Journalism had been, was and still is in the throes of a radical makeover and to this day I don’t think anyone really knows what the thing is going to look like whenever this transitional era is over (if it ever ends…but that’s another story). What was clear at that time was the big traditional news organizations were losing their audience, clout and in the desperate search for a way forward, often their purpose. The local television station where I had worked first lost many of its viewers even while doing consistently excellent journalism. It wasn’t anyone’s “fault” — it just “was.” People, especially the slightly wealthier, slightly more sophisticated viewers that NBC attracted were the first to take advantage of the opportunities technology offered for accessing information any time, anywhere. Broadcast television is a crappy medium for trying to do that.

And so I set out to find a new platform. Blogging seemed like a good way to stay in the game since there was virtually no barrier to entry and I’d already developed a brand and idea from an earlier effort to pitch a cable news show (also another story). Get Real was my attempt to cut through two trends in journalism that both drove me crazy and I believed were partially responsible for the craft’s decline. Bland “objectivity” and pure bald-faced propaganda.

The blandness is practiced every day in newsrooms across the country — every network newscast, every local television newscast, most newspapers do it. Steering away from drawing any conclusions whatsoever from the evidence presented in a story. If some official says up is down, the story will inevitably say, “Commissioner Simpson says up is down. Critics disagree arguing that up is up because that’s the definition of up.” What happened to “Commissioner Simpson says up is down but he is wrong”? As Keith Olbermann has argued repeatedly, just because there are two sides to a story, it doesn’t mean both of them should be given equal weight if one is factually in coherent. Try telling that to the Nightly News.

The reaction to this has been the increasing popularity of one-sided “news” that is, in reality, nothing more than lightly disguised propaganda. Fox News is the master purveyor of this but MSNBC decided, with the success of Olbermann, to dive right in when it became clear there was money to be made in peddling bias. Equating Fox and MSNBC never pleased some of my readers who thought I was equating the degree of their hosts’ bias. But as I wrote repeatedly, just because someone like Sean Hannity makes factual errors nightly and Rachel Maddow does not (the proof here is the Maddow-bashing blogs go on and on about how snarky she is while the Hannity-bashers cite the specific factual errors made and back it up with evidence), doesn’t mean they are trafficking in the same drug: news as a pre-determined narrative.

I thought, and continue to think that coupling the performance aspects of prime-time cable (faux outrage, personality, humor) with hard line on facts is something people would like and use. And so….

In April a group of like-minded journos joined forces to create Buzz60. It’s a web channel of on-demand video clips, available any time, anywhere that are short (60 seconds) and sharp, entertaining and informative. My signature role is something we call Cable Kooks which, based on what I’ve written here over the last two years, is probably self-explanatory.

So Get Real isn’t over, it’s just moved. Come visit at buzz60.com, check out a couple of videos, share the ones you like with friends and then bookmark it. We’re putting up 10 new videos a day. Always something fresh for your eyes, ears and brain.

And again thanks for checking in, commenting and encouraging me to keep reporting, analyzing and speaking my mind.

Last night Olby went Kujo on Ted Koppel. Koppel? That nice old news man who once did that dry and somber news show called Nightline? Yep. That Ted Koppel.

In case you missed it, this past Sunday the Washington Post gave the former ABC News anchor a chunk of its Op-Ed page to get something off his chest. Koppel wrote about what’s happened to television news in the last decade or so and what he thinks it means for the country. Playing off the suspension a week earlier of MSNBC’s lefty pitbull Keith Olbermann for giving campaign donations to Democratic candidates, Koppel painted a larger picture of how the opinion-driven cable news networks are bad for democracy. Me and about a thousand other pundit/blogger/experts have said the same thing. He also lamented some golden mythical bygone era of television news as a font of objective, important journalism. Yeah that Camel Caravan sure was a great news program.

But here’s the bit that probably most got under Olby’s skin:

We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly – individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable.

