The 2020 Tony Awards For Excellence In Media

Welcome to another edition of the Tony Awards! Annually since 2002 I've dedicated one column to naming what was, for me, some of the most outstanding journalism and/or commentary of the year. I operate from no automatic set of criteria when deciding what media to honor, but in general I am drawn to:

• 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.

Though 2020 gave us environmental crises, racial strife, and one of the most contentious presidential elections in history, without question the tragedy of covid-19 will be what the year is remembered for. I'd like to dedicate this year's Tony Awards post to all the global victims of the virus, many of whom had the misfortune of living in places run by incompetent, ignorant, inhumane, pathetic buffoons who privileged politics over people at every turn. 

Given that this is a MEDIA rants column, I'd also like to dedicate this column to all of the journalists of integrity who have found themselves furloughed or laid off during this terrible time. Craig Silverman of BuzzFeed News accurately called the coronavirus a "media extinction event." 

Journalist Amy Brothers, formerly of the Denver Post, is a good representative of what's happening to thousands of media workers across the country. In April she was laid off while on assignment, and wrote a moving and insightful twitter thread about the experience. Like many local journalists, she made some outstanding videos during her time at the paper, including this one on covid and cannabis dispensaries in Denver. 

 

The Denver Post is owned by Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund with an awful reputation for wrecking newsrooms. The Denver Post continues to get clicks off of Brothers' stories even as they no longer employ her. 

Writing about the sick state of journalism, Monika Bauerlein in Mother Jones Magazine argues that "the immune system of democracy is crashing before our eyes." Let's all pledge to do what we can in 2021 to strengthen that immune system. Support journalism, especially quality independent work at the local level. 

And now the 2020 Tony Awards. Drum Roll please: 

Best Oshkosh Journalist: Miles Maguire, The Oshkosh Examiner. This is the fourth consecutive Tony Award for Maguire, who is unmatched among journalists in Oshkosh for his ability to report "local facts that matter." Every day the Oshkosh Examiner stays true to its mission statement:  

The Oshkosh Examiner works to bring you local facts that matter so that you can be smarter about your community.

We want you to know about decisions and events before they happen, which means that you can be involved while there is still time to make a difference. 

We focus on scoops—news that hasn’t been reported elsewhere—and on investigative and explanatory stories that go far beyond old headlines to make sense of things you may have already heard. We also follow stories that are still important but may have faded from mainstream coverage . . . 

The work that is presented here is based on an approach to journalism that emphasizes careful, methodical fact gathering as a way of assuring a high degree of credibility. Our goal is to give you information that may surprise you but that you can rely on and make decisions on. 

If you want to understand what is happening in your community, the Oshkosh Examiner is the way to stay ahead of the news curve.

The Oshkosh Examiner—local facts that matter.

Over the summer, anti-mask advocates were showing up in large numbers at local government meetings to bully officials and give off an impression of representing the majority. Miles Maguire did an open records request and found that emails to the Oshkosh Common Council were overwhelmingly in support of a mask ordinance. 

Until now, all Oshkosh Examiner material has been available for free. In 2021 Maguire plans to launch a paywall-protected website. Given the quality of the product Maguire produces daily, I will pay to support his efforts and encourage others to do the same. 

Most of this year's Tony Awards are for Covid-19 related works. Here are some that impressed me during the year: 

*Best Newspaper Op-Ed: Charlie Warzel, "Open States, Lots of Guns. America is Paying a Heavy Price For Freedom." New York Times, May 5, 2020. 

In this piece, written when the number of covid dead in the USA "only" numbered in the five digits, Warzel expressed fear that we would eventually throw up our collective hands and resign ourselves to the deaths, just like we do with gun violence. Tragically, Warzel's fear came to be realized. With hundreds of thousands dead and no clear end in sight, too many respond with "oh well." 

*Honorable Mention: Noah Berlatsky's "As Bethany Mandel's Grandma Killer Tweet proves, vice-signaling is the right's newest and most toxic trend" (The Independent, May 7, 2020). 

What's been shocking to me during this pandemic is not the lack of compassion for victims and the rejection of medical and scientific expertise--our addiction to bullshit, bluster, and bullying long ago put compassion and expertise on the defensive. What has been shocking is the utter cruelty in some of the right-wing responses to the coronavirus: everything from gross attempts at minimizing the tragedy to explicit announcements of just not giving a flying fuck about anyone. In the London Independent, Noah Berlatsky provided the best explainer of this right wing "vice signaling": 

It's startling to see someone boast in public about how they are willing to sacrifice others’ loved ones for a trip to the zoo. But it's not exactly uncommon.

During the pandemic, conservatives have repeatedly and publicly trumpeted their disregard for the lives of the old and the sick. Historian and writer David Perry has called this kind of public callousness "vice-signaling": a public display of immorality, intended to create a community based on cruelty and disregard for others, which is proud of it at the same time. It is, essentially, the polar opposite to “woke” left-wing virtue-signaling.

The right's embrace of vice-signaling, and indeed of vice, is how we got Trump. It's also why his administration has been so unable to deal with a crisis requiring collective civic virtue.

*Best Twitter Feed: Faces of Covid. Created by Alex Goldstein, Faces of Covid is an online archive of news reports and obituaries about covid victims. The feed represents a refusal to minimize the tragedy, and treats victims and their families with the dignity denied them by too many mainstream politicians and corporate media pundits. 

