Frank Beacham's Journal

Living in a Time of Extreme Hate

I try to avoid the nasty politics of this era. I focus on creativity and what our species can achieve at his or her best. Yet, I grew up with hate in South Carolina, have written and reported about it, studied it and seen it wear different disguises over the years. It is often hard to ignore.

Mendacity — as Tennessee Williams so perfectly described it — constantly generates new disguises and wears many masks as those who practice it try to hide it. Mendacity is and always will be a fog of lies that allows humans to try to hide what is real in their lives and avoid facing it. The facade fractures and blows up occasionally, just as it has several times during the Trump era.

As sad as it is, we must face the harsh fact that the President of United States is now an integral part of this mendacity and the key reason for the violence of our times. Any educated, objective person knows this. The president has given his sad supporters “permission” to come out into the open with their prejudices. Of course, he denies it, but the truth is there for all to see.

We are, very sadly, a split nation and will remain so as long as this psychopath holds the highest office. Many of us have broken off friendships with his known supporters. I suspect there are more divorces than we know of over this continuing hatred and the violence that it leads to.

Racism has always been ugly. A president has finally given permission to his racist supporters to take off their masks. It has happened for all to see on television. All we see is rage, insanity and violence.

Shakespeare told us about these traits many years ago. Some of us learned what he wrote. But the current lack of education and jobs, coupled with extreme poverty and ignorance, has taken a huge toll. As a country, we have to dig our way out of it or we will cease to exist as a nation. It is a major and severe challenge ahead.

I doubt it will happen in my lifetime. That’s why I find solace in the creative arts. For me, the arts are the best way to enjoy life in a time of 24/7 chaos and despair. It’s all I know to do. Each of us must deal with it in our own way. But none of us should ever accept it. That would be the greatest tragedy of all.

Frank Beacham

Photo by Edu Bayer

It's the Story, Stupid

Our society’s storytellers — including musicians, actors, writers, artists, photographers and the backstage people that support their work — are going to have to rethink their places in the future.

How? I have some preliminary thoughts on the question. It’s not meant to be complete by any means, but only a baseline to begin thinking about the future.

What do all artists have in common? We are storytellers — in one form or another. Through our work as “communicators,” we seek to create stories that reflect on the human condition.

Some artists provoke, others make us reflect, some soothe us with beauty while others make us laugh. It’s a real hodgepodge, but in the end it is all storytelling.

Telling stories is an essential human need. It has been with us since the beginning of time — whether painting on the walls of caves, writing on stone tablets or telling stories around a campfire.

What is constantly changing is the technology used for presenting that art. In the pandemic of 1916, people had few ways to communicate. Today, we have the internet. It is not only keeping many of us sane, but offers one of the few ways today for artists to tell their stories to the world. This is a major plus.

But let’s face the hard truth. It is going to be a long time before audiences gather again, even after venues reopen. There will be fear of infection until a vaccine is readily available. Regardless of what the government tells you, it is going to be a very difficult period ahead.

Depending on how artists use the internet will determine the ultimate success...or failure.

For writers, videographers and still photographers, little has changed in the way we distribute our work. Most of us were already using the internet. In the coming days, each of us will use our creative sensibilities to tell stories that will seek to connect with people in crisis.

For musicians, the internet landscape is most interesting. Some big name performers are blowing it — with poor production values and really bad audio and video quality in presenting their work. Viewers will put up with poor technical quality for a very short time...after that all video is judged on its quality.

Many younger, amateur musicians are using the internet far more effectively than successful musicians used to working before live audiences. A shakeup may come from this in music. Video may be the great equalizer before this pandemic is over.

Judy Collins once told me that audiences want her to tell a personal story in performances after she sings a couple of songs. This is because people want to know behind the scenes anecdotes about the music they love. For some successful musicians, perhaps there is more power in stories than songs right now.

For actors, performing on stage isn’t going to happen soon. Who’s going to pay big money to be crammed close to others in a theatre? It will be a hard sell — at least for a while.

Again, it is interesting to see actors informally on video. Many big “stars” are awkward and incredibly uninteresting when out of character. Others are charming and delightful people that we see in a totally new way.

There is an opportunity to reinvent the concept of acting as storytelling. New opportunities are open to aspiring actors during this crisis. One person performances on video may be the future for some actors. Others may find their way to communicate effectively as real people. Creative thinking is needed here.

