'Intelligence Center' Targeted Journalists and Activists." For more than twenty years, journalist Carey Gillam has been researching and reporting on the safety (or lack thereof) of the nation's food supply. As she dug into the topic, she learned of the disturbing ways in which science is corrupted for the benefit of corporate chemical producers. Her great 2019 book Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science, details her experience with uncovering Monsanto's attempts to marginalize any critique of their cash cow herbicide glyphosate (i.e. Roundup). The World Health Organization classifies glyphosate as a "probable human carcinogen."
Though Monsanto has now lost three jury trials that charged them with malice in the way they minimize the toxic qualities of glyphosate, they continue to wield enormous power in the halls of Congress.
*Musical Activist of the Year: Mavis Staples. At the age of 80, that blues/soul great Mavis Staples is still recording and performing is amazing. That her performances and recordings are keeping the spirit of activism alive in a time when all of our freedoms are under threat is inspiring. In 2019 she released "Live in London" and "We Get By" (studio recording), both of which feature Mavis' powerful vocals communicating themes of love, hope and change in the face of despair.
Honorable Mention: The Who's "Ball and Chain." Rock gods The Who in 2019 released their first studio album in thirteen years. In their 50+ years of recording and performing, the Who have occasionally made political statements, though I would argue the bulk of the band's output dedicates itself to an exploration of guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend's various neuroses (NOTE: It is entirely possible that ALL rock-and-roll is primarily a vehicle for working out the artists' neuroses). But in their 2019 album, the Who feature an overtly political song, "Ball And Chain," that makes a statement about the continuing nightmare at Guantanamo Bay. It is quite possible that Townshend saw the New York Times article on "Guantanamo Bay as Nursing Home," in which we learn disturbing details of the methods the CIA has used to keep us safe:
"Mustafa al-Hawsawi, 50, a Saudi man accused of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers with travel and expenses, has for years suffered such chronic rectal pain from being sodomized in the C.I.A. prisons that he sits gingerly on a pillow in court, returns to his cell to recline at the first opportunity and fasts frequently to try to limit bowel movements . . ." Bet that makes you proud to be an American, huh?
It's also worth mentioning that in terms of energy, melody, and vocals, "Ball and Chain" holds up rather well against the band's classic recordings of the 60s and 70s. Always nice to see old guys still rockin'!
Journalistic Achievement of the Year: The New York Times' The 1619 Project. Appearing originally in August in the New York Times Magazine, the 1619 Project is a series of essays and other works designed to reframe the experience of slavery in the United States from the arrival of the first slaves from West Africa in 1619. The Project is supervised by award winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.
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| Nikole Hannah-Jones is the driving force behind The 1619 Project, an effort to rethink the role and legacy of slavery from the pre-revolutionary colonial years until today. Not surprisingly in our social media age, the Project has generated intense angst from people who have not even read it. |
Movie of the Year: Dark Waters. I've never given a Tony to a movie before, but Dark Waters so brilliantly portrays the (literally) toxic results of what happens when profit driven corporations face limited push back from a compromised government and impotent media that it became almost impossible for me not to recognize it. Based on the real life story of Rob Bilott, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare," the film has put the toxic chemical PFAS on the map and might hopefully lead to more activism designed to hold corporate polluters accountable.
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