Alex Goldstein is the founder of the moving Faces of Covid Twitter feed. 

*Local Reporting on Covid: Jen Norden's Facebook Feed. Jen Norden is a front-line health care worker in northeast Wisconsin. Since the beginning of the crisis in March, she has provided no-nonsense updates about what is going on in our hospitals and what we need to do to bend the curve. She also does a wonderful job of forwarding reliable information to contest the mountain or misinformation and disinformation spread by coronavirus denialists, anti-maskers, and anti-vaxxers. Typical Nordenism: 

MASKING

This isn’t going away anytime soon, even after the vaccine is rolled out. So suck it up and get used to wearing a mask. Please don’t argue with your health care providers about it—we are kind of sick of that discussion.

Along the same lines—if someone dies of covid-19, please don’t ask if the patient had underlying medical problems. If they died of cancer, would you ask that question? I’m not sure what the point is—did the patient deserve it because they had other problems like obesity or diabetes? Or are you discounting the severity of covid-19? Or are you afraid of getting seriously ill and think you won’t if you don’t have underlying problems? Whatever the motive of the questioner—that question provokes an intense emotional response in me!!

*Statewide Reporting on Covid: Robert Chappell of Madison 365. Every afternoon, Madison365 Foundation Executive Editor Rob Chappell provides an update of Wisconsin's covid numbers. I really appreciate Chappell's style: to me, he comes off as an intelligent person with an old school sense of journalism as the fuel that powers civic engagement. His daily broadcasts represent an act of goodwill toward all Wisconsinites. If you are looking for a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to support, madison365 has earned it.

Rob Chappell provides invaluable information about covid and other matters every day on madison365.com

*National Reporting on Covid: Zeynep Tufekci and Ed Yong of the Atlantic Magazine. Zeynep Tufeki is an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina. She studies the interaction between digital technology, artificial intelligence, and society. Ed Yong is a staff writer for the Atlantic, specializing in science issues. Since March, both have written outstanding covid pieces for the magazine. Their pieces are academic yet accessible, blunt yet hopeful, informed by peer-reviewed research yet respectful of personal narratives. Probably my favorite pieces of the year were Tufekci's "It Wasn't Just Trump Who Got It Wrong" (a powerful indictment of corporate media complacency in the early days of the virus), and Yong's "How the Pandemic Defeated America." This paragraph by Yong should be put in a time capsule so that future generations can know how ill-prepared the richest country in the history of the world was for this crisis: 

Since the pandemic began, I have spoken with more than 100 experts in a variety of fields. I’ve learned that almost everything that went wrong with America’s response to the pandemic was predictable and preventable. A sluggish response by a government denuded of expertise allowed the coronavirus to gain a foothold. Chronic underfunding of public health neutered the nation’s ability to prevent the pathogen’s spread. A bloated, inefficient health-care system left hospitals ill-prepared for the ensuing wave of sickness. Racist policies that have endured since the days of colonization and slavery left Indigenous and Black Americans especially vulnerable to COVID‑19. The decades-long process of shredding the nation’s social safety net forced millions of essential workers in low-paying jobs to risk their life for their livelihood. The same social-media platforms that sowed partisanship and misinformation during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa and the 2016 U.S. election became vectors for conspiracy theories during the 2020 pandemic.

Zeynep Tufekci and Ed Yong have written spectacular pieces for the Atlantic Magazine on the covid crisis. Much to its credit, the Atlantic has kept all coronavirus related journalism in the magazine free for the duration of the crisis. 

*Best Cable Television Commentary: Chris Hayes on "Coronavirus Trutherism." 

Chris Hayes "Coronavirus Trutherism," broadcast in April as a response to Fox's Tucker Carlson willfully and shamelessly minimizing the impact of the virus, should be required viewing for all Americans. Money quote: "A tidal wave of grief and trauma has been unleashed upon this nation, in large part because the president and his enablers would not listen. And no amount of cynical whataboutism, or politically expedient wishful thinking, or junk science is going to change that brutal fact." Amen. 

         

That's it for the best written, social media, and cable pieces of the year. I want to close by recognizing some musical accomplishments for 2020. 

*Song of the Year: "Thoughts and Prayers" by the Drive By Truckers 

The Drive By Truckers are an alternative country band. "Thoughts and Prayers" is from the 2020 album "The Unraveling," and--probably because of the pandemic--did not get the attention it deserves. "Thoughts and Prayers" is the perfect response to the cowardly politicians who refuse to do anything about gun violence except offer insincere "thoughts and prayers" to the victims. The song is really a shout out to the youth who want to tackle the problem: 

When my children's eyes look at me and they ask me to explain

It hurts me that I have to look away

The powers that be are in for shame and comeuppance

When Generation Lockdown has their day

They'll throw the bums all out and drain the swamp for real

Perp walk them down the Capitol steps and show them how it feels

Tramp the dirt down, Jesus, you can pray the rod they'll spare

Stick it up your ass with your useless thoughts and prayers

Stick it up your ass with your useless thoughts and prayers

*Song of the Year Honorable Mention: Seasick Steve "Love And Peace".  Lots of technical solutions are available that could improve the plight of humanity. But none of that really will matter until more of us pledge allegiance to Seasick Steve's simple message: "Gotta stop the hatred now, get back to love and peace." 