As to behind-the-scenes workers who know audio, lighting and stagecraft, there is a growing opportunity to help creative artists set up small scale home video studios.

Streaming media is the future (at least for now) and the rules of good production have not changed.

If I were a lighting designer, I would be using small, inexpensive LED lights to create home studio packages. A lot of entertainers definitely need help with audio and out of work sound operators could help. And surely there are better set backgrounds for video from homes than bookcases and cluttered home offices.

As a community of storytelling artists, the goal always has been to tell good stories from a unique point of view. Those stories may be local, national or global. But they are the “stuff” of all human communication. The need for good stories never goes away.

Humans always adapt to new situations...as the old ways disappear. The art will never change, but the way we deliver it to people is in play. This what we should be thinking about.

Orangeburg Massacre Remains Unresolved in South Carolina After 47 Years

Racism is a very ugly thing. In the 1950s and 60s, it was far more overt than it is today. Jim Crow laws were openly defended in the South and those demanding civil rights for all citizens were despised, beaten and arrested.

The federal government — then on-board to stop racism — played catch-up in going to court to address the many violations in every aspect of life. For years, there were glitches in civil rights enforcement all over the nation.

One of those glitches happened in Orangeburg, S.C.. In 1968, a loophole in the Civil Rights Act passed four years earlier led to some delay in forcing All Star Bowling Lanes to admit blacks. With two black colleges in Orangeburg and nowhere else to bowl, the bowling alley became a target for civil rights advocates. The black students at the colleges wanted to bowl there and staged a demonstration.

All this might be forgotten today if this racist act hadn’t led to the brutal massacre of several black students by white highway patrolmen. Even worse, it all led to a cover-up of the shooting that continues today — the 47th anniversary of what is known as “The Orangeburg Massacre.”

A conservative Southern governor, wanting to appear tough to his white constituents, overreacted to the civil rights protest ordering a massive show of armed force. As emotions frayed and the situation veered out of control, nine white highway patrolmen opened gunfire onto the campus of South Carolina State College — killing three black students and wounding 27 others.

All the students were unarmed and in retreat from the highway patrolmen at the time of the shooting. Yet, without warning, they were shot in their backs with deadly buckshot.

Until the shooting, South Carolina was a southern state that had proudly celebrated a record of nonviolence during the turbulent civil rights years. It was all a façade. Nonviolence was equated with racial harmony in a white community with a paternalistic attitude toward its poorer black citizens. Equal rights were another thing.

To help protect its “progressive” self-image on racial issues, a web of official deceptions was created by South Carolina’s young governor — Robert McNair — and his administration to distort the facts and conceal the truth about what happened in Orangeburg.

The state claimed the deaths were the result of a two-way gun battle between students and lawmen at the college. The highway patrolmen insisted their shooting was done in self-defense in order to protect themselves from a attacking mob of students.

To bolster that claim and deflect responsibility from its own actions, the state hastily devised a media campaign to blame the riot on Cleveland Sellers, a young black activist working to organize area college students.

Time would prove none of it was true.

At first, the state’s cover-up worked. Later, upon outside scrutiny, it began to unravel. Then, with his legacy threatened, McNair broke nearly forty years of silence in 2006 in an attempt to put the pieces back together.

Ignoring facts proven over the years in court cases and through the first person accounts of eyewitnesses, McNair used local media and friendly “historians” as a tool to help members of his community lie to themselves about their own history. For the last year of his life, he deliberately fogged and distorted the story of the Orangeburg Massacre.

One man who knows the truth minced no words about what happened in 1968.

“They committed murder. Murder…that’s a harsh thing to say, but they did it,” said Ramsey Clark, U.S. Attorney General in 1968. “The police lost their self control. They just started shooting. It was a slaughter. Double ought buckshot is what you use for deer. It’s meant to kill. One guy emptied his service revolver. That takes a lot of shooting. The (students) are running away. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow!  My God, there’s a murderous intent there. We are lucky more weren’t killed.”

Clark said the student deaths were caused by police criminal acts. “The provocation for the incident was an absurd, provocative display of force,” he said.

