Leslie Griffith

One Lone Bureau in Mumbai and an Actual reporter

Published in The Huffington Post December 1st, 2008

CNN made two scrupulous decisions before the tragedy in Mumbai. Both illustrating to the nation and the world the capacity of television news to be more than, as Edward R. Murrow put it, “Wires and a Box.”  If the other handful of networks owning America’s major conduits of information take notice, perhaps television journalism will not remain an oxymoron and the people’s trust in television journalists can be restored.

CNN proved ready for this tragedy by inherently understanding a bureau in India could become a strategically important move and possible open a window for the rest of us to peek through.  No other television news corporation had a bureau and a reporter there.

How did CNN figure that out?  With Pakistan to the northwest, generally considered to be one of the most dangerous places on the planet, Afghanistan next to Pakistan and Iran and Iraq next door, it did not take remarkable sagacity, but it did take money, and that’s why there were no other American television network bureaus there.  Stockholders these days often consider education excess.

Sectarian and political violence surround India, but until Thanksgiving Day, India was considered relatively safe. Relative being the operative word in that sentence.

The second thing CNN did right came in the form of a scrappy, brilliant, formidable reporter manning the lone bureau in India.  Sara Sidner barely flinched when explosions erupted and drunk and angry mobs surrounded her. She lives in India; she knew her stuff.  But then, Sara Sidner always had “Game” and a “Send me in coach” attitude.

Sara Sidner sat in the same chair as I for many years. She worked as an anchor on weekends and a reporter on week days.  Local news did not fight for her to stay. She had no contract keeping her from walking away-- so she did. She’s a rarity in television news today. She did not cover herself in airbrush makeup and flap her eye lashes or purse her dimples for the cameras. She wanted to be a reporter.

Few local corporate television executives notice Sara Sidner qualities these days, so she did what big fish in small ponds do. They either shrink or swim away and grow.

The pond Sara left was crowded with beauty queens toting beauty pageant sashes as resumes. Objectification to reach a goal is not Sara’s style.   Instead she chose the unknown. She chose to walk away from the comforts of home toward potential terror. She has a reporters heart and mind and if she could be cloned, American’s would be better informed and democracy safer. She chose to immerse herself in Indian culture while surrounded by countries with itchy- trigger- fingers, twisted loyalties and sectarian and political killing fields.

Following  the massacres in Mumbai one former intelligence member told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, that the “human intelligence networks” have collapsed---that there is complete reliance on “technological intelligence gathering. ” The same former intelligence officer said, “That contributed to the intelligence failure that perhaps could have stopped the “Thanksgiving day bedlam.”

Reporters based in foreign countries once helped fill that “intelligence void.” And anyone who has ever sent an e-mail to a friend, who misinterpreted the message, knows technology cannot replace human nuance. The lump in my throat melted when I saw Sara reporting from Mumbai. I knew her ability to gather information and relate it to others, and I also know America cannot avoid another 9/11 without understanding these conflicts.  People love Sara and sense her sincerity, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she did not come up with some answers as to whom the culprits were and the points they were trying to make.

 One personal note: When the contradictions of television news got too much for me, Sara Sidner sent flowers to my home and pleaded with me to return to television broadcasting. She indicated current destructive trends would change and reporters would be allowed to become public servants again. With those gestures, she considered my friendship more important than climbing the ladder to the anchor chair that in local and national news turns reporters into actors and creates myopic minds promoting corporate cronyism and corporate agendas. She was not looking for a camera close up, she was looking to be the real thing.

Bullying-Buffed-Up-Times

Dear friends, in my job as a journalist,particularly when reporting on events in other countries,at times it was necessary to use photographers or editors from other stations. During those times, we often did live shots for CNN and numerous other television stations across the country and the world. I reported from Moscow for instance during the Cold War. Those interviews were used by networks around the world. Since I worked for an Independent station then, we gave our stories to any network requesting them.

Any reference to editors or photographers should not automatically be assumed to be associated with any particular media corporation.

A journalist learns picking questions carefully is one of the most important tenants of the job.

