Frank Beacham's Journal

Possibility Junkie, a New Musical That Targets the Artistic Process

We live in an era of magnified perceptions. For many Americans not in the glorified, hyper-wealthy one percent, this is a time of diminished possibilities and loss of hope. David Ippolito and Gretchen Cryer precisely target those perceptions in a magnificent new play, Possibility Junkie. They hit a slam dunk home run!

Possibility Junkie is a timely look at how we frame our lives and our definition of success in a culture where corporate media and propaganda portrayed as “news” is bombarding us from every direction with constant lies—usually based on fear. It’s tough to create a fulfilling life in an environment where everyone around you worships money and judges every endeavor by how much of a profit it generates.

Yet, that’s what artists do, creating their work while at the same time reflecting a mirror on the foibles of the cultural condition around them. David Ippolito, the central character in this play, is an independent singer-songwriter who has gained a huge following as a troubadour in Central Park for the past 20 years. David is the real deal and this is his inspiring story. I have known David for a decade, watched his work develop and witnessed his struggles in trying to live an honest, artistic life.

There are two key lines in the play. The first is “Keep Hope Alive” and the second is the title, “Possibility Junkie.” Both came from the late Sid Bernstein, the man who brought the Beatles and many other bands to America in the 1960s. Bernstein found David singing in Central Park 15 years ago and they became friends. Sid died at age 95 last August 21. 

In the play, Bernstein’s character is “Burn,” an elderly wise man played beautifully by Rob Barnes, a veteran Broadway actor and singer. Barnes was in the original Broadway casts of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. Having known Sid as well, I can attest that Barnes carries much of Bernstein in his character.

 

Rob Barnes and David Ippolito

The plot of Possibility Junkie centers around a right wing commentator on FAX News (loosely based on FOX, though it’s hard me to even call it “news.”) David does a song about him in Central Park and a fan records it on video. The video is put on YouTube and goes viral. The FAX commentator, Sean Kilroy (played by Joel H. Jones), gets angry and tries to do David in.

He uses his stunningly attractive assistant, Ainsley Louis (played by Jillian Louis), to spy on David and secretly video tape him, trying to get any kind dirt possible. David falls for Ainsley, a walking, singing bombshell, only to find himself and his friend, Burn, betrayed by her ambitions to get her own TV show.

Jillian Louis and Joel H. Jones

Possibility Junkie is an inspiring musical with songs not just written for this play, but written for over 20 years from the heart by David Ippolito. It all melds together in what I don’t lightly call Ippolito’s masterpiece. His “The Last Protest Song” toward the end brought tears to my eyes. With this play, David has now transitioned from being a talented singer and songwriter to being a creator of musical theatre. This is an ideal new format for him.

The expert hand of Gretchen Cryer is also evident in this production. An earlier theatrical presentation by David was too loose and talky, with David ad-libbing each night. That’s gone in this production, no doubt the work of Cryer in co-writing the book and directing the production. Cryer, the mother of television actor Jon Cryer, co-wrote the classic, I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It On The Road. She has David acting loose, but he’s far more precise in his presentation this time.

In fact, there wasn’t a weak player in this excellent cast of actors and singers—featuring in addition to Ippolito and Barnes—J.C. Hall (a terrific hip-hop artist), Joel H. Jones, Jillian Louis, Teresa Reynolds and Vanessa Theus. Music direction was by Mike Murray, with some musicians—especially mandolin player Chris Tedesco—joining the cast dancing on the main stage while playing.

Heather Wolensky’s set design was also unique, featuring actual moving image backdrops of where David plays in Central Park. The various video segments plugged into the play seamlessly. It was “virtual set” technology well used in the story. The choreography by David Eggers is also excellent.

A story that Sid Bernstein once told me came ringing back as I watched Possibility Junkie in a packed house on its opening night. Noting that he had found the Beatles in Liverpool in the 1960s, Sid said he hoped one day he could give Liverpool a gift from America. That gift, he told me, would be David Ippolito. “David’s got it,” Sid said, “and they would love him over there.”