Gov. McNair responded to Orangeburg with excessive police power because that was the politically expedient thing to do in 1968, the former attorney general said.  

“Fear, anger, a sense of self-righteousness to justify hating began to be seen as successful politics.” When the tactic backfired, Clark added, state officials fabricated stories that many South Carolinians believe to this day.

After 47 years, the story of the Orangeburg Massacre still simmers, unresolved. It is the chilling saga of the horrors of law enforcement motivated by racism and hatred — and the inability of a Southern state to admit the truth.

The central theme is “mendacity,” the web of lies a community spins in a desperate attempt to maintain it’s self-image and dignity when confronted by its own prejudice. It’s a culture where words are constantly being redefined in order that a people can more comfortably deceive themselves.

Today, that racism still exists in South Carolina, as in other places in the country. It has been dressed up and made more sophisticated by the policies of a Republican-controlled legislature that still refuses to even investigate the massacre.

The sad story is after 47 years, the state of South Carolina will not admit it committed murder in the shootings at Orangeburg.

The complete story of the Orangeburg shooting and its cover-up is the subject of my multimedia e-book, “The Legacy of the Orangeburg Massacre.” The price is $9.99. (ISBN-9781629218762).

The book is available at Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Kindle book store and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store. It can also be bought directly from the store at Vook at http://store.vook.com/ and read online there on Macintosh and PC platforms.

Photo by Bill Barley

It's the 80th Anniversary of the Chiquola Mill Massacre in Honea Path, South Carolina

On the morning of September 6, 1934 — 80 years ago — in the tiny town of Honea Path, South Carolina, friends and neighbors came to blows in a labor dispute. When it was over, seven people were dead and 30 others wounded.

The bloody riot at the town's cotton mill on that warm Thursday morning shaped the lives of two generations to follow — not because of the shock of what was known, but by what was unknown. Fear, threats and intimidation were used to silence the story of the greatest tragedy in the town's history.

This September is the 80th anniversary of the murders at Chiquola Mill in Honea Path. Honea Path will not commemorate the anniversary. It would rather forget the tragedy. The story has been erased, not only from the history books, but from the public consciousness of those people most affected by it.

An instrument of fear was so powerful that parents were afraid to tell the story to their own children. It formed a lifelong social contract for the entire community's survival.
 
My name is Frank Beacham. I grew up in Honea Path. My mother was the town's history teacher. My father sold textile supplies. My grandfather, I later learned, organized the posse of gunmen who fired on their fellow workers in 1934.

In order that the murders in Honea Path not be forgotten, I have produced this 48-minute audio documentary. You can listen or download it. I hope you will listen. It will be posted during the month of September.

Audio Program

The 80th Anniversary of the Murders in Honea Path

My e-book, a full multimedia account of what happened in Honea Path is titled Mill Town Murder ($9.99) (ISBN-9781629218465). It’s available at Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Kindle book store and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store. It can also be bought directly from the store at Vook here and read online there on Macintosh and PC platforms.

New Multimedia e-Books Reveal Little Known South Carolina Stories on the “Shag,” “Beach Music,” Racial Violence and Textile Labor Strife

A series of three new multimedia e-Books that focus on three little known historical events that helped define South Carolina in the last century are now available. All three were written by Frank Beacham.

The three separate eBooks, published by Vook in New York City, combine video, audio, photographs and text in a new kind of storytelling that work on a range if e-Book readers and personal computers (iPad, Kindle, Nook, Macintosh and PC). This state-of-the-art storytelling technology is available across platforms the first time this year.

The first e-Book, Charlie’s Place, examines the remarkable interracial collaboration in the segregated post-World War II years that led to the creation of South Carolina’s official state music (beach music) and dance (the shag).

The second e-Book, The Legacy of the Orangeburg Massacre, deals with the nearly 50-year legacy of the Orangeburg Massacre. The story centers on the killing of black college students in 1968 at South Carolina State College and the state’s continuing cover-up of the facts surrounding the shootings.

The third e-Book, Mill Town Murder, is  the author’s personal story of his grandfather’s involvement in the killing of seven mill workers in his hometown of Honea Path during the Textile Strike of 1934.

“Powerful forces have shaped and defined a sanitized version of Southern history,” said author Frank Beacham, now a New York City-based writer and media producer. “These eBooks, born of the frustration of learning more about my own history growing up in South Carolina, became an attempt to meet these distortions head-on by exploring my memories and answering some lingering questions.

