Garcia Media Life

Redskins owner, Daniel Snyder, has decided to drop his lawsuit against Washington City Paper officially ending his attack on the 1st amendment of the constitution.

If you need background on his actions that became a cause célèbre for lovers of free expression in America, you can find my finely honed criticisms over this matter here, here and here.

I don’t think this legal action was going to work out well for him. First, free speech rights regarding public figures are pretty sacrosanct in American courts (see Falwell vs Flynt). Plus, DC has a statute that allows for prosecution for law suits aimed to intimidate freedom of speech. The Snyder legal team’s approach to this was not to question the merits of such a case were it to have been enforced, but to claim the DC City Council had no right to pass such a law.

Of all the things Snyder complained about regarding City Paper’s scathing synopsis of all the goofy things the Redskins owner has done through the years- he had pretty much dropped his outrage for all elements of the article except one; the impression the piece gave that Snyder himself, was personally involved in “slamming,” the practice of changing people’s phone services without their knowledge, back when he ran Snyder Communications many, many years ago. An out-of-court settlement was reached at the time in which Snyder admitted no wrongdoing. City Paper conceded they may have left the impression Snyder himself was involved in slamming practices but insisted they did so without malice.

Wisely, a word not ordinarily associated with Dan Snyder, he backed down. The pre-season-opener announcement cleared the decks for a new era of good feelings as he seemed to sense the Redskins may actually be a decent team this season and further distractions on the frivolous law suit-front would be counter-productive.

Bravo, Snyder. This is almost as big a victory for free speech rights as the 28-14 Redskin win over the Giants was a statement about how good and how loved his team could be if he just stops meddling with the front office and causing self-inflicted public relations wounds.

There’s a lot of debate this day after the storm about whether the media and governments went overboard on Irene…as if we didn’t have a hurricane the size of Europe bearing down on 60 million inhabitants of the eastern seaboard.

Forecasters

Weather science has come a long way and no one can argue that the tracking of Irene was anything but amazingly precise. What the advance forecasts misjudged was the wind intensity of the storm. Some 72-96 hours ahead of the turn toward the U.S. mainland, forecasters thought they might have a category-4 storm on their hands. In reality, though still at hurricane strength when making landfall in New Jersey, Irene was “only” a category-1 and down to a strong tropical storm by the time it hit Coney Island in New York City.

Meteorologists fully understand that they overestimated the wind speed forecasts and will surely be reworking their models for future hurricanes. From the layman’s eye, what appears to be missing in the analysis is the effect on storms once they start getting broken up as they pass over land. That’s a tricky thing to try to project when a hurricane is hugging a coast-line and as this one, actually had three different landfalls; North Carolina, New Jersey and New York. It’s almost as if the wind-speed analysis of Irene’s potential discounted the energy it would lose as it made its way up the coast through the combination of cooler ocean waters and the land masses it went over.

Government Response

New Jersey Governor Chris Cristie and the folks at the National Hurricane Center are certain that the overwhelming and, in some ways, unprecedented government response to Irene- saved lives. Little solace to the 24 37 people whose families are attending funerals today but only God knows what the total death toll might have been had there not been mandatory evacuations, transit system shutdowns and dire warnings from Presidents, Governors and Mayors.

The Media

Yes, the Weather Channel, Accu-Weather, and local and national media brought out all the bells and whistles, super-duper graphics packages, doubled-up staffs and dramatic language through the course of coverage. Of course there was some hype. For people in the weather and news businesses this was the Super Bowl, the World Series and the Academy awards rolled into one.

People like Daily Beast Washington Bureau Chief, Howard Kurtz, got all bent out of shape over the marketing and the splash. Kurtz was angered by the earthquake media coverage too. Surely by now, though, we’ve grown to accept that news coverage in the 24-hour, web and cable-driven news business is filled with hype and spin and marketing. Hopefully, we’re adult enough to take some of this with a grain of salt.

But you know what? A friggin’ 5.8 earthquake that rattles nerves from Georgia to Maine is a big deal and 3,000 people didn’t have to die to make it a newsworthy event in a part of the country where quakes are rare. A gigantic hurricane aimed at the most populous region of the nation is as newsworthy as newsworthy gets. Decry the surrounding hype and the breathless reporting as much as you want- it doesn’t change the fact that both these events really were big, major news.

The Politics

I don’t understand the meme that’s been building in the right-wing world as exemplified by the Drudge Report which is usually the trend leader in conservative talking points. Drudge has spent the better part of the last 3 days complaining about the hype over Irene, downplaying its seriousness and went as far as to link to a web site that questioned the integrity of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration while claiming Irene was not really a hurricane and was making landfall with 33 mph winds, data that was disingenuously cherry-picked to the level of absurdity and demonstrably false.