*Best Musical Series: Rolling Stone Magazine's "In My Room" 

Rolling Stone Magazine's  In My Room Series features artists playing music from their homes. For me and many others, the series has been a great way to stay connected to live music without have to leave your home. The series features great diversity in musical styles and performers, from older classic rockers to newer pop, R & B, hip-hop and other genres. Some of my favorites include Boy George's (remember him?) performance of his great 2020 song "Frantic," Warren Haynes' remarkable guitar playing, and Graham Nash's renditions of old CSNY favorites. 

Congratulations to all the award recipients! I hope you enjoyed the selections. Have a great 2021, and remember to support local journalism! 

The 2021 Grammy Awards: Women Make [Her]story In Rock Performance Category

The 63rd annual Grammy Awards ceremony recognizing outstanding performances in popular music will be held on March 14th , 2021 in Los Angeles. I don't typically follow award ceremonies, but the 2021 Grammys are noteworthy in the extent to which female artists dominate major categories. The "Best Rock Performance" category for the first time in history includes ALL female nominees: “Shameika” by Fiona Apple, “Not” by Big Thief, “Kyoto” by Phoebe Bridgers, “The Steps” by HAIM, “Stay High” by Brittany Howard and “Daylight” from Grace Potter. All the songs are great, but if I were voting a voting member of the award selection committee, here's how I wound rank them: 

Brittany Howard's "Stay High" will become a staple at senior proms, golden wedding anniversaries, and everything in between for many years to come

#6 Phoebe Bridgers "Kyoto": Also nominated in the Best New Artist category, Bridgers' sound and style in this song reminds me of 1990s indie, alternative pop like Liz Phair. The punkish guitar, driving beat, and lyrical quest for self-identity make Kyoto a kind of gen x/millennial/zoomer hybrid. The tune is from the album "Punisher" (nominated in the "Best Alternative Music" album category). Don't go to that album expecting more Kyoto-like songs; most of it features ballads sung with a kind of mellow intensity. 

Video: Kyoto  

#5 Haim "The Steps": The Haim sisters (Este on bass and vocals; Danielle on lead vocals, guitar and drums; Alana on guitar, keyboards and vocals) have a reputation for rocking out in live performance (they do the best cover version of the pre-Stevie Nicks Fleetwood Mac classic "Oh Well."). "The Steps" is one of those catchy songs that you end up playing until you get sick of it. There's so much in it to enjoy: great guitar riff, drums that announce their presence at the right times, lyrics that anyone who's lived with a difficult partner can appreciate, and an acoustic break that sets the song apart from most pop/rock. The only reason why this song is not higher in my ranking is because the remaining tunes are simply in another league. (Note: "The Steps" is off the album "Women in Music Part III" which is also nominated for Album of the Year.). 

Video: Haim "The Steps"

#4 Fiona Apple "Shameika": Fiona Apple has released only five albums since 1996, and each one has earned critical acclaim. She has the tendency to "get real" with her lyrics in ways that few artists can match, and she's consistently original and provocative. "Shameika" is from the album "Fetch the Bolt Cutters" (nominated for Best Alternative Album), and like that entire album it's a story of self-discovery and search for personal liberation. "Shameika," which is based on a true story of young Fiona's interaction with a kid at school, will force you to think about the influential figures from your own youth. 

Video: Fiona Apple "Shameika" 

#3 Grace Potter "Daylight": Since the late 2000s Grace Potter has been one of the most energetic live performers on the circuit. "Daylight" the album is also nominated in the "Best Rock Album" category. "Daylight" the song is truly spectacular: a kind of Janis Joplin meets Led Zeppelin affair (Grace's stay-at-home cover of Zep's "Whole Lotta Love" is super good). Without exaggeration, I would say the middle part of the song "Daylight" might be the best rock jam I have heard in many years. When Grace shrieks "Daylight Come!!!" it's just epic. 

Video: Grace Potter "Daylight"

#2 Big Thief "Not": One of the worst things about artists being labeled "alternative" is that the label by itself keeps their work hidden from audiences who would, as they used to say in the 60s, "dig it." Case in point: Big Thief's  Adrianne Lenker. Her vocals are so other worldly, her lyrics so primal, and her guitar playing so potent that she belongs in the "great rock star" category. NOT great "alternative" rock star. "Not" is the kind of song that in an earlier era would have dominated FM radio. It features the kind of lyrics that grad students in liberal arts majors philosophize about in between tokes off a joint. It's got a heavenly vocal performance by Lenker, and her electric guitar jam calls forth Neil Young from his "Like A Hurricane" period. Just a knockout performance all around. 

Video: Big Thief "Not" 

#1: Brittany Howard "Stay High" 

Brittany Howard, lead singer and guitarist for the great band Alabama Shakes, released her first solo album ("Jaime") in 2019. The album is nominated for best in the "alternative" (sigh) category. Brittany Howard's vocal style is extremely amazing. Within a single verse, she can sound like a hybrid of Nina Simone, Al Green, Mavis Staples, and Prince. It's quite extraordinary. 

"Stay High" is my top choice for a couple of reasons. First, of all the songs mentioned it is by far the most multi-generational in appeal. No doubt in future years it will become a staple at senior proms, golden wedding anniversaries, and everything in between. Second, I hear "Stay High" as a covid-19 song even though it was composed, recorded, and released before the virus hit. Why do I hear it that way? Because covid has forced all of us to become more mindful of the people closest to us; to realize that they can be cruelly taken away from us in an instant; that the lowest of low feelings happens when we can no longer stay high with the one we love. 