“For years I have been collecting video, audio and photographs relating to these stories,” Beacham continued. “Now, for the first time, the technology exists to put all these elements together in a compelling way to tell their stories in a fuller way.”

The result of the Beacham’s work are three compelling new multimedia e-Books that destroy carefully constructed myths to reveal three extraordinary events that many influential Southerners would just as soon forget.

In addition to the three new multimedia e-Books, a new third print edition of Whitewash: A Southern Journey through Music, Mayhem and Murder by Frank Beacham (ISBN:1591131871, Price: $15.00) has been released. The new edition of the print book contains all the updates for the three stories found in the individual multimedia e-Books without the audio, video and photographs. It can be purchased or ordered through major retail book outlets or online at: http://www.booklocker.com/books/939.html/.

In Charlie’s Place, Beacham tells the true story of the Ku Klux Klan's violent attempt in South Carolina in the post World War II years to stop dirty dancing and kill the emerging black music behind it—rhythm & blues.

He describes how a handful of adventurous young black & white dancers—with the help of a fearless black nightclub owner—risked life and limb in an era of racial segregation to create a bold new dance and an enduring Southern musical legacy. For the first time, the reader can see and hear these dance pioneers tell the story in their own words.

Included in the new multimedia edition are audio and video interviews and clips with such notables as Jerry Wexler, John R, Hoss Allen, Marion Carter, Leon Williams, George Lineberry, Harry Driver, Chicken Hicks, Bill Pinkney, Clarice Reavis, Bill Wingate, Billy Jeffers, Maurice Williams and Clifford Curry. There are also dozens of photographs included in the publication.

The new eBook and print versions also contain newly updated material from FBI records that offer far greater detail to the story than in previous editions.

The story evolved from a series of recorded interviews by the Beacham with many of the key figures credited with the creation of South Carolina’s state dance, the shag, and the state’s music, a sub-genre of rhythm and blues now called Carolina “beach music.”

In a vivid and newly detailed description, Beacham reconstructs the violent armed assault in 1950 by the Ku Klux Klan in an attempt to shut down “Charlie’s Place,” an influential Myrtle Beach night club where white and black dancers shared the dance floor and helped create what is now called the shag. The violence sprang from the aftermath of one of the state’s most openly racist political  campaigns, the 1950 U.S. Senate election between Strom Thurmond and Olin D. Johnston.

“Young black and white South Carolinians—in a time of segregation—put their lives on the line to defy the state’s white establishment and create a genuine musical  legacy,” said Beacham. “An irony is that South Carolina’s government officials made the shag and beach music the official dance and music of the state without even understanding or noting it’s remarkable historical significance.”

Over the years, Beacham said, the state’s music and dance has almost completely been co-opted by Southern whites, leaving a new generation of blacks unaware of the cultural phenomenon they helped create. “It is sad that many young blacks in South Carolina have rejected beach music and the shag because they think the music has white-only roots. Years of racism and a lack of education have helped erase one of South Carolina’s most notable creative accomplishments,” Beacham said.

An act of racism in a small college town leads to peaceful protest by frustrated black students. The governor, elected on a platform of racial moderation, responds with a vast show of armed force.  Each side misreads the other, escalating the conflict.  Then, in a peak of emotional frenzy, nine white highway patrolmen open fire on the students. In less than ten seconds, the campus turns into a bloodbath.

Over four days in early February, 1968, this scenario played out in Orangeburg. On the final day, three black students were killed and 27 others wounded when the lawmen sprayed deadly buckshot onto the campus of South Carolina State College.  Most of the students, in retreat at the time, were shot from the rear—some in the back, others in the soles of their feet. None carried weapons.

The killings occurred in a southern state heralded for its record of nonviolence during the civil rights era. In attempt to preserve its carefully-cultivated image of racial harmony, a web of official deceptions was created to distort the facts and conceal the truth about what happened in Orangeburg. The state's young governor, Robert E. McNair, claimed the deaths were the result of a two-way gun battle between students and lawmen. The highway patrolmen insisted their shooting was done in self-defense—to protect themselves from an attacking mob of students.