Sid never got the chance to promote David in Liverpool, but the man—who also brought The Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, The Moody Blues and The Kinks to the United States—had an insanely good eye for talent.

Possibility Junkie runs through Oct. 20 at the Theatre for the New City at 155 First Ave in New York City.

 

David Ippolito with the real Sid Bernstein

Photo by Frank Beacham

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.

Beware! Much of Local TV News is Fake!

You probably didn’t know it, but much of the local television news you see is produced by corporations and not journalists. Stories are made to look like news, but they are actually disguised commercials trying to sell you something.

The practice is also perfectly legal, if the station buries the info about the fake reporting at the end of the newscast during the fast-moving credits. Otherwise, it could face a $10,000 fine.

This issue has been going on a long time. But don’t expect to hear about it on your local news.

A few years ago, several public interest groups complained to the Federal Communications Commission that television news operations were including commercial content in newscasts disguised as news. Now, the FCC is reacting, proposing a new regulation that would require all broadcast stations to disclose on the Internet all corporate interests behind their news content.

The FCC has determined that TV newscasts are increasingly seeded with corporate advertising masquerading as news, though the news program is portrayed as the work of independent journalists. Increasingly, paying companies are shaping news coverage at broadcast stations.

The FCC would change the rule from disclosure in the closing credits to making television stations maintain a public file managed online by the FCC. This way it will be easier to track fake news.

A recent Washington Post article documented a live interview segment in which a seemingly neutral reviewer recommended a series of products that the “reviewer” had been paid by sponsors to mention.

The newspaper also said television stations across the country have brokered “exclusive” relationships with local hospitals in which the hospitals pay the station to be featured in health stories. Other stations, the Post reported, have aired “news” programs that feature interviews with sponsors who’ve paid for the privilege.

The FCC said many television stations use “video news releases,” which is lookalike news footage produced by a sponsor or corporate interest that appears to be shot and edited by the station.

We have always said it is best not to watch or pay attention to local news at all. There has never been real “news” there to start with. But, if you watch, beware that you may be watching corporate commercials. Nothing in our culture is as it appears to be. So turn off the damn box.

Dan Rather: Money Owns News Today

On November 22, Dan Rather received the Committee to Protect Journalists' Burton Benjamin Memorial Award for 2011 at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. What follows is the speech he gave upon accepting the prestigious award. It is well worth reading by anyone who consumes today's news.

One of Bud Benjamin's dreams was to expand the CBS Evening News to a full hour. And Bud wasn't thinking of filling it with helicopter shots, celebrity gossip and punditry. He imagined an entire hour brimming with investigative reporting, exposés and dispatches from around the world.

It was a different time in journalism. A time when professional duty was patriotic, and the freedom of the press motivated and inspired newsrooms. I know it is hard to believe - but it's true - newsrooms were not supposed to turn a profit. Frankly, news was considered an acceptable loss on the balance sheet.

To keep our FCC license and the public trust, we had to use the public's airwaves in the public interest. Yes, that's a whole lot of "public." But that's the way it was. It's the way it should be again.

Today, how we look and how we "present" information has become far more important than how we gather it. It's upside down and backwards. And, the worst part is ... we have gotten used to it.

The caretakers of the Fourth Estate have, at times, left the building unattended. Public interest be damned.

It was Thomas Jefferson who noted in 1799 that, "Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light."

Jefferson trusted the press - not to stir up heat, but to deliver insight.

Of course freedom of the press and of speech both come with pitfalls. People can peddle opinions as if they were facts. Those armed with the big, expensive megaphones drown out those blowing whistles.

But now, we see our fellow citizens taking to the streets. And, that my friends, is our cue to get back to work. As the People of our nation begin rising up, they expect the business of news to be about inquiry and accountability.