Olbermann truly believes that he is different from the likes of Beck and his archnemesis O’Reilly — that he is a journalist digging for truth as opposed to their slinging pure propaganda for their corporate paymaster. Here’s what KO said last night (OK, here’s some of what he said last night since he thought this subject deserved 12 minutes of airtime — I’ve chosen the more salient points):

The great change about which Mr. Koppel wrings his hands is not partisanship nor tone nor analysis. The great change was the creation of the sanitized image of what men like Cronkite and Murrow, and Kaltenborn  and Davis and Daly and Baukhage and Smith and Sevareid and Rather and Jennings and Polk and Koppel did. These were not glorified stenographers. These were not neutral men. These were men who did, in their day, what the best of journalists still try to do in this one, evaluate, analyze, unscramble, assess, put together a coherent picture or a challenging question, using only the facts as they can be best discerned, plus their own honesty and conscience.

——

Insist long enough that the driving principle behind the great journalism of the television era was neutrality and objectivity and not subjective choices and often dangerous evaluations and even commentary, and you will eventually leave the door open to pointless worship at the temple of a false god.

——

But, as long as there are two men, as long as they are fair and balanced, is not the news consumer entranced by the screaming and the fact that his man eventually and always outscreams the other? Is not he convinced that he has seen true journalism, true balance, true objectivity?

I have read and heard much of late including from Mr. Koppel in the Washington Post yesterday about how those who succeeded his grand era of false objectivity are only in it for the money or the fame or the chance to push a political party. Mr. Koppel also implied as others have that the men behind this network saw in the success of Fox News, a business opportunity to duplicate the style but change that content. Mr. Koppel implied that yesterday.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, and the very kind of fact-driven journalism Mr. Koppel seems to be claiming he represents and I fail, would not stand for his sloppy assumptions and his false equivalence of “both sides do it.”

We do not make up facts here and when we make mistakes we correct them.

Demonstrably so as I have noted repeatedly in this blog. Legions of people watch Olbermann looking for mistakes and a few of them write blog dedicated to that pursuit. Look them over and you’ll find precious little those critics can point to that Olbermann gets wrong factually. But the absence of objective error does not, in Mr. Olbermann’s own construct, mean his show represents an honest reporting of stories. Anyone can align a series of carefully curated facts into an argument. That’s what attorneys do every day. But that doesn’t make them journalists and it doesn’t make the stories they tell true.

In beating up Mr. Koppel Olby goes for the low hanging fruit. The old broadcast news model is dead. I gave a college lecture last night and said the very same thing. I’ve been saying it for a couple of years. The audience is literally dying off as younger people (charitably defined as those under 50 in this case) get their information elsewhere. The problem lies in Olbermann’s belief that MSNBC represents the phoenix rising from the ashes of that old news world. Listen to how he defines what lies before us:

To equate this network with Fox, as Mr. Koppel did, to accuse us of having our own facts is another manifestation of a dangerously simplified understanding of modern news.

In the end Olbermann is simply delusional. Look at his final point:

I may ultimately be judged to have been wrong in what I am doing. Mr. Koppel does not have to wait. The kind of television journalism he eulogizes failed this country because when truth was needed, all we got were facts most of which were lies anyway. The journalism failed, and those who practiced it failed, and Mr. Koppel failed.

I don’t know that I’m doing it exactly right here. I’m trying. I have to. Because whatever that television news was before we now have to fix it. Good night and good luck.

Of course Olbermann worships at the alter of Murrow (“Good night and good luck”) but to equate what he does each night — sifting through facts and cherrypicking those that support the Olbermann world view — with Murrow’s crowning achievements is pure fantasy. Murrow didn’t come to his interviews with one set of facts to the exclusion of all others. His was great journalism because Murrow interviewed people, confronted them with facts and asked them to explain. If people were exposed as fools, knaves or worse, it was with their own words this was accomplished. When was the last time Keith Olbermann had on anyone with whom he disagrees?

Hell isn’t freezing over any time soon methinks.