At first, the state’s cover-up worked. Later, it unraveled. Now, after nearly 50 years, the story of Orangeburg continues to simmer unresolved in a twilight zone of blame and denial. Author Frank Beacham, a young reporter at WIS-TV in Columbia at the time of the shooting in 1968, re-examines “a story whose significance  I totally missed at the time.”

Beacham asks why, after so many years, does an aggressive effort continue in South Carolina to hide and distort the role of former Gov. McNair and his white state police in the 1968 killing of three black college students in Orangeburg, South Carolina.  He found the answers—many on video and audio in this new eBook—disturbing.

The e-Book contains interviews with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former Gov. Robert McNair, Cleveland Sellers, Jordan Simmons, Gladys Simmons-Suddeth, Nat Abraham, Rhett Jackson, Former Gov. John West, George Dean, the first black S.C. National Guardsman, Fred Mott, Rep. Bakari Sellers and survivors of the Orangeburg shooting.

“The Orangeburg Massacre is a complex Southern epic that contains the essential elements of the best of Shakespeare’s plays,” Beacham noted. “The continuing silence in the aftermath of the killing is perhaps one of the most revealing and important historical stories of modern South Carolina and very deep dive into the basics of Southern culture.”



On the morning of September 6, 1934, in the tiny town of Honea Path, South Carolina, friends and neighbors came to blows in a labor dispute. When it was over, seven people were dead and 30 others wounded.

The bloody riot at the town's cotton mill on that warm Thursday morning shaped the lives of two generations to follow—not because of the shock of what was known, but by what was unknown. Fear, threats and intimidation were used to silence the story of the greatest tragedy in the town's history.

For 60 years, the story of a mass killing in a small town was successfully erased, not only from the history books, but from the public consciousness of those people most affected by it.  An instrument of fear—so powerful that parents were afraid to tell the story to their own children—formed a lifelong social contract for entire community's survival.
 
Ironically, Honea Path’s secret was finally revealed in a way the architects of its original cover-up could have never imagined: a video documentary made by three socially-conscious New York City filmmakers who unraveled the secret after rummaging through old letters from townspeople to President Franklin Roosevelt.

Yet, even after the truth was exposed in 1995, the story took another strange twist. South Carolina's intensely pro-business establishment, still heavily influenced by the region's textile industry, tried to suppress the documentary, first by banning it from broadcast on its state-supported television system and then by making it difficult for people to see in public places.

Author Frank Beacham grew up in Honea Path. His mother was the town's history teacher. His grandfather, he was to learn, organized the posse of gunmen who fired on their fellow workers in 1934.  Yet, only in his 46th year did he finally learn the deeper secrets that haunted Honea Path and the painful truth about his own family and the destructive series of events that distorted the perceptions he held of his childhood home.

In this compelling story, we hear the last living shooting victim, Williams Andrew Smith, tell Beacham that his grandfather lied about being at the mill when the violence occurred. In fact, Smith said, Dan Beacham was standing over him as he lay bleeding on the ground. An aunt, Hazel Beacham, confronts the writer about supporting the men his grandfather fought against, and we hear Beacham’s compelling appearance on a local radio station that turned the town around to support a memorial for the workers.

Mill Town Murder introduces a song about the shooting, Honea Path, by Matthew Grimm and features other interviews with Fred Moore,Tom Johnson, Sue Cannon Hill, Lydie Pinson, Mack Duncan and Jesse Mae Holder.

In this compelling story, we hear the last living shooting victim tell Beacham that his grandfather lied about being at the mill when the violence occurred. He, in fact, the man said, was standing over him as he lay bleeding on the ground. An aunt confronts the writer in audio about supporting the men his grandfather fought against, and we hear Beacham’s appearance on a local radio station that turned the town around to support a memorial for the workers.

“Each of these stories confronted me in different stages of my life. After carefully researching each story, I came to realize that each continues to live and remain fiercely unresolved for a reason,” said Beacham. “Elaborate efforts have been made to distort and misrepresent each story and to omit it from the state’s official history. Perhaps the reason for this, I found, is because these stories share cultural attributes that go back to the antebellum South: stubbornness, pride, honor and denial.”

The e-Books, priced at $9.99 each, are available at Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Kindle book store and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store. It can also be bought directly from the store at Vook at http://store.vook.com/ and read online there on Macintosh and PC platforms.