And, luckily for us, we can still do that ... but it may not be within the confines of big corporate media. As you know, we are living in an age when big money owns everything ... including the news.

That cash bought a lot of silence for a long time. Enough time for unchecked power to get this country tangled into messes all around the world. We all know that money talks. But, so do the people. They tire of conflicts at home and abroad ... conflicts that avert our eyes from the corruption and callowness that does little more than spill our blood and misspend our treasure.
"We had fed the heart on fantasies," wrote William Butler Yeats, "the heart's grown brutal from the fare."

In other words, we have gotten used to it.

What happens to a country when the press helps divide people into Us and Them? When it fans the flames of conflict and calls it reporting?

We need to restore, at some point, the teaching of the craft of journalism. The best way to protect journalists is to teach them how to do journalism and, therefore, protect themselves from becoming irrelevant.

I am reminded of the finest speech I ever heard on the subject of television journalism. It was given by Ed Murrow in 1958.

Murrow said, "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But, it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends ... otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box."

Dear friends, we must untangle the wires from the lights. We must halt the steady decline of broadcast journalism and the endless compromises to the boardroom.

Some say it is too late. That Congress wrote our epitaph in 1996 when they all came together and passed the Telecommunications Deregulation Act. Since then, the lights in a box have gotten brighter and flashier ... but the truth dimmer and dimmer.

And ... we have gotten used to it.

The late, great Molly Ivins used to tell a story about what happens when fear grips a country. Molly liked to tell the story about her late friend, the celebrated Texas civil libertarian John Henry Faulk, who, as a boy of six, went with his seven-year-old friend, Boots Cooper, to rid the family henhouse of a harmless chicken snake. From its high perch, the boys found themselves eyeball to eyeball with the snake.

Growing up in Texas, it's not uncommon to see a chicken snake ... but being close enough to spit in the snake's eye must have been quite disconcerting.

As Molly would tell the story, the two boys ran out of the henhouse so fast they nearly tore off the henhouse door ... not to mention doing damage to themselves in the process. When Faulk's mother reminded the boys that chicken snakes are not dangerous, Boots Cooper responded, "Yes, ma'am, but some things will scare you so bad, you'll hurt yourself."

That is what we have been subject to as a country. We have been so afraid; so hell bent on destroying enemies ... both foreign and domestic ... we have hurt ourselves and our democracy.
You are probably asking yourself now what you should do.

Well, it may take courage.

There are so many wrongs to make right, it is going to get messier before it gets better.

• We have to begin asking the hard questions once again.

• We have to demand and earn back the respect that gave us the right to ask them.

• We must protect whistleblowers by using our megaphones to make their risky admissions even louder.

• We must demand access to all those risking their lives to challenge power.

• We must refuse to simply read press releases and rely on official sources.

• And we must begin to enforce our own professional code of ethics. Refuse to compromise. Going along to get along is getting us nowhere.

Tonight, if I can convince you of anything, it is to buck the current system. Remember anew that you are a public servant and your business is protecting the public from harm. Even if those doing harm also pay your salary.

To once again quote Ed Murrow, "There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference ... this weapon of television could be useful."

And wouldn't it be great if our country could get used to that.

Some Thoughts on “What’s Next” for Occupy Wall Street

The past week has been an exciting time in New York City. We have seen a popular uprising grow and expand—aided by a tin-eared billionaire mayor and a violent and over-zealous police department dedicated to protecting the wealthy. As with many of the dictators that have fallen around the world recently, these New York officials are as lost and isolated as Gadhafi was in Lybia or Mubarak in Egypt.

There is a global trend at work and it’s in reaction to the huge and growing disparities in wealth and political power throughout the world. Today’s government leaders have hit bottom—enabling and supporting a culture of shallow commercialism, intellectual bankruptcy, corporate corruption and phoniness in everyday life that is crushing ordinary people. 