But what motivates this cynicism? I suspect it comes down to the role of government. Disasters are one of those areas in which governments play key roles and exercise tremendous power. The bigger the disaster, the more people depend on government to warn them, take care of them and then fix whatever is broken in the aftermath. Downplaying the size of a coming disaster deemphasizes the role of government and opens the possibilities of claiming government overreaction and intrusion into our lives.

Grateful for the Overreaction

In the end, if Irene wasn’t all she was hyped to be, she still caused enormous damage and inconvenience, and in some cases, death. If all the media hype and governmental seriousness that was attached to Irene helped keep people alive- then good. I’ll take the hype and make fun of it when it’s silly. The worst of it for me was that I now have 48 containers of bottled water and a half-dozen cans of tuna fish I would not otherwise have purchased.

And God help us when the time comes that the media and government under-hype a potential disaster. That’s called getting caught off-guard and usually results in catastrophe. We should be grateful to have avoided that this week whether it was the ground trembling beneath our feet or less-then-expected winds rattling our windows.

I need to see a psychiatrist. BPSMW syndrome has gotten the best of me. Doctor, I keep glancing at MarketWatch and Bloomberg every three minutes. I can’t take it anymore.

When the Dow drops 600 points, I get all depressed and panicky and want to come home and kick the dog. When it rises 423 as it just did today, I get all giddy and happy and skippy (that’s a condition in which you start skipping suddenly, rapidly and uncontrollably).

I’ve tried to wean myself off the market cold-turkey. It’s not working. I pass a TV and shoot a quick, secretive glance to see if there’s a red arrow or a green arrow in the corner of the screen. I actually now hate anything that’s the color red.

I’ve started enjoying long meetings at work because I have, as of yet, not loaded any market-alert apps on my phone and suddenly three hours go by and I remember what life used to be like before my life savings and supposed retirement evaporated before my eyes every other hour.

When the market goes in the crapper, I slap myself for not having taken my money out and invested in gold bullion. When it rockets upward, I congratulate myself for being so calm and level-headed when the truth of the matter is I am actually suffering from Bi-Polar Investment Paralysis, a secondary condition characterized mostly by extreme fear and uncertainty of doing anything remotely financial.

A friend of mine recently recommended Chart Therapy. This is where you pull out a ten year chart of Wall Street’s gyrations and realize these current antics are but tiny little blips even though they look like gigantic Swiss mountains when you’re monitoring them by the minute.

This I know. I am exhausted and weary and I trust those poor men and women on the floor of the exchange must be as well. I think by now we are all longing for the magic words, “The Dow Jones Industrial Average today, was unchanged on low volume and no particularly newsworthy events.”

I don’t know if it was sexist. I do think it was as an adolescent move by a nearly defunct magazine and a tactic used to lampoon men and women alike and across all sides of the political spectrum.

Look at the prototypical negative political campaign ad. Dark, grainy footage of the dreaded, villainous opponent, the most unflattering photos that can be found, usually punctuated by foreboding music and a deep, serious announce voice. That’s an ad either party would use.

How many unflattering photos of George W. Bush did liberals use to lampoon him?

Here’s one:

But he also looked like this:

Perhaps those on the political right expressing so much outrage over the Bachmann photo forget the pictures of Hillary Clinton they were putting up on their web sites just a couple of years ago. Here’s one:

Actually, Hillary can also look like this:

Here, by the way, is what Michele Bachmann usually looks like:

Love her, hate her or indifferent, as more than a few have said over the past few days, you have to work pretty hard to find a bad picture of the Minnesota Congresswoman.

Here’s Newsweek/Daily Beast head honcho, Tina Brown’s words in defense of the magazine’s use of the picture:

Not cross-eyed. Listen she has – the intensity in her eyes is in all the photographs of her, you know. This is the thing that’s connecting with people. We have people in the crowd saying, you know, something about her tells me I should follow her And there is something about Michele Bachmann with the eyes looking out. She has a very very, this very kind of intense demeanor.

Really? The Newsweek cover photo depicts an “intense” demeanor? I kind of think the photo says “psychopath,” and I think its use was designed to get people talking about Newsweek magazine. I don’t actually think it will help increase its tiny circulation by much because, sadly, it’s an outmoded medium. But, I digress.