The Death of the Washington Post

When the news of the sale of the Washington Post was announced yesterday, I got a knot in my stomach. It was nail in the coffin of the brand of journalism I used to work in and so admired.

In 1974, I went to work as an investigative reporter for Post-Newsweek Television, which was owned by the Washington Post. This was the period just after the Watergate scandal, in which Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had an integral role in bringing about the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Unlike newspapers and other news outlets today, Graham’s new organizations supported real, hard hitting reporting. When Woodward and Bernstein brought the Watergate story to Post editor Ben Bradlee, Graham supported their investigative reporting and Bradlee ran stories about Watergate when few other news outlets would touch the story.

As a result, Graham was the subject of one of the best-known threats in American journalistic history. It occurred in 1972, when Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, warned reporter Carl Bernstein about a forthcoming article: "Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that's published."

As an act of intimidation, the Nixon administration also set its Federal Communications Commission onto the Post’s broadcast properties. Graham was under severe pressure in those years and she rose to that pressure.

On my first day at work at the Post’s WJXT-TV in Jacksonville, Florida, I was surprised to get a phone call from Katherine Graham. She welcomed me and acknowledged the pressure we were under at the time. But her real message was clear. “If you receive pressure from anyone—anyone at all—not to do your job, I want you to call me directly,” she said. “That’s very important.” She made me promise to call and gave me her direct number.

I never did call, though the next year at Post-Newsweek I was threatened, sued and called every name in the book. We worked hard and got it right. It was the era of good, tough journalism—long gone today. It was always comforting to know in those days that I was backed by the real iron lady, Katherine Graham.

I suspect that Graham is rolling in her grave today. It was her granddaughter that sold the Post to Jeff Bezos, a man with deep pockets and zero experience in journalism of any kind. For all the talk about maintaining journalistic ethics, that won’t happen with a ruthless businessman as the Post’s owner.

Newspapers are in trouble today not for lack of readers, but due to poor economic deals done through the years by owners more interested in the bottom line than good journalism. A lot of news organizations made a lot of bad investments.

Yes, of course, the technology and outlets have changed, but the demand for good reporting and storytelling is as powerful as ever. That never changes. Sadly, a generation now exists that doesn’t know the difference. It’s a very depressing time.

Those that believe that Bezos will save the Washington Post are wrong. The fact is we’ve lost one of the nation’s great journalistic institutions and the idea of it being revived is almost impossible. The news as we once knew it is long gone.

"The Designated Mourner" Changes Meaning After 13 Years

When I first saw Wallace Shawn’s “The Designated Mourner” in an old dilapidated building on South William Street in New York City in 2000, I was mesmerized on many levels. First, the audience was limited to about 20 people and the whole building was the set. During the intermission, Shawn and the director, Andre Gregory, ate and talked with the audience. In pure Shawn-Gregory fashion, the traditional walls of theatre were broken down. It was one of the great theatrical experiences I ever had in New York.

In 2000, the world was a different place. It was before 9/11 and before the U.S. had become a total, locked down security state. At the time, I felt the play was set in an unidentified third world country somewhere in Latin America.

I carried a lot of personal baggage into the play back then. Perhaps, that was because in my network news days in the late 1970s, I was in a lot of trouble spots in Latin America, including El Salvador during the fighting and Nicaragua when it Gen. Anastasio Somoza was overthrown. I was even arrested by Gen. Manuel Noriega in Panama, so I knew the fear of looking into an Uzi. The Designated Mourner had special meaning for me.

Thirteen years had passed when I saw the new production of The Designated Mourner at the Public Theatre in New York City. Ironically, it was the same cast and same director as in 2000. Wallace Shawn, Deborah Eisenberg and Larry Pine were all in fine form, but Andre Gregory, who directed this version, was not in sight at that performance.

Though the lavish use of words—which still flow over me like a gentle mountain stream—were the same as before, much has changed from 13 years ago. This time, the play seemed to be to more about the United States today rather than a Latin American country. Where before I never thought about the play reflecting our current life at home, this time I was obsessed with it throughout the production.

Since 9/11, so much is different. The cruel acts of third world governments in the last production easily translate to those who hold power in the U.S. today, regardless of political party. Political prisoners, government-sanctioned assassinations, domestic spying and killing those who write objectionable material no longer seems so far fetched here at home.