Keith Olbermann

The kerfuffle over MSNBC’s “indefinite suspension” of Keith Olbermann for giving contributions to three Congressional candidates is hilarious in one respect: That MSNBC’s brass thinks of Olbermann as a journalist and their own network as a “news” network. Puh-leeeze.

The rules at NBC News about political contributions by employees are not only sound, they are pretty standard throughout the world of journalism. Most news organizations think it’s important that the reporters, editors and producers who are responsible to telling fair and balanced stories don’t create the appearance of bias by working for a party or candidate or giving money to a campaign. In the case of NBC News there’s an exception with management approval. That seems totally reasonable and fair for journalists.

When I was a political reporter I never would have dreamed of giving money to a candidate. One colleague didn’t even register to vote fearing that the very act of making a private political choice would make him seem less impartial. That used to matter — in journalism — to journalists.

But who would mistake Olbermann — or any member of MSNBC’s prime-time liberal cabal — for a journalist? The only reason each has a show is because he or she has strong political biases and expresses those opinions with gusto and glee (OK, that Ed guy doesn’t seem very gleeful but the rest of them generally have fun). MSNBC in prime time is no more a network of journalism than is Fox. Both play flip sides of the same record. They fill hours and hours of airtime with bombastic, one-note hosts who “interview” (“jerk off” would be more accurate in most cases but I wouldn’t want to suggest that the supremely “manly” and homophobic hosts at Fox are in any way promoting the “gay lifestyle”) like-minded guests about issues and stories without ever bothering to acknowledge inconvenient facts. In this regard Olbermann goes toe-to-toe with his nemesis Bill O’Reilly every night — a mirror image echo chamber for liberal America. The New York Times got it right when it called KO the “anchor of…’The Democratic Nightly News’.”

Of course that’s not what the masters at Fox and MSNBC want the audience to think. These profitable networks promote the notion that what they peddle 24/7 is news and journalism. Despite the fact that Fox has insisted there’s a bright line between opinion and news, that seems awfully far-fetched when the network considers it’s latest blond star, Megyn Kelly, to be a “news” anchor and her bilious, hilariously hypocritcal show to be a “news” program. And so it is at MSNBC where NBC News personnel mix and mingle with their cable colleagues in sometimes uncomfortable ways. Uncomfortable at least for the journalists who believe their jobs in the Fourth Estate are actually important to the functioning operation of a democracy. Not that the audience would know the difference. But at least that tension exists at MSNBC. At Fox, news programming decisions appear to be made by the Republican National Committee and nobody bats an eye (partial props to Shep Smith here for being the only one at Fox to have the guts to at least try to report more than one side of an issue).

And so, back to Olbermann. MSNBC’s boss, Phil Griffin, had to act. Years ago local WNBC anchor Chuck Scarborough gave money to a favored Republican candidate and earned a slap on the wrist, but no suspension. But that was local TV news — hardly the place of high journalistic standards (Google “ratings sweeps TV news stories”). Had Brian Williams given money to those candidates suspension would have been warranted. But for Olbermann? It’s just silly.

Rachel Maddow waved the company flag Friday night, and bless her heart, it was almost convincing: “We are not a political operation. Fox is. We are a news operation. And the rules around here are part of how you know that.” That is, of course, poppycock. I fear Rachel’s been drinking a bit too much of the Kool Aid in the commissary. Sure, Maddow is the only host in prime time on MSNBC to work hard at bringing in guests who disagree with her on issues. And for that she deserves a lot of credit. In the vast sea of flabby reasoning, ridiculous lies and adversion to fact that is prime time cable “news”, Maddow is a beacon of reason. But she’s not a journalist and her network is not a “news operation.” MSNBC, like Fox, is in the business of entertaining political junkies. Their shows are acts in a circus. And to suspend the ringmaster for feeding the lions seems pretty absurd.