Video: Brittany Howard "Stay High" 

Congratulations to these wonderful artists on their much-deserved nominations. And kudos to the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for finally giving female artists the recognition they deserve. Hopefully mainstream FM rock radio will follow the example and place these and other female artists on the air more often. 

Election 2020 in Wisconsin: Thank You Meagan Wolfe

Though President Trump's enablers will continue to file frivolous lawsuits, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers' certification of Joe Biden's victory in the state makes a reversal of that result unlikely. While anyone has a right to file lawsuits designed to thwart the will of the people, it's hard to disagree with Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul's assessment of the effort as a "disgraceful Jim Crow strategy for mass disenfranchisement of voters." 

A major feature of the modern Jim Crow strategy for mass disenfranchisement of voters is to sow doubt about the integrity of the process. Absentee ballots, early in-person voting, and election day registration--all of which should be heralded as pro-democracy efforts to ensure the highest possible voter turnout--are fiercely opposed by Jim Crow's heirs. When they fail to overturn pro-democracy voting procedures in the courts, the Crowers go on a propaganda offensive: "if people can vote more easily, we invite fraud and rigged elections." This is potentially a "winning" strategy for the Jim Crow team in two ways: (1) the propaganda can depress voter turnout and thus increase the chances of pro-Crow candidate victories; (2) even if the anti-Crow candidate wins, the propaganda makes people question his or her legitimacy. If Jim Crow wins, "the voters have spoken." If Jim Crow loses, "the election was rigged." Heads I win, tails you lose. 

Wisconsin's November election was secure and fair because of the integrity shown by the over 1800 election officials in the state, the magnificent poll workers, national guard troops who provided outstanding pandemic assistance, and of course the voters who refused to have their franchise stolen from them. One person deserving of special thanks is Wisconsin's Election Administrator Meagan Wolfe. Across all media, Administrator Wolfe has rejected fraud and other irresponsible claims by calmly stating the facts of the elections process. She's performed so competently and professionally that it's almost unbelievable the Trumpeters have not yet called for her to be fired. 

Meagan Wolfe has done an admirable job of challenging misinformation and disinformation spread about Wisconsin's elections procedures by Trump toadies. 

It's worth recalling how Meagan Wolfe obtained the position of Elections Commission Administrator in the first place. Wisconsin once had a nonpartisan Government Accountability Board, created after the legislative corruption scandals of the late 1990s and early 2000s and composed of retired judges. The  GAB became a national role model of how to liberate elections and ethics issues from the grasp of self-interested partisans. The GAB did its job so well that the state Republican Party declared war on it. In 2015 they eliminated the GAB and went back to a hyper-partisan State Elections Commission model. Attorney Michael Haas was endorsed unanimously by the Republicans and Democrats on the Commission to serve as Administrator, but he was unacceptable to the legislature's Republican leadership because he was part of the legal staff of the GAB when it investigated abuses that took place during the Scott Walker recall election cycle. 

Jay Heck of Common Cause in Wisconsin explained to Wisconsin Watch why the legislature wanted to replace the independent GAB with the partisan State Elections Commission: "The Wisconsin Elections Commission serves at the pleasure of the legislative leadership and to some extent the governor. So they are -- I'm not going to say pawns, I hesitate to use the word pawns--but they are certainly subservient to the will of the legislative leaders and the governor by design. That's just how the system is set up."

It's clear that Republican leaders in the state want an administrator at the WEC with pawn-like qualities who either endorses their election rhetoric, enables it, or at least turns a blind eye toward it. They have gotten none of that from Meagan Wolfe. Instead, she has consistently and repeatedly corrected any and all nonsense spread about elections in Wisconsin. In a post-election press release, she responded to the election misinformation being spread on political websites and social media: 

“Wisconsin’s election was conducted according to law and in the open . . . When issues are reported to our office, we take them very seriously.  We look into each allegation and request evidence from parties involved.  At this time, no evidence has been provided that supports allegations of systemic or widespread election issues . . . Unfortunately, we are seeing many concerns that result from this unsubstantiated misinformation.  We want Wisconsin’s voters to know we hear their concerns and to provide facts on these processes to combat the rumors and misinformation." On November 10, a week after the election, Wolfe and her staff released a point-by-point refutation of the misinformation swirling around mainstream and social media. 

Video: Meagan Wolfe Interview on Here and Now:

Contrast Meagan Wolfe's statements with what's been spewing from the Wisconsin GOP. Instead of thanking election administrators for their competence and a job well done during a pandemic that made their jobs more challenging than ever, they have called for investigations and even suggested the possibility of awarding the state's electoral votes to President Trump.

When first appointed to her position, Administrator Wolfe said,  “I feel a duty to the voters, local election officials and candidates to continue Wisconsin’s proud tradition of administering fair, secure and transparent elections that everyone can have confidence in.” There's not been one shred of credible evidence presented that the election was anything less than fair, secure, and transparent. Yet this is what we get from Assembly Speaker Robin Vos: 

I am directing the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections to use its investigatory powers to immediately review how the statewide election was administered. There should be no question as to whether the vote was fair and legitimate.https://t.co/J7Cvjqkm8k

— Speaker Robin Vos (@SpeakerVos) November 6, 2020

If you only call for election investigations when your side loses, then people will naturally question your sincerity. It's long past time for the Republican Party leadership in Wisconsin to accept the results of the presidential election. Even better, they should commit themselves to REAL election reform that would include things like drawing fair election maps, automatic voter registration, instant runoff voting, and all mail elections. 