The audience also has changed. Many didn’t “get” the play and left at intermission. A man next to me said “the words are too dense.” Wallace Shawn has always been an acquired taste, but his language is rich, thoughtful and flows with a magical quality. He is one of the best playwrights working today. Yet, in today’s video-centric culture, his brand of playwriting may be beyond the range of many younger people in the audience. It’s sad, but the evidence was everywhere last night.

Shawn, as the narrator and husband of one of a group of intellectuals who are eventually all killed by the state, searches for a reason for the cruelty that man inflicts on his perceived enemies. He finally gives up, saying:

“After a while I just concluded there wasn’t any hope—an important insight. Was there anything, then, that I could expect to achieve in the coming years. Well, perhaps I could somehow train my mind to focus less compulsively on terrifying images of death and disease. Perhaps I could learn how to pass more easily from one moment to the next, the way the monkey, our ancestor, shifts so easily along from branch to branch as he follows the high road through the forest at night.

“Let me learn how to repose in the quiet shade of a nice square of chocolate, a nice slice of cake. A delicious cup of tea isn’t, perhaps, that hard to come by; the trick to be learned is just not to think of other things when you drink it.”

Going to the theatre in a taxi last night, I noticed a video camera aimed square in my face. It brought home the fact that we are now being recorded everywhere. The government reads our e-mails and even our snail mail. We no longer have any privacy and our freedoms are being eroded at a rapid rate.

So how do those of us who grew up in a more open time handle this vast intrusion of privacy by an all-powerful state? Shawn offers one piece of advice in the last line of the play. Perhaps he’s right—at least it’s a way to preserve our sanity in a losing situation.

“I sat on the beach for a very long time, lost—sunk deep—in the experience of unbelievable physical pleasure, maybe the greatest pleasure we can know on this earth—the sweet, ever-changing caress of an early evening breeze.”

I highly recommend The Designated Mourner. It’s a compelling theatrical event. It demands the total attention of the audience. Don’t expect light entertainment or you’ll be disappointed.

Telling the Truth Is No Longer the Top Priority in Journalism

I graduated debt-free from journalism school in 1968 at a time when there were plenty of jobs and some great opportunities in the news business. I was lucky enough to work at some prestigious news organizations, including United Press International, Post-Newsweek, Gannett and the Miami Herald.

In every one of those news jobs, accuracy in reporting was priority number one. At UPI, it was very simple. Make a major error in a story that’s released nationally and you were fired. There were no ifs, ands or buts. Rules like that kept you on your toes.

Yes, you also had to be quick. But not so fast that you made mistakes. You were judged on a combination of both speed and accuracy. But accuracy was always the most important part of the job.

It’s clear that’s no longer true. Just in the past week, the New York Post got the Boston Marathon bombing story so wrong on so many counts it was hard to believe. They reported that 12 people had died, when only three had. They reported that a Saudi man was a suspect being held “in custody” when that wasn’t true.

And, perhaps worst of all, they put pictures of two young men on the front page that turned out not to be the bombers. The newspaper admitted not knowing whether the men were even suspects. One of those young people was 17 years old and told other reporters that he was afraid to leave his home after the Post printed his picture.

Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns the paper, should have been outraged—but he was not. He argued that the picture was “instantly” withdrawn when the mistake was known. He did not explain how one instantly withdraws a printed front page from the streets.

Television news networks are equally notorious for errors. When astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, died, NBC incorrectly called him Neil Young, the musician. That’s what happens when networks rely on 20-something staffers who don’t know their history.

We are all aware that few journalism jobs are left and most pay very little. In fact, I was paid far more in the early 1970s than most journalists make today. Make no mistake, it’s that downsizing of jobs and salaries and journalistic standards that leads to the mistakes and errors we see so often today.

At least most news organizations try to be accurate. Others have a different agenda, which complicates the picture further. Networks like Murdoch’s Fox News present a clearly right-wing agenda—not one based on genuine attempts at truth and accuracy. Too many people believe this is actual news.

Yet, the politicization of journalism seems to be getting worse. Charles and David Koch, the notorious supporters of far right-wing causes, are said to be exploring the purchase of the Tribune Company, which owns 23 television stations and eight newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.