The problem with Eliot Spitzer being given the seat at CNN in prime time is not that he hired a hooker. Or liked to have sex with his long black dress socks on. It’s that he basically abused his authority as Governor the same way Richard Nixon did as President.

Remember Troopergate? Spitzer’s Administration directed the state police to spy on his archnemesis, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. When it came to light Spitzer said he took “full responsibility” for the actions of his staff while proclaiming he knew nothing about what they’d done. Only after he’d resigned with his tail firmly between his legs did it become apparent that he lied.

He’s never answered for that. He’s never allowed himself to be grilled. I think as an act of courage he should bring NY Post Albany bureau chief (and tormentor of Governors) Fred Dicker on the new show as a guest. That would be some great TV.

(Video is in the box to the right.)

I’m mad! I want lower taxes! I’m not doing what the adults tell me to do! I want cookies for breakfast! And I don’t wanna get fat. And of course, I HATE YOU ALL!

The American press loves to place the voter on the highest pedestal. After all our little experiment in (sort of) direct democracy has, on balance, worked out pretty well over the last 230 odd years. But let’s be honest. Voters can be really stupid.

Take the voters of Harlem, for instance, or at least the 44 thousand that showed up Tuesday to ensure that Charlie Rangel would get chance to defend himself against a series of ethics charges brought by the generally reticent-to-act House Ethics Committee. They gave him a huge victory over the (relatively) respectable Adam Clayton Powell IV whose father Rangel beat oh so long ago by running as new blood against the old guard. Last night the new old guard hung on.

Rangel has been accused of, among other things, getting a long-time sweetheart deal for an office in a rent stabilized apartment building — an apartment that could have been used by one of his needy constituents. That kind of abuse of power directly impacting his own voters was not enough to get them to check the box for someone new. You gotta wonder what it would take?

Then there’s the action in “The First State” — Delaware — that has after last night made it the first state in crazy. Delaware Republicans — okay 57,000 of the 183,000 registered Republicans in the state — went big for Christine O’Donnell who besides being very conservative in a fairly moderate state, is as nutty as an Almond Joy. Speaking of joy, she is against masturbation and not afraid to make it a campaign issue. That should be fun.

O’Donnell’s win has all the cable “news” gasbags atwitter. So much to talk about! By beating the GOP party favorite with an endorsement from Sarah Palin she’s a symbol of “Republicans in turmoil” or… since she is so conservative and crazy she can’t win the general election dashing GOP hopes of a Senate seat pickup much to the delight of Democrats or… she represents a real movement that crosses party lines and represents dire threats to both parties. Well how about this: She’s a nut and the 30,000 Republicans who voted for her are stupid, petulant children.

I’m guessing I won’t be a guest speaker at the next Delaware Tea Party dinner.

Don’t get me wrong: I understand why people are angry. I got laid off by a giant money-grubbing corporation 18 months ago and watched with quiet glee as they’ve made one ridiculous error after the next. I’m angry about all the executives there and elsewhere that get big bonuses, excellent health care, lavish expense accounts, generous stock options, and fat paychecks for making shitty decisions at best, and often failing miserably at worst. The people in charge are always eager to talk about people under them taking responsibility for their actions but can’t seem to walk the walk. But let’s get something straight — there’s informed angry and stupid angry and an awful lot of voters seem to be stupid angry.

Like all those seniors who’ve been screaming socialism for the last two years any time anyone so much as mentions the health care reform bill that Obama signed into law. How’s your Medicare gramps? Since you’re opposed to the “government takeover of health care” let’s start dismantling said socialist product by taking away your Medicare card and your ridiculously expensive prescription drug benefit. Otherwise you’re gonna bankrupt your kids and grandkids.

Like all those Westerners who gather at anti-government Tea Party rallies demanding that the government “get off their backs”. Okay. First let’s start charging market prices for all the water that allows Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, eastern Washington, Idaho, and New Mexico to support human life as our fat suburban asses know it. All that life-giving, housing-tract-creating water is courtesy of the damn government. And while we’re at it let’s get all those military bases out of the South (where they represent 20%-30% of most states’ economies) since that’s just government getting in the way.

