That's Infotainment!

                                                                                                    Or,

Notable & Quotable, Part 2

I'm so old that when I was a young callowyute I only had access to four TV stations. My city (Pittsburgh) had two rival newspapers of consequence. One published a morning edition, the other came out in the late afternoon.

At one point in my life, I found myself working as a newspaper boy person for both. This provided a relatively generous income for a callowyute. Unlike Warren Buffett, who was also a newspaper boy person when he was a kid, I spent my money as fast as I made it, sometimes faster. Mr. Buffett, we're told, used his profits to expand into other businesses. I strongly suspect this may explain the disparity in our incomes. Curiously enough I don't resent/envy/begrudge him. Nor do I believe that The Gubmint should take some of his money and give it to me after deducting a finders fee. However, I do have a great idea for a business that would generate profit margins that are as healthy as Dairy Queen's (which, Mr. B. owns). Warren, call me.

Where was I... Oh, yeah, a callowyute growing up in Pittsburgh, a callowburgher. Like many of my fellow baby boomers, I was raised in front of a TV set. If you're a member of one of the three generations that have come along since I was a kid (dang I'm old) the answer to your obvious question is, yes. Yes, our parents were quite concerned that this idiot box, this talking lamp that always seemed to be on if the kids were home, was going to turn us all into, well, idiots. There's some ammunition for callowyutes to use when you're arguing with the old farts in your life about your smartphone addiction (you're welcome).

While newspapers were still quite popular, particularly among our clueless grups, those hoopleheads that thought they were cool just because they survived the Great Depression, won WW 2, and saved the world, we boomers (and many of our parents) tended to get our news from the tube. "Now your daddy's in the den shootin' up the evening news." Jackson Browne, from the song "Red Neck Friend."

The four TV channels referenced above were the local outlets of PBS, NBC, ABC, and CBS. PBS didn't begin directly competing with the three commercial networks via a nightly news format, the one I and many of my fellow boomers relied on, until 1975. By then I was going through my hippie with a job phase and preferred to get my news from Rolling Stone and "underground" news sources. You don't want to know. Suffice it to say, the PBS version of the news had little impact on my yute. The big three traditional broadcast networks, however, were a different story.

Back in the dark ages everyone that watched TV watched the local affiliate of the big three networks mentioned above. Newspapers aside, the evening news, local and national, was a cultural touchstone. When I was 10 years old, in 1963, the national news broadcasts were dramatically expanded -- from 15 minutes to 30. While there was less time back then given over to commercials, obviously this was not a lot of time. News anchors, paragons of gravitas one and all, were limited to covering what were regarded as the most important news stories of the day. If a nationally known celebrity were to drop dead or be indicted, this would dutifully be mentioned. Whom they were currently dating and/or their problems with drugs and alcohol, would not.

With the exception of the rare earth shaking event or crisis that generated a, "We interrupt this broadcast..." you might not hear any additional national news for 24 hours. There were exceptions of course. Your town might have a decent newspaper that came out the next morning. You might listen to a local radio station that provided some (usually quite limited) national news.

The news anchors referenced above professed to subscribe to mainstream journalistic ethics. In practice, this meant, among other things, that they were supposed to try and draw strict lines between fact and opinion. Though we're now told that they allowed their biases to shape the news more than we ever knew, or they acknowledged (books have been written), that's how it was supposed to work.

"Information turnover is often more important than information content." Robert Greenberg. I've taken Mr. Greenberg's quote completely out of context. He was referring to a change in philosophy by composers of classical music in the early twentieth century. I told you I was your dilettante about town. However, the moment I heard it I knew I was going to use it in reference to how the news media operates in the new millennium.

Permit me to deploy some pseudo-journalistic ethics at this point and mention that Dr. Greenberg's quote is from a Teaching Company (you should Google that name) course he put together called, "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music." Full disclosure: Lest I sound even nerdier than I am my main take away from his efforts is to now understand why I don't actually care for most classical music, particularly opera.

"Information turnover is often more important than information content."

A seemingly endless commercial break (SECB), then, CLANG! Fox News Alert: The recording artist Prince, formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince is dead at 57! Blah, blah. Another SECB. CLANG! Fox News Alert: Donald Trump just said something really ignorant in a really ignorant way! Blah, blah. Another SECB. CLANG! The Gubmint has threatened to stop giving the gubmint of North Carolina its fair share of the money they take from people that don't work for The Gubmint and who actually create value (profits) if North Carolina won't permit men who think they are women (and vice versa) to poop where they please and shower where they feel safe...

You pick up the clicker and go to CNN. You arrive in the middle of an SECB. "Welcome back, we will now continue the discussion between two party hacks, CNN contributors, whom we pay to promote the people and positions they are paid to promote by their respective political parties.