Honest, objective news media has evaporated, entertainment is becoming no more than corporate-created fluff and public education has come down to brainwashing a generation that the best life offers are financial deals that make money. 

Art, music and the creating of anything that enhances human life is minimized in today’s over-commercialized culture. All that matters in the short term is a soul-killing chase for bucks and the drudge work that usually goes with it. 

Today, the rich actually “make” very little. Manufacture of goods is done offshore at poverty wages. The wealthy today essentially create shady schemes to shift money around and charge the masses for their efforts. Those that aren’t devious enough to find success at that—and that is most of us—are left out.

I, for one, am sick of it. I want a different life. I want different values. I want out of a system that has created fiendish values and meaningless work that pays little and does nothing but enhance the lies perpetrated by the wealthy drones and the two political parties.

So what’s next? I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. It is clear that both the Democrats and Republicans offer zero for the future. Both parties are bankrupt of ideas and controlled by lobbyists for the wealthy or right-wing whackos that are now self-destructing.

Before this election cycle, I would have said that third parties had little chance of getting elected in the United States. But times change and I think the day has arrived that a third-party candidate could be elected president. I also believe that most Americans side with Occupy Wall Street, despite what fraudulent institutions like “Fox News” or its pundits say.

The problem is who would run? It would be need to a strong, Ralph Nader-like progressive. Elizabeth Warren comes to mind, though she is already running for the Senate in Massachusetts.

I came out of the 1960s and realize the major fight ahead is for a younger generation. For so long I worried they didn’t care or weren’t energized. Now that has changed and the corrupt power structure has done all the right things to magnify their efforts throughout the world. This now must be translated to political action that can have a lasting effect in the world. The street protests are fine, but the movement needs to grow.

What’s needed is a presidential candidate with all the charisma of a Barack Obama, but this time with the spine to carry the things out that need to be done and not collapse to the interests of the wealthy and special interests. We also need progressive members of Congress to support this new president. That's a big order, but the time is certainly right.

Another Night of Victory for Daniel Ortega—This Time in 1979

   
Reading that Daniel Ortega is heading for a third term as president of Nicaragua brings back memories of a very unusual night in 1979—when I, and other reporters—ate rice and drank Johnnie Walker Red into the wee hours with the future president in a dark, candlelit bar at Managua’s InterContinental Hotel.

Earlier that day, July 17, Nicaragua's longtime leader, Gen. Anastasio Somoza Debayle, was overthrown after an insurrection led by the FSLN, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a group whose leaders included Ortega. Earlier, Somoza had left the country, flying to exile in Miami.

Rebels were shooting in the air and the celebrations, though dangerous, were going on in the streets. I had been eating cans of tuna fish seemingly for days—there was no food to be had—and had just returned from a tour of Gen. Somoza’s “safe house,” where cans of caviar were ripped open and tossed across the room.

In an earlier time, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, I had shared a couple of beers with General Somoza during an outdoor party for the astronauts at the Cocoa Beach Holiday Inn. He seemed like a pleasant enough guy, on his best behavior for a visit to the United States. I didn’t know how dictators operated back then. 

I was at the Intercontinental Hotel during the revolution for NBC News and walking down a stairwell when I ran into Ortega, an exuberant young 34-year-old leader of the rebellion. I had met Ortega earlier, while shooting video of the Sandinistas in the jungles as they approached Managua. The tension of the earlier days was missing—this time Ortega was relaxed and gleeful. 

There may have been no food or electricity in the hotel, but the cheerful Ortega, who spoke perfect English, invited me and other members of the press to join him for some newly discovered booze and rice in the hotel bar. Now, he was a different man, one about to take hold of the reigns of power.

That night he was jubilant and everyone’s best friend. Born poor, his parents had been opposed to Somoza. His mother was imprisoned by the National Guard. Two of his brothers died in combat. He, himself, was arrested at age 15 for political activities, and became an early member of the FSLN. 