I unashamedly give credit to John Stewart for this, but, really, anybody can photograph badly, even Tina Brown:

Who, in all fairness, also looks like this:

No matter how tough a day I’ve had, and I’ve had a few rough ones recently, I can still connect to the World Wide Web and thank God everyday that I am not Rupert Murdoch.

I am going to assume you have read the daily developments and know each day brings news of arrests, resignations, back-room corporate intrigue, and tanking Newscorp stock prices- all stemming from the phone-hacking scandal in Britain. Tuesday brings his appearance before the House of Commons for which the private rehearsals have reportedly raised concerns.

I’ve read a lot about Rupert lately. Here’s a piece from Steve Forbes suggesting he’s a swell guy who will pass this latest test with flying colors. Ethically, Forbes concludes his column by revealing he has a show on the Fox News Network.

Then there is this by Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen. In comparing Murdoch to Citizen Kane and William Randolph Hearst, Cohen sees this melodrama as an instructive display of the dynamics of power-wielding. Cohen also points out the surprising fact that though the newspaper industry may be dying, tons of ink and reams of paper still provide those who control print media what they crave most of all- primal political power.

The practice of bestowing daily good press on “friends” while thrashing “enemies” on an equally consistent basis- still works! It creates the fear that leads to power and influence. There is one problem with this approach, however. Everything’s fine as long as you’re on top of the world. The second the world rolls on top of you, you discover you’ve made very powerful enemies along the way.

As Murdock is learning, those who were once in fear are now the ones to be feared. No one stays on the top of the world forever. Not even Rupert.

Mark Halprin, Chris Hansen

Rough day for a pair of high profile media people.  NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” correspondent has been caught on camera allegedly engaged in an affair with a mistress 20 years his junior.  Political author and analyst, Mark Halprin gets suspended for a vulgar on-air reference to the President.

Chris Hansen, whose “Predator” segments on NBC’s Dateline have been widely criticized for questionable ethical practices, apparently has some ‘splainin’ to do, at the very least, to his 54 year-old wife and two kids.   I’m thinking here that he may have just lost the moral high ground.

The sordid details uncovered by no less than the National Enquirer, can be found here . 

An example of the kind of ethical questions that have been swirling around the “Predator” segments is here . 

As for current Time magazine political guru/former ABC News Political Director/MSNBC contributor, Mark Halprin- it was an unfortunate use of a couple of words on the Morning Joe show that got him in hot water.

Here’s how TV Newser explains the incident:

It wasn’t off the cuff. In fact, Halperin asked if the control room had the “7-second delay button” ready. Apparently, they didn’t because this is what went out over the air:

“I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday,” said Halperin, referring to Obama’s “posturing” during his news conference.

Joe Scarborough jumped in saying: “Delay that. Delay that. What are you doing? I can’t believe … I was joking. Don’t do that. Did we delay that? Did that work?”

“I hit it. I hope it worked,” said Alex, the producer, from the control room.

The conversation with Joe, Mika, Willie and Harold Ford Jr. continued for another 10 minutes, as the show tried to figure out if the delay, where Halperin’s use of the word would be ‘bleeped,’ had worked.

It didn’t.

17 minutes after he said it, Halperin apologized: “Joking aside, this is an absolute apology. I became part of the joke. It’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have said it. I apologize to the president and the viewers who heard me say that.”

Halprin has been indefinitely suspended by MSNBC and has since issued a lengthier apology in which he admits he deserves the suspension.

All in all, a special summer day in which the importance of the 7-second delay and control of the middle-aged libido have been underscored for all.

It’s been a pretty boring few weeks in the world of news and I’ve had to do a lot of surfing to find anything to be snarky about. Here are a few items that caught my eye as we make our way through the dog days of summer.

In no particular order (The headlines and links are one and the same):

Newscorp Gets Ready to Dump Myspace at Firesale Prices

Imagine being the genius who came up with the brilliant idea of getting Rupert Murdoch to shell out $580 million six years ago for Myspace. Newscorp is trying to dump it now and was reportedly hoping to get $100 million. Looks like it’s going to go for $20-30 million. But as business bombs go…that’s nothing. I still have my T-shirt from my CNN days celebrating the fantastic, dynamic merger of AOL and Time-Warner. 

I remember a lot of back-slapping and parties with fancy hors’ dourves at the CNN Center. I think TW CEO, Jerry Levin, is the only guy who made money on that turkey; and it was from his golden parachute- not the underwater options the rest of us had to eat.

Just in:  Mudoch sold My Space for $35 million today

British Survey Finds Radio Makes People Happier than TV or Internet 

You know, I think this speaks for itself.