Meagan Wolfe did an outstanding job of administering an election according to the rules currently in existence. Along with over 1800 election officials in the state, she has acted with integrity every step of the way. She's been an important fact-check source on all media platforms. She has had the voters' backs. If the GOP comes after her for being competent, nonpartisan, and professional, we need to be ready to have hers. 

Post-Election: Media Reckoning Needed

As I write in late October of 2020, Joe Biden leads in all major polls, with the Real Clear Politics average putting him ahead nationally by 8 points. Biden leads in all the key battleground states that will ultimately decide the election. From the experience of 2016 we know that poll data must be taken with a huge grain of salt, and we know that the Republican party nationally and in most states is working overtime to depress and suppress voter turnout, especially among Black and Latinx voters. So the race has to be considered a toss up.

I've heard it said that if 2020 is like 1932 (the year we were mired in a Great Depression that flummoxed Republican President Herbert Hoover), Biden could win in a landslide. If on the other hand 2020 is like 1968 (when urban riots and violent Vietnam War protests dominated the public mind), the race should be closer and perhaps favor Trump. 

My view is that 2020 is mostly a replay of 2016: Mr. Trump is still the "anti-Washington, anti-establishment" candidate, while the Dems once again nominated someone who for most of his political career has personified the establishment. But unlike Hillary Clinton, Biden is not toxic to large numbers of rural and blue collar voters. Furthermore, we have now had four  years of epic corruption and incompetence that should, theoretically at least, attract  enough swing state Independents to make "not being Trump" enough to win the election. 

In April of 2020 Jim Lardner of the American Prospect compiled one of the most thorough accounts of corruption within the executive branch of President Donald Trump

Regardless of whether the election extends the Trump presidency or delivers up President-elect Biden, the mainstream press needs to face a reckoning over its terrible performance during the Trump years. A step toward that was taken recently in an important special report by Jon Allsop and Pete Vernon in the Columbia Journalism Review, "How the Press Covered the Last Four Years of Trump." Along with two other journalists, the authors have covered media treatment of the Trump presidency daily since 2017 in CJR's The Media Today newsletter. 

The piece by Allsop and Vernon is long. I want to highlight some spot-on observations of theirs regarding press performance of the last last four years, and address four key questions they believe should be asked as we move forward. 

Looking over their own newsletters over the last four years, Allsop and Vernon discovered "a clear picture of an industry whose basic practices and rhythms have conspired, time and again, to downplay demagoguery, let Trump and his defenders off the hook, and drain resources and attention from crucial longer-term storylines. Much has changed since Inauguration Day, both in the news and the media’s approach to covering it. But in other ways, many of them profoundly important and consequential, the press has simply not learned its lesson." 

On some particularly horrifying press habits since 2017: 

Journalists reported on the president’s moods, his television habits, his aides’ personalities and infighting; they expressed anguish over the uselessness of press briefings, and then lamented their absence. Editors dispatched journalists to “Trumplandia” to find understanding in the diners of Rust-Belt towns, and sometimes even allowed right-wing internet trolls (when not quoting them) to dictate personnel decisions.

On how the press dealt with Trump's propensity for lying: 

Seven months into his administration, it was clear that the president was unwilling or unable to change. It was obvious who he was . . . or it should have been. Instead, news organizations continued to fret over whether to call his untruths “lies” since we can’t see inside his head. 

Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in a number of reputable publications including The Atlantic and The Intercept

On how obsessive Trump coverage has short-changed everything else: 

Not only has the Trump obsession often drowned out bigger stories—crises like climate change, racism, immigration, anti-trans discrimination, inadequate healthcare, poverty, and gun violence, all of which predated Trump and will outlast him—it has forced us to see them, when we see them at all, through the distorting, flattening lens of the man himself. A not-insignificant portion of the punditocracy, in particular, seems to believe that America’s problems—the biggest ones, anyway—begin and end with Trump’s tenure in office. Many reporters seem to believe that, too, if less overtly. The truth, of course, is that the systemic problems that Trump came to personify were here before he arrived and will last long after he’s gone; he was simply their embodiment. Journalism’s failure to consistently grasp that difficult, fundamental fact means that laying the groundwork for a meaningful reckoning with these last four years may continue to be pushed off into the future.

Pete Vernon is a freelance journalist and teacher. He's the former author of the Columbia Journalism Reviews "The Media Today" newsletter and previously worked for Reuters News Agency

Four key questions moving forward: 

1. Will the brilliant investigative scoops of the Trump presidency—already the preserve of papers that can afford to invest in them—inspire a new golden age of muckraking? Or will they dwindle if future administrations prove less overtly tumultuous?

2. Will the Trump cabal, in the administration, media, and politics, be held to account for what they did? Or will the calls to “move on” prevail?

3. When a future president—Biden or someone else—threatens to drag the US into a foreign war with no demonstrable evidence, will otherwise-hawkish cable pundits think twice, as many of them did in January, after Trump assassinated Iran’s top general, Qassem Suleimani? Or will they insist that we shouldn’t be concerned, because of the new president’s temperament and qualifications? (Last year, one of the great undercovered stories of recent times, the Post’s “Afghanistan Papers,” reminded us that presidents of all stripes tend to lie about war.) 