During his imprisonment, Ortega was severely tortured. After his release, he was exiled to Cuba, where he received several months of guerrilla training. He later returned to Nicaragua secretly.

That night, at least, Ortega told of the good things he would do for his long exploited people. At the time, the things he said made me feel good. I saw hope for this poor country.  He was a friendly, very articulate man, not someone I could comprehend to be a killer. But, in Latin America, I have since learned, nothing is as it seemed.

Ortega went on the be in a five-person Junta of National Reconstruction, the only member from the FSLN. Soon, President Ronald Reagan accused the FSLN of joining Soviet-based Cuba in supporting Marxist revolutionary movements in Latin America. Reagan and company authorized the CIA to begin financing and arming rebels, who were known as the Contras. Some of the Contras were former officers from Somoza's National Guard.            

This turned out to be one of the largest political scandals in U.S. history—the Iran Contra Affair—when Oliver North and several members of the Reagan administration defied an amendment to sell arms to Iran, and then used the proceeds to fund the Contras. Between 1980 and 1989, over 30,000 Nicaraguans died in the conflict between the Sandinista government and the Contras. 

In the 1984 general election, Ortega won the presidency with 67 percent of the vote and took office on January 10, 1985. Now 65, Ortega appears to have won his third term, though not consecutive. More than 600 complaints of voting irregularities have emerged so far.

The New York Times reported that Ortega proved to be a shrewd political strategist. He adopted policies aimed at pleasing his base of poor and working-class Nicaraguans, including supplying them with government-donated food. At the same time, he actively reached out to independents and conservative business leaders with his free-market approach to the economy.

Much of his support, the newspaper reported, was due to an alliance with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, which brought about $2 billion to the Nicaraguan economy over the past several years. If Ortega makes it this time, he becomes the first president in Nicaragua’s modern history to serve three terms. 

As I look back to that time, I have mixed feelings and one genuine souvenir. When I entered Nicaragua, my passport was stamped with General Somoza’s government insignia.  When I left a couple of weeks later, a line was crossed through the stamp and the letters FSLN were written with a magic marker.  The new government hadn’t had time to make up new emigration stamps yet.

Information Without Knowledge

Information everywhere. We are drowning in it. We are assured that information is wealth. To succeed in the new economy, we are told, we must be connected.

Why then—with so much information—are we in an age of such unenlightenment? Why is virtually any idea of substance "dumbed down" for public consumption? Why is instant gratification so important to so many of us?

Easy access to information, it would seem on the surface, should be leading to a better educated, more knowledgeable population. So why is it that as information technology improves, most people move down, not up, the knowledge chain?

Some answers to these questions emerged from a symposium where a group of major American artists tried to grapple with creative issues facing them in the age of digital media. The session, called "Digital Expression," was held at the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Peter Sellars, a director of theater, opera and film, offered some insight on modern information overload.

Hundreds of years ago, Sellars said, people in search of knowledge went on personal pilgrimages for information. The process, he said, could take years. By not having the information easily available, there was experience attached to the search that made the finding of the information far more meaningful to the recipient.

"The actual act of finding something had value," he said. "It was a beautiful thing because when you found something it meant something.

"Now we are getting all this information with no experience attached to it," Sellars continued. "Where there is no pilgrimage the information itself is debased, devalued and dehumanized. In a sense the ratio of experience to information content is radically altered today. What's irritating about the age of information is that it creates this yuppie denial of experience. We have everything at our fingertips but we don't value anything."

Unlike some others attending the symposium, Sellars embraced the "untamed quality" of the current Internet structure because it allows the user to wander and discover information through his or her own personal experience. 

"To just meander is one of the pleasures of life," Sellars said. "To have the user making wrong turns through the information is exactly the point. That's where the juice is."

Today's mass media, said Sellars, reflects only a single voice, not the broad range of human experience. "You get the feeling that huge parts of human experience are going undocumented and unrecognized. A very narrow group of people are creating this insane (communications) gridlock," he said. "We are aware there are many, many voices that we don't hear today at all. The CBS Evening News represents only one voice."