Best Excuse Ever for Losing a Soccer Game 

The head coach of the North Korean women’s national soccer team blames his 2-0 loss to the U.S. on the fact members of his squad got hit by lightening just before making the trip.

Sarah Palin Indecisivness Wrankles Supporters 

Make up your mind, already!  The toe-dipping into the presidential waters is starting to grow old with many.  But she has been really good about breaking the unspoken rule of not stepping on everybody else’s announcement plans. First, there was the appearance in New Hampshire hours after Mitt Romney announced. Then there was last night’s gala premier of her movie in Iowa, the day after Michel Bachman’s announcement. Then she heads to Bachman and Tom Palenty’s backyard in Minnesota today to sit with her daughter, Bristol, for a tag-team book signing at the Mall of America.

Bachman Still Playing Tom Petty’s “American Girl” 

One day after rocker, Tom Petty, had his lawyers issue a cease and desist letter to the Bachman campaign over use of his song “American Girl,” they played it again after one of her speeches Monday…albeit just 29 seconds of it before it stopped abruptly to make way for “Walking on Sunshine.” Oops.

And it’s not even July yet.  Long, hot summer ahead.

I took a few days off and unplugged from the world a bit. As I read back in to our political and cultural discourse today, I see 7 out of 10 news stories are about Congressman Weiner’s sexting and Sarah Palin’s version of Paul Revere’s midnight ride.

I understand the spectator appeal of both stories; we’ll call it the car crash syndrome- not pleasant to look at but impossible to resist. But really, Washington Post- five different Weiner angles? “Weiner’s District Debates His Future,” “Wives Increasingly Skip Public Confessions,” “Weiner Takes Mortification 101,” “Anthony Weiner’s Apology-Fest,” “Breitbart Inserts Himself in Weiner Drama.” Daily Beast/Newsweek is similarly obsessed with 4 of its top 10 stories concentrating on some iteration of All Things Weiner.

The Post also weighs in mightily with the continued brou-ha-ha over Sarah Palin’s historical boo-boo she insists was not a mistake about Paul Revere blowing whistles firing shots and ringing bells to warn the British not to take away our guns or something. We have “Don’t Know Much About History,” “Fight Brews on Paul Revere Wikipedia Page,” “Palin Once Again Disregards the Facts,” and “Sarah Palin Gallops Toward 2012.”

You know, in about two months this nation faces the very real possibility that it will default on its debts for the first time in its history. What’s that- a 1000-point stock market crash? We have a stalled recovery and a public frightened at the potential consequences of continuing job losses. Folks are paying up to $200 a month more to gas up their cars. The housing crisis continues unabated.

I understand the last question asked at Anthony Weiner’s news conference was, “were you fully erect?”

Beyond being disgusted, I thoroughly do not care. My 401K? Job security for my friends and family? Can I ever afford to buy a house again? Can I get my kid through four years of college? That’s the kind of stuff I care about. Call me Weinered out. Can we please get serious about things that actually matter?

It’s a long way from sleeping nightly on a mattress in a station wagon to making an appearance on one of the nation’s top-rated TV shows and knocking everyone’s socks off, but that’s what perseverance gets you. I just can’t believe it’s a family friend I’ve known since she was, like, 13.

NBC’s The Voice is the latest in the genre of talent shows that have sprung up on network television and the debut ratings have been astronomical. In the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia some 15 years ago I remember Rebecca Loebe, a determined singer/songwriter-in-the-making, playing for smaller ratings; family and friends. This week, she sang for millions and it was all about heart and grit and determination.

It’s a cool show if you haven’t seen it. At least in these early stages of the competition, the judges of The Voice sit with their backs to the performer because they are judging one thing and one thing only and that’s vocal quality. If you’re good enough, the judges push a little button and their chair turns around to face the artist.

Rebecca was introduced as the “homeless singer.” I understand the allure of painting her that way for purposes of an intruiging story-line, but let’s just say this isn’t your typical case of homelessness. As Rebecca explained on the show, she performs all over the country. She could pay for an apartment she doesn’t live in or she can just hang in her car from gig to gig.

This is an individual who went to the nationally-acclaimed Berkeley School of Music in Boston. This is someone who, through the years, has shown more dedication to her craft and more single-mindedness toward a career than I think any artist I have ever known. Rebecca is homeless by choice. It’s just a practical path to playing as much as possible in as many places as plausible. She’s no bag-lady.

