I Am Not Alone — More About Truth

Nobody has written to me on this subject, but there is evidence out there on the Internet that I am not alone in bemoaning the erosion, if not outright loss, of truth in our public discourse. Bulldog Reporter, self-described as “The Leading Source of PR Views, News and Tools,” has a section called Daily ‘Dog, in which, on December 9th, there appeared a piece titled Is Truth the New Pink? How PR Can Bring Integrity Back into Fashion. Here’s the sub-head followed by the first two paragraphs of the piece written by Aaron D. Cushman:

Veteran publicist says the media’s waning credibility poses new challenges to PR’s ability to reach the public while also presenting an opportunity to help raise standards.

Truth is no longer fashionable. Our great country that has enjoyed its lofty position of righteousness is in the throes of losing the international public relations battle. Our nation’s reputation is suffering—thanks to unilaterally abandoning international treaties, militarily becoming an invader and occupier, and more recently, having its government leadership (like Senator Tom DeLay, Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff and a certain California congressman) pleading guilty to accepting bribes and kick-backs and allegedly lying to grand juries.

It’s become an infectious disease that has, in the past decade, infiltrated the media. Once pillars of the publication industry, media outlets such as CBS, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Cincinnati Inquirer are but a few who have acknowledged staff errors and misdeeds.

Incompatible Quotes? Stage or Soapbox?

From time to time the Rifftides staff posts compatible quotes, like these and these.

Today I offer two potentially incompatible quotes:

A lot of people are singing about how screwed up the world is, and I don’t think that everybody wants to hear about that all the time. — Mariah Carey

Country music is three chords and the truth. — Harlan Howard

If pushed to choose between country music and anything by Mariah, I’ll pick country, even when it does have only three chords. But that’s another story.

To me, these quotations imply a question: arts as refuge or arts as an expression of the world? Ideally it can, and should, be both. Any artform, whether expressing pain or passion, should touch the soul and transport the viewer/listener to a world beyond his or her own immediate realm. Such transportation is, to me, a refuge. Not to say that all works of art succeed, but those with a capital A do, and all others should strive to do so. If they do not make the attempt, then perhaps they are not artistic endeavors, but commercial ones.

The question of artists speaking out raises another issue, one about which I have ambilvalent feelings. Should artists use the stage as their soapbox? Certainly my bravo for Mr. Pinter’s remarks might lead you to think I’m in favor, but I’m not always so appreciative when I attend a concert and the musicians make lengthy political speeches. Why? Because I came (and paid) to hear the music and see the show. I want the art to speak to me, not the artist. Having saids that, I am not adverse to performers making brief comments as they introduce their works or tell an occassional joke, even if that comment is ‘political’ in nature. After all, they are leaders of a sort for their fans and it is fitting that they use their influence. Personally, I’d prefer they find means to do so off-stage, through interviews and/or participation in public events. Mr. Pinter was asked to make a speech and so he did; that was appropriate. When artists make speeches during a show, particularly the presentation of a non-verbal art, it should be short, and relevant to the performance.

This is just a my personal opinion. What do you think?

I’ve Got Mail: Friends Disagree

My friend who’s Just Muttering disagrees with me about Pinter’s diatribe. She wrote in an email:

About Pinter, I hope you don’t mind if I disagree? I don’t think America is as manipulative nor as heinous nor as nasty as he says. Not to mention who is he to be so smug and all-knowing, anyway. I was surprised by your “bravo” cuz agreeing wouldn’t necessarily mean championing the tone.

I’d agree with her easily if I thought that America was “we the people,” but sadly I don’t think we people have any say anymore. We vote for laws that never get put into practice, and ever since the last two presidential elections I have serious reservations about the process of tallying of votes anyway. George Bush doesn’t act for the good of the majority of the people, so in my view he doesn’t represent us, but the world sees him as “America” and his policies, not to mention his attitudes (talk about smug), have seriously hurt our country’s reputation all over the world. I think it is a good thing for people of stature to speak out when given an international platform. In fact, I think it is absolutely necessary. And that goes double for the media, which is what I was getting at with my post about Mike Wallace.

Chaos – Part 3

Sorry I’m late. I was without power for most of the day as the renovation process necessitated turning off the one circuit that connects me to the internet via cable modem. At left you have the state of the household as of the end of week three; at right was taken at the end of week four. Remember, this was slated to be a two-week job. Okay, everyone told me to multiply everything times 4 — the time and the cost and the number of bottles of aspirin that I would need. We’re not done yet, but I know it’s going to be worth it. We’re now at the end of week five; we’ve got some furniture back in the family room (see below) and the kitchen cabinets are finally underway. Dishware, pots and pans etc. are still in boxes, but there is light at the end of the tunnel and I am hoping that soon I will cook once again…if I remember how.



Ask Tough Questions?

Once upon a time, the media asked tough questions…and they got answers. Would that it were still so. “At 87, Wallace still tells it like it is” is the headline for Suzanne C. Ryan interview with Mike Wallace in today’s Boston Globe. She asked him what he would like to have asked George Bush had he consented to an interview. Here’s Wallace’s question:

What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn’t want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn’t have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?

But Wallace was a bit more circumspect when asked what he thought of FOX News:

Well, my son [Chris Wallace] works for them. . . . [Fox News chairman and CEO] Roger Ailes is a man I admire very much. He understood there was a market that was not being served. He was right.

Some say that with age comes the freedom to speak one’s mind, implying that the years (of presumably accumulated wisdom) have earned them the right and/or that being already established or retired they have nothing to lose.