On this particular day, the object of my inquiry was the biggest, meanest, mood-altered, high maintenance-millionaire- bully around. What motivates a man like that? And why--during the nightmare of the last 8 years-- did such specimens seem to procreate like a nasty virus in a Petri dish?

We had worked together for years, but having never asked me a question about my life or my family, resignation set in, and I kept my distance.

He began to symbolize a certain segment of men today, many running mass conduits of information (television networks) and what he valued and how he lost his way seems socially relevant today.

Who he was, and why his penultimate included being "BIG" I considered to be theoretically crucial information. Why the hours-long workouts? Why the steroids? Why take a substance that makes your looks and performance a lie, and causes cancer? Why work unrelentingly for the muscles making the outside appear formidable, but the content of the character angry and mean, and the content of the trousers unable to stand up and look around?

So, after confessing my own flop- sweat- fear- on dreaded election nights while figuring voting percentages and numbers of precincts at warp speeds live on the air, perhaps quid pro quo could occur. My curiosity, more powerful than my ability to keep quiet, propelled me forward with a well chosen question hoping it would tell me who he was and how he got that way. Turned out, I already knew.

"What is it YOU fear?" I asked without looking up from my paper work as not to alarm him and create suspicion.

He did not twitch a huge muscle.

"I fear being small."

Bulked up to not only beat the band, but beat UP the band, his honesty gave me a Shakespearean look at his values and the values of many running our steroid nation.

"You mean you fear feeling insignificant?"

"No, I mean I fear being a little man. Little men get pushed around."

After 22 years of observing him, it was the first time I felt his pain.

Bulked up to keep the demons away, he was just another little boy in the playground making sure no one hurt him by hurting anyone else. He could not truly measure up, so he beat others up, especially those who saw through the bully-beef-cake image.

In pursuit of false power and literal self-inflation, he hid behind his stature pushing everyone else and everything else out of the way. But in the dark when no one is looking and character is truly measured, he likely came up short, if he came up at all. He, like his country, reflected a false image of health and security.

The news room monitors told his story over and over in various degrees of separation: from the stock market bullies betting on America's failure, to the mass media's - bipartisanship, to government agencies protecting corporate profiteers while ignoring its duty to American citizens, to a president who ignores laws, compassion and intellect.

Pump the iron, make the threats, be the boom-box without the logic.

I have a dream. Perhaps his noisy, misbehaving days are over. Perhaps the country is tired of his kind. Perhaps the bullies big-bad-self indulgent days are numbered and the muscles that make the man will be sapient in nature--turning the boom box down and resolving conflicts the bullies created.

Silencing the Town Crier

First published in truthout.org  2nd September, 2008

"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."
    - Thomas Jefferson.

    How in the world can this happen? How in the world can citizens remain ensconced in their homes watching "American Idol" when a true American, who should be idolized, is getting arrested for nothing more than asking a few questions?

    Amy Goodman, who hosts one of the rare alternative news programs in the country, "Democracy Now," is not known for attracting attention to herself.

    She is not a Bill O'Reilly, shouting and screaming at anyone who disagrees. She is a journalist who loves diverse voices and putting events into perspective - helping American citizens get the information they need to make informed decisions.

    Yesterday, Goodman witnessed and experienced something very frightening that likely was not mentioned on your local news.

    During the opening of the Republican National Convention, she was arrested for asking police where her two producers were. They had been arrested, and because SHE asked a question police did not like, she was arrested too.

    After more than 20 years as a journalist, Goodman was doing what reporters are supposed to do. She was gathering news inside the Republican National Convention as well as seeking opposing views outside. Heavens to Betsy - a real journalist telling both sides!

    The video of a demure Goodman walking into a group of police who were dressed in riot gear - looking like guards outside a dictator's palace - is surreal. It also convinced me that Republicans would love to provoke citizens practicing their constitutional right of civil disobedience into acting like misguided idiots. Then the mass media, which have been lifting pom-poms for the Bush administration for years, can blame them and make them look like lunatics worthy only of dismissal.

    If Amy Goodman had been wearing an American flag or a Republican emblem on her lapel, I doubt she would have landed behind bars.

    Voices of dissent have always restored balance after times of extreme, and if those voices are silenced, can we still call ourselves a democracy?