What she is- is an icon for the work ethic. If you love something enough, then your passion is all that matters. Sacrifices are made. Your car becomes your home. Your travel is your life (and probably grist for half your songwriting). This isn’t some spoiled little brat from the LA suburbs slapping a phony video together and posting it on You Tube.

Hell, she’s probably doing pretty much the same thing Woody Guthrie did when he was in his 20’s—except he was sneaking onto freight trains to get to the next town, while Rebecca drives a station-wagon.

I taped her appearance last night and I think tears welled up in my eyes each of the three times I saw that angelic, beautiful face and heard the soulful voice, no doubt carved in part from the life of hard knocks she has chosen to lead in pursuit of her dreams.

She will not be living in her car much longer- I guarantee you that. Get used to nice hotels and maybe even a limo or two over the years ahead—because you’ve earned it, sweetheart. And just wait until they get a load of the songs you write that are ten times better than the tune you covered on NBC this week.

You rock, Rebecca. And your soul and your heart rock too. You’ve always been an inspiration to your family and friends. Now, you’re an inspiration to a whole nation. How friggin’ cool is that?

Redskins owner, Dan Snyder, is back with his lawsuit against City Paper, now filing in DC instead of New York. He could have done so quietly- but no. The re-filing came with an op-ed piece in the Washington Post explaining why this particular dog can’t let go of this particular bone.

I posted passionately on this when the matter reared its ugly head the first time around. The point I was trying to make is that while Snyder says his father was a journalist and he understands criticism and he’s never filed a defamation suit against anyone before, the fact of the matter is that the effect of his legal action is to cast a long and threatening shadow over anyone who dares to criticize his majesty- or they too may end up fighting a multi-million dollar law suit that would end up bankrupting them.

You may recall the lawyer-letter to City Paper from the Redskins General Counsel that intimated exactly that; say you’re sorry or you’ll spend so much time in court that your sorry little paper and its measly little resources will never cover the court costs and you’ll go out of business.

I know this about the long, threatening shadow because in a very small way, I felt it myself. After my first post on this matter in which I questioned the sanity of the Redskins owner, worried friends e-mailed me or posted stuff on Facebook to the effect of—careful- or you better “lawyer up.” And they weren’t kidding either.

No. No one should be afraid to criticize the rich and powerful and famous. This is one of the reasons we fought a doggoned revolutionary war. So we could say anything we wanted to say about King George III and his ilk and not have to face lawsuits or prison. It’s why the American courts give huge latitude to those who criticize public figures.

There were about 57 different bones that City Paper threw at Daniel Snyder in the column that started all of this last autumn. A veritable catalogue of complaints about the Redskins owner; from his incompetence as an owner to the Redskins suing their own fans when they lost their jobs and couldn’t afford to pay for their season-ticket contracts; the ban on signs at Fed Ex Field critical of Snyder—the stuff we’ve all read about now for so many years.

But there’s only one bone Snyder is suing over according to his op-ed piece in the Post today. The one bone that is worse than all other bones:

I honor vigorous free expression in the media. But even a public figure can sue for defamation when a tabloid paper publishes a harmful assertion of a fact, not an opinion, that it knows to be false or recklessly disregards the truth.

That is exactly what this writer and City Paper did. Among many examples in the November 2010 article, the most egregious was when the article stated: This is “the same Dan Snyder who got caught forging names as a telemarketer for Snyder Communications.” That is a clear factual assertion that I am guilty of forgery, a serious crime that goes directly to the heart of my reputation — as a businessman, marketer and entrepreneur. It is false.

Here’s what happened (or so it’s alleged). His company got nabbed (allegedly) for “slamming” a couple of decades ago; the practice in which you (allegedly) change people’s phone services on them without them knowing it. There was an (alleged) out-of-court settlement in which Snyder Communications admitted nothing but (allegedly) paid unspecified amounts in damages. Did the City Paper actually mean Daniel Snyder himself participated in the practice? Or did they mean the company he ran did? Did the paper show actual malice?

That’s what the courts will sort out. And he wants a jury trial. This is going to be rich.

Now, in an effort to protect myself and calm my friends and family who worry that Daniel Snyder will take me to court someday because I may say something he doesn’t like, I have crafted the following language that I will use at the end of any given article I will forever more, publish about Daniel Snyder:

The previous article was not written with any malicious intent toward Daniel Snyder, hereby known as the “public figure.” I have made no harmful assertions or representations of fact purposely intended to damage the public figure’s reputation beyond those actions he, himself, has taken to injure his own standing in the community. I further assert that it is my full right as an American citizen covered by the protections of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America to criticize, ridicule, satirize or otherwise poke fun at any damn public figure I feel like.