What do you say?

Bravo, Mr. Pinter

“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.” — Harold Pinter in his Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech; Pinter spoke via video recording from London.

Blurring the Lines

MediaPost sends me emails with various news items relating to media and advertising. Todays notice included a story from Ad Age that read in part:

A half dozen morning TV shows in large markets, including Atlanta, Denver, and Cleveland, are selling on-air segments to advertisers at $2,500 a pop. The shows, which carry slightly different titles in each city, are slotted into Gannett-owned stations. And the sponsored segments, while briefly identified as being such, are designed to fit seamlessly into the programming. The shows’ standard hosts appear in the segments, which helps erode the line between normal programming and advertising. Most of the advertisers to date have been local–dentists, auto dealers, and home builders–but some regional and national advertisers are also beginning to take advantage of the unique opportunity at these Gannett stations. One, Honey Baked Ham, has purchased segments on morning chat shows in Atlanta and Colorado. Al Tompkins, of the Poynter Institute, a journalism-research school in St. Petersburg, Florida, says he is troubled by the Gannett initiative. “I understand they’re not calling this journalism,” he said, “but it looks and smells a lot like journalism” and therefore has the potential to trick consumers.

You can read the whole article here , registration is required, but it’s free.

Regular readers of DevraDoWrite will correctly guess that I find these developments troublesome; it is yet another slide down the slippery slope. This feels like a bit like a cross between product placement in movies and print advertorials that look like articles, read like feature stories, and have a teeny tiny “advertisement” notice in a margin — but this is more dangerous and deliberately duplicitous. Not only in that “it looks and smells a lot like journalism,” but by virtue of association with a TV host or anchor it implies an endorsement from someone viewers ‘trust’ and it all unfolds right there in your home. Call it trickery, manipulation, or effective marketing, the bottom line is…well, the bottom line. It is all about convincing people to spend their hard-earned ca$h. It’s not that I think people are stupid, but I do think that we are vulnerable. We look increasingly to those who can help to filter, decipher, and/or evaluate the avalanche of information that threatens to bury us daily, and this need makes us susceptible to influence from people perceived to be in-the-know and on our side.

Ban Loud Music

At left is a picture of the tee-shirt that I will NOT be buying. On the right, my edited version of said tee-shirt.

The Music Stand catalog comes in the mail several times a year, and I keep looking at the “Bach later. Offenbach sooner” doormat and Jazz Band Wall Hanging, but I have no appropriate place to put either item. Every once in a while I do order a little something, usually a funny tee-shirt for a gift, or nightshirt for myself.

Other catalogs I get a kick out of and occassionally shop in include Femail Creations and Wacky Planet.

Location, Location, Location?

So what IS the difference between stuffing and dressing? Everyone who wrote in was emphatic, but two answers are running neck in neck with no clear winner.

Half concur with this reader who wrote:

my understanding has always been that if the mixture is stuffed into a bird or meat, it’s stuffing. if it’s cooked or baked outside the “vessel” (in a pan or dish), it’s dressing!!

Note the exclamation marks.

The other half believe that the word choice is dependent on one’s geographic location within the U.S., not the location of the foodstuff vis a vis the bird.

Two people referred to an AP Wire story that said, in part:

(AP) – Is there a difference between stuffing and dressing? This recipe for a tasty sourdough, pears and sausage accompaniment bakes in a baking dish rather than being stuffed inside the Thanksgiving turkey – but what you call it depends more on where you live than how the dish is prepared.

That’s the view of the editors of Cooking Light, noted in a holiday feature in the magazine’s November issue. “Stuffing” can be stuffed into the bird or baked alongside it in a separate dish, and the same holds true for the term “dressing,” they write. “In the southern and eastern United States, people generally call it ‘dressing,’ a term that came about during the 19th century. Elsewhere, it’s referred to as ‘stuffing.”‘

One of the people who cited the AP/Cooking Light stories, a writer friend of mine in Kentucky (she’s a reporter and columnist for the Kentucky New Era), wrote:

Think of it simply this way. Stuffing goes in the bird. Dressing is cooked in a dish outside of the bird.

I know you will try to analyze this, Devra. Just remember, I was once a food editor of a small rural daily, where food is serious business. I thought I knew the answer when I read your Thanksgiving entry, but just to be careful, I “googled” the question. I found the same conclusion in an AP story and in a Cooking Light magazine article.

Another thing. Dressing is typically more popular in the South. I had cornbread dressing for my family.

She knows me well; let’s analyze. On the one hand, she concurs with the stuffing inside/dressing outside definition, and on the other she supports the Cooking Light editors who clearly say that “it depends more on where you live than how the dish is prepared.” So, here’s my conclusion: lets all just agree that location is the key, regardless as to whether you’re talking about the location in which the bread-based morsels are prepared in relationship to the bird, or the geographic location of those about to eat it.

My Kentucky reporter goes on to mention:

In Kentucky, turkey and dressing with gravy is actually served yearround at many mom-and-pop restaurants and at grocery stories that offer the classic “meat and three” lunches.

Meat and three? I assumed that the three might represent stuffing, a vegetable dish, and one extra, maybe cranberry sauce or a biscuit. Wrong! These people eat three vegetable side dishes! According to my Kentucky reporter, stuffing is considered part of the meat serving (along with the gravy), and oftentimes the meat serving contains more stuffing than meat. With that, you choose three vegetables. Sounds good to me, but I can’t eat another bite — I’m stuffed.