These men, who finance favored political candidates, are not journalists or even interested in objective reporting. The New York Times reported a source saying the Koch brothers often say “they see the conservative voice as not being well represented” in the news media. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see what these financiers are up to.

“It’s a frightening scenario when a free press is actually a bought and paid-for press and it can happen on both sides,” Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog group, told the New York Times.

Journalism is not just in a poor financial state these days. It is in a moral crisis as well. The old standards of truth and accuracy in news reporting have been thrown out the window. The Internet, which has empowered everyone as a citizen “journalist,” has not helped. The day is quickly coming when truly independent journalists will have to work on their own.

Just as members of Congress are under the control of money, now the same has happened to journalism. It’s a sad day indeed for accurate, truthful reporting.

Fox and CNN Get the Supreme Court Ruling Wrong

It is remarkable to me how people continue to watch, defend and put up with the sorry state of television news.

When I worked at United Press International in the 1970s, we had very difficult desegregation busing decisions that required quick, but thorough analysis. If I had gotten a decision wrong on the UPI wire, I would have been fired then and there. That’s no longer the case.

Both Fox News and CNN got the story flat wrong. In their rush to get the news out, coupled with their built-in bias as to what the decision would be, both networks initially reported that the Supreme Court had struck down the law’s individual mandate. Of course they were wrong, because the opposite actually happened.

“The mandate is gone,” Shannon Bream, a Fox News correspondent, announced at 10:08 a.m. as a graphic flashed on the screen that called it unconstitutional. A moment later, one of the Fox anchors, Megyn Kelly, cautioned that Bream might be wrong.

“We’re getting conflicting information,” Kelly said, while reading from Scotus blog, an a web site about the court. Citing the blog, she accurately told viewers that “the individual mandate is surviving as a tax.”

At the same time on CNN, relaying information from a producer, Bill Mears, on the phone inside the court building, a correspondent, Kate Bolduan, said, “It appears as if the Supreme Court justices have struck down the individual mandate.”

“Wow,” said Wolf Blitzer, the anchor, who immediately said that if the court had indeed done what she had said, it would be a setback for President Obama and the Democratic Party. Despite his qualified words, a banner on the screen read, “Supreme Ct. Kills Individual Mandate.” The mistake lingered for six minutes — well after other television networks and news outlets had reported that the opposite was true.

Editors and producers at several organizations said they would emphasize accuracy over speed in any coverage of the decision, lest they risk being wrong. But today news organizations hire amateur reporters at low pay scales and expect them to have the skill to report accurately. Fox was even taking information from a blog, not first-hand reporting. This was absolute proof of the low state of TV news.

“CNN regrets that it didn’t wait to report out the full and complete opinion regarding the mandate,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. “We made a correction within a few minutes and apologize for the error.”

Fox News did not issue an apology. In a statement, Michael Clemente, a Fox executive, said flatly, “Fox reported the facts as they came in.” Clemente should be fired for his arrogance, much less his incompetence.

Even the President of the United States, watching like much of the nation, was fooled by the bad reporting. He, of all people, should have known better.

That’s the difference in news today. It should be strong proof that television coverage is unreliable and amateur at best. Turn them off is my advice.

The Death of Levon Helms Leaves a Huge Void in Americana Music

The loss of Levon Helm is devastating. He was an American icon. "A drummer who could make you cry," his own bandmates said.

I feel so lucky to have experienced so many of his concerts and to have visited his home in Woodstock, New York to attend a Midnight Ramble. It was one of the best experiences one can have today in music.

Audiences were invited to Levon’s "Barn,” which was actually a performance space and recording studio attached to Levon’s home. There is plenty of seating and a cozy fireplace to keep warm in the winter. Levon’s dog, Muddy, often greeted guests.

The Midnight Ramble Sessions were based on the southern medicine shows of Levon’s youth. Since they began in 2004, Levon has invited some of the most notable blues entertainers and musicians of the era to perform at his home. I have no idea if the Rambles will continue, but I know they will not be the same without Levon.

To one of the great musicians of this era and a man who gave me hours of pleasure, I can only say rest in peace.

Here, on January 15, 2011, a line waits to get into Levon’s Ramble on a snowy night. Photo by Frank Beacham.