4. Will we go back to an era when politicians can convince the bulk of the media to give them an easy ride so long as they pay lip service to the shibboleths of the political establishment?

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In my judgement, Allsop and Vernon are asking the right questions. My preliminary answers: 

1.  Will we have a new golden age of muckraking? If we do, it will probably come from independent journalists working at online platforms like Substack that allow them to escape the tendency of mainstream media editors to de-muck works of muckraking so as to maintain friendly relations with "official" sources. 

2. Will calls to "move on" prevail over calls to hold the "Trump cabal" accountable for their actions? If we get a President Biden, and if history can inform the present, expect some kind of pardon for the Trump family. Biden came of age during Watergate, and no doubt he's already reflected on Gerald Ford's statement in defense of pardoning Nixon: 

“the passions generated by prosecuting him," said President Ford,  "would seriously disrupt the healing of our country from the great wounds of the past.”

 

Moreover, the Obama/Biden administration refused to prosecute bankers responsible for the 2008 economic collapse. It would not be at all surprising if a Biden administration showed a similar inclination to "move on." Will the press let them? 

3. Will the press hold the President accountable on foreign wars? Probably not, though there will be a great need to. Given that the Democrats have welcomed the so-called neocons into the anti-Trump "resistance", and given Biden's hawkish tendencies, I don't see much hope for a winding down of the "war on terror" that has now recklessly cut across three administrations. That is as much a journalistic failure as it is a failure of imagination among policy makers. 

4. Will a Biden administration convince the bulk of the media to give them an easy ride? What I see happening is this: if we have a Harris/Biden administration, the mainstream press WILL be tough on them, but for the wrong reasons. Biden will almost certainly put forth policy proposals inadequate to meet the scale of crisis we face on the pandemic, the economy, and climate. His Commander in Chief vision will be to put complete trust in the bloated military-industrial-complex and the "intelligence" agencies that gave us two failed wars. All of that will worthy of intense media scrutiny, but will probably receive little. 

Instead, the Republicans will harp on the Hunter Biden story for the entire first term, and the mainstream press will dutifully report all the rumors, all the innuendo, and all the lies that emanate from the right wing media ecosphere. That playbook started with with the Whitewater investigation of the 1990s, which consumed inordinate amounts of press time during the Clinton presidency. Russiagate operated within a similar dynamic during the Trump years: the legitimate news value in it got eclipsed by years worth of hyperpartisan harping on every minor detail. Whitewater and Russiagate crowded out scores of vital stories. If Joe Biden does get elected, expect the trials and tribulations of Hunter Biden to become the next installment in this dubious style of "accountability" journalism. 

Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part X: "Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream" Edition

Last August 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse traveled from Illinois to Kenosha, WI. Considering himself part of a militia whose goal was to "protect life and property," Rittenhouse allegedly killed two people. Militia activity is apparently on the rise across the country, with leaders making explicit attempts to target young males for recruitment. Some can apparently be persuaded to kidnap a governor whose "crime" is attempting to protect her state's residents from a raging pandemic. 

I'm pretty sure that when I was seventeen years old my main concerns in life were: (1) what do I have to do to get girls to like me and (2) will I be able to get into college? (and probably in that order too.). I did follow what was going on in the world, and I certainly rebelled against authority,  but the idea that I would pick up a military style assault weapon to "protect" a used car lot from being vandalized, and that I could somehow be persuaded that my fellow Americans in the streets were my potential enemies would have been too absurd to even cross my mind. 

The deep differences between 17-year-old Kyle and 17-year-old Tony makes sense when you consider the moral state of the country since he's been born. Since 2001 we've been at war continuously, either through explicit invasions of other countries or legally suspect drone attacks. Mountains of bipartisan propaganda and indoctrination support those efforts to this day. The unmistakable message sent to young people this century has been that bullying and extreme violence are perfectly legitimate ways to deal with anyone on the "other side" you consider to be the "bad guys."  My hope for Kyle Rittenhouse is that some day he comes to the realization that he and the people he shot at were actually on the same side, and that he was manipulated by a woeful cast of characters whose bullshit and bluster he probably mistook for principle and courage. 

Seriously, are we really that shocked that the methods used to denigrate entire populations overseas would finally be used to sow division in the homeland? Like school shooters, young Kyle clearly saw himself in a kind of "us" v. "them" struggle of  good against evil with no room for gray area. We militarized our police departments and (too many of us) shrugged our shoulders and offered thoughts and prayers while the schools became literal battlegrounds. So I suppose it should be no surprise that some youth themselves have become militarized. Good job America. 

I thought about this while listening to folk singer Ed McCurdy's classic 1950 tune  "Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream." McCurdy's tune was like a prayer for peace: 

Ed McCurdy: Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream

 

 Last night I had the strangest dream

I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war
I dreamed I saw a mighty room
The room was filled with men
And the paper they were signing said
They'd never fight again

And when the papers all were signed
And a million copies made
They all joined hands end bowed their heads
And grateful prayers were prayed
And the people in the streets below
Were dancing round and round
And guns and swords and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground

Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war

The extreme crises we are facing right now: the pandemic, the economic depression, systemic racism, climate catastrophe--have perhaps taken our eyes off of war. Paradoxically, every single one of those crises, in different ways, is a product of our war mindset and INCREASES the chances of literal war at home and abroad. We even insist on using war metaphors to address those crises. 