"You suck sweaty socks!"
"No, you suck sweaty socks!"

Back to 1963. Not only was the nation somehow able to get by with a half an hour of nationally broadcast national news, TV stations usually went off the air after The Tonight Show, it's current competitor or an old movie the third local station picked up on the cheap. It was standard practice to play the Star Spangled Banner while showing patriotically themed footage and then saying goodnight.

[Aside: The Tonight Show regularly featured interviews with the authors of actual books who were witty, intelligent and often controversial, thought-provoking figures. Occasionally, famous classical musicians performed. Most people took Sunday off, some of them actually read the books they heard about on the Tonight Show. Just sayin'.]

I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal (online version only) because I'm cheap frugal and a man of modest means at the moment. When I'm a wildly successful writer, and entrepreneur (part 2), I'll pay the extra dough and have the dead trees version delivered. See, if it weren't for the fact that I rigorously apply a system I've developed, that includes strict time limits, wherein I only read certain sections of the online version, in a certain order, I might drown in all of the available information. The WSJ has some very deep resources. I look forward to the day I'll only be using the online version for research.

I'll read the dead trees version every morning, the one that I might pick up again later in the day knowing that none of the content has vanished or been updated. I'll absolutely revel in the delicious delusion that I have a clue  as to what's going on in the world.

Have an OK day.

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016


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Due to Technical Difficulties

I don't know what happened, but it was probably something I did.

Saturday night, 4.30.16, 11:07 p.m.

After some last minute tweaking, I clicked on the Publish button. My dashboard duly noted that my column was no longer a draft. As always, I clicked on my View Blog button to make sure the new column was actually there. It wasn't. First time this ever happened.

Mild panic ensued. I may not have a huge readership, well, not yet (GRIN), but I take this very seriously for some reason. I mean, well, technically speaking, there are 7.4 billion potential readers out there since the internet is more or less everywhere.

It would probably be tacky if I were to point out at this juncture that if you like my stuff you obviously should being trying harder to get the word out, so I won't mention it.

I have promised a new column every week, and I wouldn't want to embarrass myself, my freakishly large household, especially The Stickies (my grandkids), and of course my fellow Mehlmauers (present and former).

Anyway, the column turned up as though it had been published on 3.16.16, the date of a very rough draft.

The bottom line is I've no idea if the rough draft was published, on a Wednesday, and if either no one noticed or said anything, or what happened. It took awhile, but I found it and I fixed it.

Anyway.

I have a group of folks that check in on Saturday nights just after 11:07 EST to catch my latest column. If you happened to be one of 'em I apologize. The rumor that I had been picked by the Secret Political Correctness Task Force, and briefly detained and threatened, is not true.

Have an OK day.

P.S. Well, at least I think it's not true. See, last Thursday night, 4.28, at about 11:00 P.M., my site was accessed over 200 times, from Israel. Yes, that Israel. I've no idea by whom, or why. Betwixt that never before experienced phenomenon and my recent and unexplained difficulties, I'm a little jumpy.

P.P.S. Please scroll down to view this week's column, Notable & Quotable.

Notable & Quotable

The Venerable Wall Street Journal has a feature that appears on their editorial pages, dead trees as well as digital editions, called Notable & Quotable. It's exactly what it sounds like. A quotation from someone or something that's worth noting. A given quote, presented without comment, often serves to lampoon the source of the quote, which may be from a report or document of some sort, not necessarily a particular individual. Being a smarty-pants, by nature and by nurture, as well as a lover of mordancy, I thoroughly enjoy that particular angle.

However, the quote that follows, which is a quote of a quote that they recently quoted, is neither inspirational or mordant or something in between. It's a comment on the downside of life in the information age.

"The vast accumulations of knowledge—or at least of information—deposited by the nineteenth century have been responsible for an equally vast ignorance. When there is so much to be known, when there are so many fields of knowledge in which the same words are used with different meanings, when everyone knows a little about a great many things, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to know whether he knows what he is talking about or not. And when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts."

Notice the phrase nineteenth century. This quote is from an essay entitled The Perfect Critic, written by T.S. Elliot --  in 1920 -- and refers to the numerous advances in knowledge made in the 1800s. Fast forward nearly a century and change the word nineteenth to twentieth and it still works. At this point I'm tempted to place another quote, "The more things change, the more they stay the same," the English translation (as everybody knows, GRIN) of an epigram penned by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (now that's a cool name dude). But that's too easy, obvious and cliched, so I won't.

The quotation in question begs a question. If Mr. Elliot is right, and he is, now more than ever, what should I/we/you do about it?

[I don't know if I can, or should, do something about it, says my imaginary gentlereader, after all, my life is complicated enough without...]