    Goodman is one of the few working news persons to ask tough questions of powerful people, and they don't like it.

    This is the age of the bully, and those bullies don't want anyone showing America or the world that there is concern about where our country is headed. Bullies don't like discussion, and yesterday Amy Goodman was bullied right into the paddy wagon.

    Today, many of those in power want to convince sleeping Americans that dissension is evil - that it's unpatriotic and should be feared.

    How can a country formed by revolutionaries not understand that there is no democracy when there is no free press?

    To kill those who question is to kill democracy itself, and the end product is a dictatorship.

    When Iraq was invaded and the town criers lost their voices for not asking why, Americans lost their faith in journalists who are charged with protecting them.

    Now, as a small group fights to wrestle control away from a rich and powerful few owning our conduits of information, dissenting voices are rarely heard - these few own the people who should be asking the questions.

    But they don't own Goodman, and that's why she was arrested.

    Mass media owned by Viacom (entertainment) General Electric (arms dealers) Disneyland (let's just have some fun) and Fox (Rupert Murdoch, who likes to give John McCain a lift in his jet once in a while) are not about to give newsrooms across the country back to its citizens.

    Those sitting in anchor chairs reading the news are often there because they will say and do anything the corporation tells them to, and every one of those corporations has an agenda - and it's not protecting the public.

    Our conduits of information have been hijacked; a man, acting like a dictator, is in the White House; the town criers of democracy are getting arrested, and Americans' heads are so full of infotainment, Prozac and Zoloft that getting off the couch seems like a real inconvenience.

    There is a reason Americans rally. It is our right, and it is our way of pulling a country moving toward self-destruction back into the arms of the people who love it most - those who believe in all sides getting told; those who believe information without perspective is harmful; those who believe infotainment is not news, and those who believe corporate control of newsrooms is destroying a democracy.

    What a sad time for journalism. What a sad time for America.

    What will it take for journalists to put down their pom-poms for corporate media, get out of bed with the Bush administration and start fighting to do their jobs again?

    Perhaps Amy Goodman's illegal arrest will get Americans to stop listening to those who tell us the enemies are all around us and understand that the enemy is here within these divided states.

Life is sweet today

First published in The Huffington Post

Life is  Sweet today. The California sunshine is bright and full and there's an easy,  warm breeze helping to relax the lump in my throat.

After 25 years of  reporting--surprises are rare, but my pride in my country today put some life  back into my step and took the hitch out of my get-along.

She did all that---that fresh-real-woman at the Democratic convention--Michelle  Obama.

"Did you see her?" My daughter called to ask.

"No  babe--been working hard on the book--it's almost finished!"

"Mom, dad  said watching her made him cry." (Her dad is a psychologist from the deep  south.)

"I'll watch her online right now." And thus the unplugging of tear ducts began.

It's hard not to get sentimental. My editor says it's  a sappy form of communication--my tendency toward it is rarely effective in writing.

Keeping that in mind, I will only say this:  Racial  hatred here and around the world has consumed me with anger. After 25 years  of reporting on it, my eyes needed a doctor.       

As a young girl  growing up in the south, police were called when a neighbor saw black friends  swimming in my family's backyard pool.

The quarterback of the football  team at my high school in Texas was thrown in jail and beaten to a pulp after he was found at Lookout Point in Tomball, Texas with a white  girl.

There are still hanging trees in antebellum front-yard  courthouses in the south with proud plaques explaining what those trees were  used for.

Sins committed on those southern branches against those  hanged there usually far outweighed any perceived crime--the real culprit was  Melanin levels.

In my lifetime, it seemed unimaginable that a strong,  intelligent, loving, articulate African American woman would be standing on  the stage of the Democratic convention---giving a speech that could help heal  a country bruised and battered and divided. It covered me with hope.

It also made me wonder if the plaques from the old hangin' trees could  be taken down in her honor.

The Greatest Lie on Earth

published in The Huffington Post on 7/28/08 Truthout.org

Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus paraded endangered Asian elephants through Los Angeles streets while fools born every minute watched.

