Ad Blocking Costly For News Programming

The world today is mired in a once-in-a-generation news story with a pandemic.  Within our nation protests and cultural tensions have exposed a racial rawness that requires solid reporting. This is no time to pull punches in newsrooms or worry about anything other than where the facts lead a journalist.

Some advertisers, however, who are consultant driven and motivated solely by profit margins are balking at placing ads during coverage of stories about controversial news events.  Frankly, it is an unseemly slap at fostering an informed citizenry and short-circuits a merchant’s desire to be seen as ‘socially aware’.  Timidity is never a pleasant sight, and when such behavior is called out it makes for an embarrassing accounting.   Such as with Target Corp.

From today’s Wall Street Journal

 

 

 

 

Vulgar Language Not Needed In Wall Street Journal Story

Vulgar language jumped off the printed page of The Wall Street Journal today.  Not only was it coarse language, but it was sloppy journalism along with lazy writing.  Let us not also forget editing was sleeping on the job, too.  Having written a few sentences in my life for public consumption it was most apparent how the facts could have been presented in the article without having the paper succumb to the lowest usage of language in the land.

The story Eric Trump Steers Family Empire Under Father’s Close Watch dealt with how the real-estate empire is faring during a pandemic.   Sourcing an advisor the paper felt it needed to insert a quote they knew to be so over the top they could not use all the letters of the final word.

It offends my intelligence when such lines are used in national newspapers and publications.  It lowers the bar so others feel it more than proper to imitate such reporting.   Such allowances in papers of esteem, such as the WSJ, alerts me that our national discourse is ever hardening and becoming more offensive.

I still operate by two hurdles when writing in public forums.  Would the word(s) be accepted at dinner tables around the nation, and would my former employer in radio, a former broadcaster for WGN Chicago, have allowed it to air in Sturgeon Bay (WDOR)?

Words matter.

Conservative Newspaper Editorializes Trump “Is Debasing His Office”

Today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal has a most interesting, timely, and correctly-toned editorial. It goes without saying that Donald Trump has misused his office and lowered the regard we should have for the one holding the title of president. He has been a national embarrassment and as I have stated on this blog he is a stain on the nation.

Today the editorial writers for the newspaper took off after Trump as he again tweeted that a former Republican congressman from Florida, and a current host on MSNBC, committed murder. The depths to which Trump plummets has no bounds.  But that is the way with sewer rats.  I applaud the conservative newspaper for calling out his bizarre behavior.  Republicans across the country need to follow suit.

You Do Not See This Everyday In The Newspaper

Rarely do you see the following in a newspaper, and yes this is one of those nerdy posts. This is what happens when self-distancing allows more time to ponder almost everything.

This morning in The Wall Street Journal the graph, and therefore part of the top-of-the-fold story, was also part of the banner of the paper.  As a newspaper junkie, it just made me smile and reflect on how much of the paper layout is standardized so that when changes occur they are noticed.

The point also cannot be lost on the gravity of the story being such that it’s historic nature allowed for it to land into the banner of the paper.

 

 

When No Words Are Needed About Our Priorities

With cloudy skies and January-like temperatures, we are spending a low-key Sunday in Madison.  With the heavy load of news this past week I am drinking coffee and catching up on the newspapers.   The world is, without my pointing it out to my readers, a rather unsettled place.   It can be rough, crude, toxic, and unforgiving.   But I must say it does not get more showcased for all that, and more, then from the pages of Friday’s Mansion section of The Wall Street Journal.

From the front page.  It is a story about the excess wealth that the Koch Brothers have used to buy hundreds of millions of dollars of luxury properties.

From the third page. A former auto executive’s home is now for sale.

From the fifth page.

 

Wall Street Journal Released Trump Interview Audio About North Korean Leader–Trump Is Lying About Statement

The White House is disputing that Trump told The Wall Street Journal that he has a good relationship with Kim Jong Un of North Korea. The White House says Trump said “I’d have” a good relationship with Un.

If you thought, “Hey, there might be a recording of this,” you’d be right. The Journal released it, and in it Trump said he has a good relationship with the North Korean leader.

The Journal followed up by asking: “Just to be clear, you haven’t spoken to the North Korean leader, I mean when you say a relationship with Korea.”

“I don’t want to comment on it-I don’t want to comment, I’m not saying I have or I haven’t.

Trump tweeted today that “The Wall Street Journal stated falsely that I said to them ‘I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un’ (of N. Korea). Obviously I didn’t say that. I said ‘I’d have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un,’ a big difference.

But the audio clearly shows what Trump did say!  Trump has again been caught in a red-faced lie–and The Wall Street Journal has proven it.

Wall Street Journal Opens Up On President Trump

This weekend the Wall Street Journal editorial page let loose on President Trump:

Presidents get the White House operations they want, and Mr. Trump has a chaotic mess because he seems to like it. He likes pitting faction against faction, as if his advisers are competing casino operators from his Atlantic City days. But a presidential Administration is a larger undertaking than a family business, and the infighting and competing leaks have created a dysfunctional White House.

The reason Mr. Priebus wasn’t as effective as he could have been is because Mr. Trump wouldn’t listen to him and wouldn’t let him establish a normal decision-making process. Mr. Trump has a soft spot for military men so perhaps he’ll listen more to Mr. Kelly. He’d better, because on present course his Presidency is careening toward a historic reputation where names like Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon reside.

Trouble In Wall Street Journal Newsroom

I never like to see this type of story which then reflects badly on the whole class of journalists.

The Wall Street Journal has fired chief foreign affairs correspondent Jay Solomon for what the paper called a “breach” and ethical lapses over his involvement with an Iranian-born arms dealer.

Washington Bureau Chief Paul Beckett made the announcement to staff during a hastily called meeting on Wednesday after meeting with senior editors in New York the day before. Beckett did not elaborate on Solomon’s situation, only to say that an upcoming Associated Press investigation would have more details. Beckett took no questions and asked any staffers who knew anything about the situation to come forward, according to multiple sources.

Shortly after the announcement, the Associated Press on Wednesday afternoon published an article that said Solomon was offered a 10 percent stake in a company called Denx LLC by “Farhad Azima, an Iranian-born aviation magnate who has ferried weapons for the CIA.” Azima, the article said, was also one of Solomon’s sources for years. Solomon’s involvement was unearthed as part of an AP investigation into Azima, in which the AP obtained a “collection of tens of thousands of emails his lawyers say was stolen by hackers,” which included conversations between Azima and Solomon.

I do want to add that Solomon’s work covering national security and foreign affairs had been submitted by the paper for Pulitzer consideration, according to former and current Journal employees. His two decades at the Journal included stints in Asia and Africa. While in Washington, he had become a well-sourced fixture on the foreign policy social scene.  I am saddened by this news.