Artists, he said, "must break out of the official information structure" to find new ways to express important subjects that mainstream media refuses to address.

"Aristotle wrote about the attempts to touch the totality of an experience," said Sellars. "As human beings, we are complex, divided and multilayered. Therefore, what satisfies us is complex, multilayered and has all these built-in conflicts just as we do. How do with set up (new media) structures that show how we really feel?"

The issue of experience was also addressed by the actress Jane Alexander.  She embraced information technology as an important artist's tool but was clearly troubled by those who would use it as a substitute for experiencing reality.

"Seeing the Mona Lisa on a compact disc is not the same as seeing the real thing," she said. "Hearing 'If I Had A Hammer' on your computer speakers is not the same as hearing Pete Seeger singing it. There is no way to actually create live theater in a box or a game.

"The whole point about virtual reality is that it is virtually real, not really real," Alexander continued. "Technology cannot replace the seeing, the hearing and the experiencing of art. It doesn't replicate the doing of art. There's a big difference between a paint brush and a canvas and a mouse and a screen."

Perhaps one of the significant lessons we'll one day learn from this computer era is that information should never be confused with knowledge. Having instant access to all the world's databanks has little to do with genuine cultural progress.

Despite all the information age hype, the real information—the information that matters in life—comes only when we as human beings are ready to open ourselves to accept it. For most of us, this comes through living life, acquiring personal experience and searching for knowledge out of genuine curiosity.

---

(I wrote this column in October of 1994. I was reminded of it last night in a discussion about younger people who often use the Internet to substitute information (say from Wikipedia) for genuine knowledge. When I re-read it, it seemed as timely as ever. When it was written, Jane Alexander was chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts.)

The Problem with the FCC (and Today’s Broadcast Media) in a Nutshell

Another nondescript federal bureaucrat has moved from the government to being a lobbyist. Who cares, right?  Well, in this — as in so many cases — such a seemingly small event equals far bigger results that affect us all.

This bureaucrat’s name is Meredith Attwell Baker. She’s a Republican member of the FCC. In January, she voted to approve the merger of Comcast with NBCU. It was a terrible media consolidation deal—one that sold out President Obama’s 2008 campaign promise for change in the way such media transactions against the public interest are handled.

Now, Baker has announced that she will soon go to work for the newly enlarged Comcast. She will be senior vice president for government affairs for NBC Universal. Yes, there are rules against lobbying certain people in such moves and Baker says she will abide by them. But we’ll never know, will we?  Thanks to mergers like these, there's very little news media left to watch such matters. 

Of course, the rule should have prevented her from even being hired by someone she regulated, but that would have closed a major loophole. Remember, this is not REAL government reform — only the kind that looks good on TV.

Baker is a former Commerce Department official who worked on telecommunications issues in George W. Bush’s administration. The revolving door between government and the lobbyists who seek to influence public policy and legislation on behalf of companies or other organizations was a target of “reform” by President Obama even before he took office.

During the 2008 campaign, he vowed to “close the revolving door” and “clean up both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue” with “the most sweeping ethics reform in history.”

Didn’t happen, did it?  Of course not. 

Fortunately, the announcement drew immediate criticism from those who had opposed the Comcast-NBCU merger. Craig Aaron, the president and chief executive of Free Press, called the move “just the latest, though perhaps most blatant, example of a so-called public servant cashing in at a company she is supposed to be regulating.”

“No wonder the public is so nauseated by business as usual in Washington, where the complete capture of government by industry barely raises any eyebrows,” Aaron said. “The continuously revolving door at the FCC continues to erode any prospects for good public policy.”

Baker issued statements about her departure through both the FCC and Comcast, but did not address the real issues involving her outrageous move. I guess she just expects it to disappear into the huge void that is now the government-lobbyist landscape.