Ed McCurdy's tune is more relevant now than ever. Below, without comment, are ten of my favorite covers of it. 

#10: Simon and Garfunkel. 

#9: Garth Brooks ( Garth Brooks once said, "If I had to make one speech to the entire world, this would probably be the song I'd sing")

#8:  Joan Baez 

#7:  The Hep Stars 

#6:  Mason Proffit 

#5:  The Kingston Trio 

#4:  Serena Ryder 

#3:  Charles Lloyd Featuring Willie Nelson

#2: Johnny Cash (of course)

#1: Tracy Newman (Performed on a public television children's show called "What's New" in 1965. We need a return to that kind of performance for children. Adults too.). 

Previous posts in this Series: 

Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part I

Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part II

Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part III: Guitar Hero Edition 

Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part IV: Dare To Cover Johnny Cash Edition

Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part V: I Won't Back Down Edition 

Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part VI: Bring It On Home To Me Edition 

Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part VII: The Kennedy Center Honors Edition 

Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part VIII: Classical Music Covers Edition 

Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part IX: "Covering" Spoken Words

Rethinking JFK's Edmund G. Ross

In the entire history of the United States only three presidents have been impeached by the House of Representatives: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump in 2019. In all three cases, the United States Senate failed to muster the 2/3 majority necessary to remove the President from office. President Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974 when his allies in the Congress warned him that he probably would not be acquitted in a Senate trial. 

Why is it so difficult to impeach and remove a President from office? The most obvious reason is that the Constitutional standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors" for conviction is difficult to define with any precision. Moreover, the requirement of a 2/3 majority vote to convict in the Senate (67 out of 100 senators) means that a significant number Senators from the POTUS's own party have to vote against him. That's not likely, and any President facing that situation would probably take the Nixon route and resign before facing the public humiliation of a guilty verdict. 

From a media influence perspective, I think a major reason for the rarity of impeachment and near impossibility of removal is the way the failed removal of President Andrew Johnson is typically framed. John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize winning book from 1956 (actually ghost written by his speech writer Theodore Sorenson), Profiles in Courage, identified Kanas Republican Senator Edmund G. Ross' deciding vote to acquit Johnson as one of the great acts of political courage and integrity in the history of the nation. The Kennedy/Sorenson narrative, of a principled Ross risking his political future to stand against the hyperpartisan "Radical Republican" House impeachment managers and Senators, became the dominant way of thinking about impeachment in mainstream pundit circles. As Senator John F. Kennedy himself put it in a 1957 speech delivered at the University of Kansas: 

In 1956 JFK won the Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage. Ghost written by speech writer Ted Sorenson, the book weaved a narrative of Edmund G. Ross and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson that became dominant in popular media.

"Of all the acts of courage described in my book, Ross' was the bravest of them all. When he rose on the Senate Floor to cast the vote that saved Andrew Johnson from impeachment conviction, he knew he was destroying a promising political career. As he later described it: 'I almost literally looked down into my own open grave. Friendships, position, fortune, everything that makes life desirable to an ambitious man were about to be swept away by the breath of my mouth, perhaps forever.' Tragic to say, Edmund Ross was not exaggerating the fury which would fall upon him for his determined position. And yet, he was equally correct when he wrote to his wife shortly after the trial: 'Millions of men cursing me today will bless me tomorrow for having saved the country from the greatest peril through which it has ever passed, though none but God can ever know the struggle it has cost me.'"

Ross and Kennedy had it all wrong. The vote to acquit Johnson hardly saved the country from peril. In fact, Ross' vote reinforced the peril the country was already in, and helped guarantee literally another 100 years of misery for African-Americans who by 1868 were already being brutally denied their human and civil rights that were supposed to follow emancipation. Johnson's constitutionally dubious executive actions taken to reconstruct the union after the Civil War were lenient to the point of virtually reintroducing slavery in the southern states. Southern "Black Codes," which received no opposition from Johnson, effectively denied Blacks any meaningful political and economic rights. Racist laws were so deeply entrenched that not even the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution were enough to provide a remedy. 

Republican Senator Edmund G. Ross of Kansas (1826-1907) cast one of the most consequential votes in the history of the Congress when he joined six other Republicans to acquit Andrew Johnson. The final vote was 35-19 to convict Johnson, one short of the required 2/3 needed. 

House and Senate Republicans in 1868 opposed Johnson not only on the grounds that he abused the powers of his office in a way that allowed for a reintroduction of slavery by other names, but also because they found his conduct unbecoming of what should be expected of a Chief Executive. In 1866 Johnson went on a "Swing Around the Circle" tour of northeastern and midwestern states. At various stops he compared himself to Jesus Christ, called for the hanging of political opponents, and provoked riots. He accused the Republican Congress, which was trying to guarantee voting rights for Blacks, of trying to disenfranchise Whites and provoke African-Americans to take up arms. The New York Herald, up to the tour one of Johnson's major supporters, turned against him: "It is mortifying to see a man occupying the lofty position of President of the United States descend from that position and join issue with those who are draggling their garments in the muddy gutters of political vituperation." 

Famous cartoonist Thomas Nast lampooned Johnson's "Swing Around the Circle" tour. Note the halo around Johnson's head in the center illustration--a reference to Johnson's habit of comparing himself to Jesus Christ.