Like all those out-of-work folks in the area formerly known as the Rust Belt and in the Northeast who are still mad about the bank and auto industry bailouts because the government gave away the store to those least in need. Now anyone in either party who supported either is tarred with their “vote for socialism”. Yeah! Because if those damn politicians in Washington hadn’t acted we’d all be so much better off. I know I’d be much happier waiting on soup lines and watching foreclosures reach Florida levels.

Like all of us who complain about our “high taxes” and lap up the “no new taxes” pablum politicians regurgitate with predictable election-year regularity. Yeah taxes are too damn high. So let’s cut those and all that wasteful spending. Like Medicare for seniors. Like the military, which consumed a trillion dollars in the pursuit of “victory” in Iraq. Like the subsidy for homeowner mortgages that are huge giveaways to the wealthy (we could keep them for the real middle class). Like agricultural subsidies that don’t lower prices nor save farm jobs but enrich giant farmbelt corporations. Like the 8 billion a year we send to Israel and Eqypt — let ‘em pay their own way. Like the school systems that still provide a pretty decent education — let families choose private schools and pay for what they think their kids need — or they could home school! And of course let’s do something about Social Security — maybe we could just stop indexing for inflation because after all, seniors are good at clipping coupons and penny-pinching. Or better yet let’s just pay them back what they put in and call it a day. They can live off their juicy 401k accounts.

Stupid angry voters. Fed by gutless politicians and venal, corrupt media outlets that have long ago given up any notion that news ought to be based on facts. Hell, many shows, blogs and stories don’t contain any facts. And yet we drink it in. Like kids who have yet to face the responsibilities of adulthood. Ay but there’s the rub.

As parents and adults we teach kids that life is about choices. Some easy, some hard. But all part of what it means to be a thinking, breathing, responsible citizen of the United States and, I daresay, the planet. You can have ice cream for dinner every night but there will be consequences. You can skip doing your homework but there will be consequences. You can have sex without protection but there will be consequences. You can have temper tantrums and lash out but there will be consequences.

Stupid angry voters meet the consequences of your actions: Incompetent, incapable public servants driven to destruction.

Smart not-so-angry voters meet the consequences of your inactions: See above.

Once Upon a Time in Boston (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

Ten years ago when I was doing a story on same-sex marriage, an advocate for gay rights said legal gay marriage would take time but would eventually become commonplace in America. It’s beginning to look like he was right and if prior highly-charged civil rights struggles are any indication it’s happening very quickly by historical standards.

Amidst the arguments for and against the central battle comes down to whether America is a country where the majority rules. The Founding Fathers certainly did everything they could to prevent that from happening with their rules to limit public participation in the sausage-making of government but there has always been a strong appeal to the notion that our laws ought to reflect public sentiment — even when public sentiment is off-the-tracks.

Which brings us to the case of courts conveying the right to marry upon same-sex couples and the countervailing push to have the public overrule or preempt the judges. Last November it worked in California. It did not work in Arizona. Now Iowa and Vermont have joined the club and present major difficulties for the anti-marriage forces. Iowa makes amending it’s constitution difficult and time-consuming. The earliest the Iowa court could be overruled would be 2012 and Massachusetts showed what can happen when people see gay couples getting married and the bedrock of civilization not crumbling.

Vermont is even tougher since, for the first time, the Legislature voted for same-sex marriage while overturning the governor’s veto. That’s an uphill battle, even for well-funded Mormons.

Both sides should look back to the century-long fight over interracial marriage for a lesson in how far public opinion can lag behind what courts deem fundamentally right — and how those strong feelings dissipate.

Hint: When people argue such-and-such will happen over “my dead body” they are right. It does happen as older voters with older notions of right and wrong die off.

Watch the video for more.

Gay Marriage Tipping Point from Jay DeDapper on Vimeo.