Sadly, the man President Obama nominated to change the FCC has also been co-opted. Not only did Julius Genachowski, the FCC chairman, vote for the Comcast-NBCU merger, but he actually praised Baker. “She’s made our decisions smarter and our policies better,” Genachowski said. “I wish her well in her new role at NBC Universal.”

Only one FCC commissioner, Michael J. Copps, who voted against the Comcast-NBCU merger, expressed surprise at Baker’s departure. Copps has lobbied hard and intelligently against media consolidation. But he is only one man and one voice. Worse yet, he's in his final term on the FCC. 

This should be a scandal. But it’s not. Sadly, it’s business as usual today. It’s a good example of what went wrong with the United States and why we'll probably never come back.

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Postscript...

After Baker tried to avoid making a public statement about the ethics of her new job, the heat apparently got to her. “Not once in my entire tenure as a commissioner had anyone at Comcast or NBC Universal approached me about potential employment,” she said in a statement. “When this opportunity became available in mid-April, I made a personal decision that I wanted to give it serious consideration.”

She said she sought advice from the general counsel of the FCC and, on April 18, recused herself from any matters involving Comcast or NBC Universal. “I have not only complied with the legal and ethical laws, but I also have gone further,” Baker said. “I have not participated or voted any item, not just those related to Comcast or NBC Universal, since entering discussions about an offer of potential employment.”

Her other “friends” in Washington continue to defend her. Gordon Smith, president of the National Association of Broadcasters, the nation’s top broadcast lobby group, said Baker has “a winning combination of integrity, intellect and experience” and noted that her “in-depth knowledge of broadcast issues” will make her a key player at Comcast-NBCU.

This outrageous situation gets even more sinister as the key players—unaware of their own ethical deficiencies—dig deeper holes for themselves. Baker may have squeaked by the legalities, but certainly not the ethics of going to work for Comcast-NBCU only four months after voting to approve the controversial merger. For Smith to say she has “integrity” only shows his own lack of ethical boundaries. As a lobbyist now, he was a former Republican senator involved with communications issues in the Senate. 

There can be no clearer example of the pure corruption that exists in government and why the public is damned in all mergers so detrimental to the public interest. It would be hard for these gray suited grafters to sink any lower.

Rockefeller’s Rant Against Television and the Dumbing Down of America

I love it when the truth accidentally slips out of a politician’s mouth. That happened this week when Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Democrat from West Virginia, unleashed a tirade on the dismal state of American television.

His audience was a group of broadcasters and cable TV executives at a Senate hearing—a prime group to lecture and publicly embarrass. Rockefeller began by addressing the quality of their programming. 

As to entertainment, he said: “It’s a race to the bottom.” 

As to news, he argued, they are a public disgrace and should be put out of business. 

"Rather than having a watchdog, the public is subjected to the "endless barking" of the 24-hour news cycle from media "ravenous for the next rumor but insufficiently hungry for the facts that nourish Democracy," he said.

He cited the executives as partly responsible for "the dumbing down of America."

"There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox and to MSNBC: 'Out. Off. End. Goodbye.' It would be a big favor to political discourse."

Rockefeller said he hates both the Fox "News" Channel and MSNBC. If it were up to him, Rockefeller added, neither one of them would be allowed to exist. He bemoaned that the sort of news delivered by anchors at MSNBC and said Fox impedes "our ability to do our work here in Congress."

"I hunger for quality news," Rockefeller said. "I’m tired of the right and the left."

Hard to argue with any of that. The whole "right" and "left" delineations are so phony and obsolete. They mean nothing and were tired a decade ago. But they are still used to divide people.

One can, of course, do what I did years ago: Turn the damn television set off. Yes, it dumbs you down to their level and contributes to the mass stupidity we watched in the recent election. And you save on a whopping cable bill. Though Rockefeller was just blowing smoke, he was dead right.