Read it again, please. It's only 99 words. Note the last sentence. "And when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts."

Or, GFBL -- gut first, brain later -- is triggered. I coined this phrase a while back and promised to expand on it at some future date, but never got around to it. It needs an entire column, but for now, I'm just going to repeat my original grossly oversimplified explanation. Science confirms that under most circumstances we react emotionally first, rationally later. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, would add that in fact, often what we think of as being rational is just rationalizing our not necessarily optimal, sometimes downright goofy emotional behavior.

From Final Jeopardy, Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything by Steven Baker, "...Daniel Kahneman of Princeton redefined these cognitive processes as System 1 and System 2. The intuitive System 1 appeared to represent a primitive part of the mind, perhaps dating from before...our tool-making Cro-Magnon ancestors forty thousand years ago. Its embedded rules, with their biases toward the familiar, steered peopled toward their most basic goals: survival and reproduction. System 2, which appeared to arrive later, involved conscious and deliberate analysis and was far slower."

Or, it's perfectly normal, when confronted with the deluge of data available via the click of a mouse or a tap on a touchscreen, to feel like you're drowning and just go with your gut. Or grab your, um, well, I'll leave that up to you, and jump. Or, just turn the dang thing off and go take a _____ break.

[Okeydoke, but I still...]

...Need to be aware, I would gently suggest, of informational overload in order to improve your chances of not being a victim of your own emotions. This will serve to also dramatically reduce the possibility of walking in front of a bus while hypnotized by your smartphone and going viral on Youtube via some other jokers smartphone.

Now, how, or even if, you try to accomplish this, is up to you. Perhaps you're a happy camper, a world-class multi-tasker, a type A that loves the frantic pace of the culture. A culture that's fragmented, and continues to fragment, into seemingly endless subcultures. Good on ya'! Take care.

However, if you're like me, and often feel like you're smothering from informational overload, may I make a suggestion? Seek out a news source that you trust, one that has the resources, and the integrity, to tell you what's really going on in the world. I'm talking straight news and informed opinion that's clearly labeled opinion, and that strives to maintain a "Chinese wall" between the two.

What we have is mostly infotainment. And it occurs to me it's going to take an entire column to explain what I mean by the term, and why I have a big problem with the phenomenon. An edited stream of consciousness gets ugly sometimes. See, what follows is an homage to the Wall Street Journal and I'm very happy with it and loath to change it. So, forgive me gentlereaders, if I've placed the cart before the horse. Infotainment will be the subject of next week's column.


Which brings us to why I love the Wall Street Journal. If you've read what can be found by clicking on the Just Who Is This Guy Anyway tab of The Flyoverland Crank you know that I call the WSJ my paper of record. If you're not familiar with the WSJ, there's a good chance it's not what you might think. Obviously, I have no way of knowing exactly what that might be, but I've encountered numerous folks over the years that are certain it's the boring, stodgy, house organ of corporate weenie, country club, crony capitalist, evil 1% Depublicans -- which it ain't.

[Being a current events junkie and your DAT (dilettante about town) I read all sorts of things, on a daily basis. But if I were to be tossed into Politically Correct Prison (which seems inevitable) by a kindly judge that decreed I could have access to one source of current events, it would the WSJ.]

What it is, is a newspaper that's been around for a very long time with very high standards. While it's editorial policy, self-described as "free people, free markets," is unashamedly center-right (many of its detractors would say far-right) this policy is restricted to its editorial pages which take up three full pages of the high priced dead trees edition. The rest of the content is well written and objective as possible. This was what I was taught a good newspaper was supposed to be when I went to school in the dark ages.

There's a catch though. I was taught that newspaper articles are written so that a 12-year-old can understand them. The WSJ assumes its readers are a bit more mature and intelligent than that. I have 39 certifiable college credits and even I have to sometimes intellectually stretch to fully understand a given article or editorial. And speaking of the editorial pages again (sorry, it's my favorite part of the publication) there's an intelligent, well spoken, token liberal with a weekly column. Also, nationally and internationally known progressives are regularly given space.

It's not cheap, but the online edition ain't too bad. Considering the quality, it's worth every penny. The thing I like about a dead trees newspaper is that for 24 hours or so it helps me foster the illusion I have a clue. Online editions of national, and many local papers, are different every time you take a look. More on why that's not necessarily a good thing next week.

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, I've experimented and will continue to experiment with various formats, column lengths, and the like. While my primary motivation was/is developing my writing style, I've always given (minimal) consideration to what I thought a potential publisher and/or advertiser might want to see. 

One of the reasons I don't run ads on my website anymore is the fact I've decided to just let the column happen and go where it (and Marie-Louise) wishes it to go. 

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth sharing and/or worth a buck or three, fine. If not, so be it.]


©2015 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

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