By a vote of 126-47, the House of Representatives passed eleven articles of impeachment. Historically most of the attention has been given to Article I, which condemned Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act, legislation which required the president to seek Congressional approval in order to remove a cabinet officer. Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867 in large part to shield Cabinet officers in disagreement with Johnson's reconstruction policies from being fired.  When Johnson tried to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a supporter of Radical Republican policy, he was in violation of the Act. (Note: The Tenure of Office Act was declared unconstitutional in 1926, contributing to the expansion of powers in the executive branch that, in my humble opinion, has been detrimental to the principle of checks and balances. The Trump administration shows us in a disturbing way how easy it is for a president to remove voices of even mild dissent in the cabinet, thus making independent action in cabinet departments almost impossible.). 

For me, impeachment article X by itself should have been enough to remove Johnson. By the way he carried out his responsibilities, the President had made a mockery of his office. Article X said that Johnson's behavior was "indecent and unbecoming in the office of the Chief Magistrate" and brought the office of the President of the United States into "contempt, ridicule, and disgrace." 

In this satire of the Swing Around the Circle tour, Johnson is pictured on the left as traveling in a child's carriage. On the right, he is held up by Secretary of State William Seward--a suggestion that Johnson at times was too drunk to stand on his own.

I get that "indecency" along with contempt, ridicule, and disgrace are subjective charges that don't rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors" without providing substantial context and explanation. But for anyone who actually takes the time to examine the context, it becomes immediately clear that Andrew Johnson was a buffoon who had no business occupying the office of the presidency at any time, and especially not at a time when newly freed slaves were literally in a life and death struggle to make good on the promise of emancipation. Reading Kennedy/Sorenson and other pundits, you would think that the Radical Republicans in Congress were mere partisans who elevated policy differences to crimes in order to remove the main check on their ability to pursue their own vision of reconstruction. 

In fact, the Radical Republicans were trying to stop a crime already in progress--the crime of reintroducing slavery into the south. President Andrew Johnson was an active accomplice in that crime. To say that he was involved in a mere policy difference with the Republican Congress is absurd. Imagine being involved in a chess game, and when you take a rest room break your opponent removes your knights, bishops, and rooks from the board and when called out refuses to put them back. When asked to defend himself, he says, "well I guess we just have different opinions on how to play chess." Clearly he has no respect for the rules, cheated and deceived, and thus forfeits the privilege of playing.  

Failure to remove Johnson on the grounds of his bringing the office into contempt, ridicule, and disgrace has made it next to impossible to uphold that standard for any other President. Bill Clinton in 1999 engaged in behavior that even then would have been difficult for any CEO or mid-level manager to survive if the behavior had been revealed. More recently Al Franken was pressured to leave the Senate for less. Yet President Clinton's loudest defenders at the time were feminist movement leaders and allies acting on the rationale that providing interference for a boorish and exploitative Democrat is preferable to handing political victories to a Republican party hostile to their entire agenda. Hindsight is always 20/20, but it's becoming clearer that the mental gymnastics required to defend Clinton probably set the feminist movement in general, and women in the workplace in particular, back twenty years. One has to wonder where we would be right now if, after Monica Lewinsky's name had been released in 1998, someone had tweeted, "If you've ever been taken advantage of by your boss at work, write 'metoo' as a response to this tweet." My guess is that Harvey Weinstein and the more than 260 other big shots accused of sexual misconduct since 2017 would have faced a reckoning much sooner. 

Bill Clinton survived impeachment in part because of the support of the feminist movement. One wonders if the #metoo movement might have happened sooner were it not for the decision to provide cover for a powerful man as long as he has the right positions on policy issues.

And what about President Donald Trump? Without exaggeration, every single day of his presidency has brought the office into contempt, ridicule, and disgrace. The lies, the social media bullying and nonsense, the gaslighting, the inability to empathize with victims of the pandemic, incompetence. Some on social media have speculated that the President's shameful behavior at the first presidential "debate" this year may have been designed to provoke Joe Biden--a man who has been open about his struggles with verbal stuttering--into a potentially embarrassing stutter episode. It's virtually impossible to prove such an allegation, but the fact that a huge majority of Americans would not even be surprised if they found out it was true should tell us something. My guess is that in the future historians will look back on Mr. Trump's idiotic and incoherent phone call with the Ukraine premier and say, "out of all the things they could have impeached him for, they chose that?" 

Perhaps because I work with young people, of the  thousands of horrific tweets in Donald Trump's feed, the one that strikes me as most revolting is his 2019 mockery and bullying of teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg. What  kind of man uses a global platform of millions to mock a teen girl whose only goal is to save the planet for her generation? Answer: A man who has no business occupying the White House.

In 1956 John F. Kennedy and his ghost writer Ted Sorenson produced a narrative of the impeachment proceedings of 1868 that gave the titles of principled and courageous to a man--Republican Senator Edmund G. Ross--whose actions were neither clearly principled nor courageous. Author David O. Stewart goes as far as to claim Ross' vote to acquit Johnson was rooted in a corrupt deal. But even if we accept JFK's claim that Ross' motives were sincere, the long term consequence of his act was to reduce Congressional calling out of unacceptable presidential behavior to partisan sniping. Andrew Johnson, like Bill Clinton to a lesser, and Donald Trump to a greater extent much later, abused the powers of his office in a manner that the peoples' representatives are obligated to hold to account. Whether because of corruption, naivete, or caving in to pressure, Ross succeeded in making the impeachment and removal process--a process already difficult due to the rules outlined in the Constitution--into something almost meaningless.