People were foolish -- or perhaps naïve -- because all the Asian elephants have been exposed to -- or have had full blown mycobacterium-tuberculosis.

Several of them have fought hard to live and several have taken one or all three of the same drugs humans take to try and cure this deadly communicable disease.

The circus is a tuberculosis Petri-dish because it's impossible to tell when a 10,000 pound animal is cured.

According to health records -- a Federal judge ordered Ringling to release -- few of owner Kenneth Feld's elephants have managed to avoid exposure to tuberculosis, and most have taken a hard and sometimes deadly regiment of drugs to try and cure it.

But, there is no X-ray machine in the world big enough to produce evidence the animals is cured.

According to L.A's head of the health department, Patrick Ryan,

"Once these animals have been exposed to M-tuberculosis -- the same disease humans catch -- they (the elephants) should never be allowed to be around the public again."

Instead of lining the road to see the animals, people,

"Should be given a disclaimer when they come into the arena explaining they could be exposed to a deadly contagious disease."

World renowned epidemiologist, Don Francis who fought hard to get the world to take HIV seriously, and was the first head of the Centers for Disease Control AIDS Division goes on to say, "Potential drug resistance is a distressing problem,"

"When humans give tuberculosis to the Asian elephants and the elephants become drug resistant and go back out into the public, the elephants could then not only infect others with TB, but with a drug resistant form of TB."

Consider this:

Every animal on the blue unit now performing in Los Angeles, then heading to San Diego and on to the San Francisco Bay area has either tested positive for tuberculosis, or has had a full blown case of M-TB.

With no way of looking at an elephants lungs until after death, there is no way to tell if they are cured. The test veterinarians give -- a trunk washing -- is notoriously unreliable.

At least two Ringling elephants have died after giving negative trunk washings for M-TB and during necropsies, tuberculosis- lesions were found on their lungs -- they were contagious the entire time they traveled the country and the world.

Every few days I get a Google alert on elephants and tuberculosis. When I first began writing about elephants and M-TB, many, including high ranking USDA officials refused to admit publicly that the disease is transferred from the elephants to humans and back again. The USDA now admits this.

As for the spread of tuberculosis, organizations that follow the disease know its trending up. A study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, reported that 55 percent of elephant handlers from one herd -- caught tuberculosis. In some areas tuberculosis rates are soaring such as Santa Clara County where the circus will be headed in a few weeks.

According to one former elephant handler on the blue unit -- six of the elephant handlers working with the blue unit -- the one performing in Los Angeles County right now-- tested positive for tuberculosis.

Their bodies are ticking bombs as they wait to see whether they will come down with the disease itself.

Humans passed the M-tuberculosis to the elephants and the elephants pass it back to the handlers and presumably circus goers -- in an endless merry- go- round of heartache and death that not one government official is concerned enough to stop.

Why would the owner of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus carry tuberculosis infected elephants across the country and around the world? It's simple -- you already know the answer -- money.

Kenneth Feld, owner of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus -- was at one time -- the fourth richest man in America according to Forbes magazine, and he wants to keep it that way.

Since 1993, he has known his elephants were infected with tuberculosis...at least 30 died during the last 10 to 15 years.

His herds have been devastated. While he promises to conserve the species -- he systematically kills them -- while hiding the proof that they carried M-TB from one American city to another. His circus is not alone.

A circus that gives elephant rides to children just left Oakland. One of the elephants is so sick she can barely stand -- she tested positive for tuberculosis, and still the families come to let their children ride these animals.

http://www.lesliegriffithproductions.com/my_weblog/2008/04/circus-elephant.html

With heightened concern by the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control that a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis is emerging -- why not consider elephants with tuberculosis blowing moisture from their trunks inside a closed area -- a possible TB Petri dish?

Unimaginable greed and desire for money at the expense of human life keeps this cycle going.
Kenneth Feld has said the circus is not the circus without elephants. Cirque de Soleil has dispelled that myth.

The diseased animals would still be a secret except for health records Ringling was forced to release in Discovery after a Federal judge threatened to throw Kenneth Feld in jail if he did not turn the records over.

Feld is not facing criminal charges for knowingly taking the animals across the country, but many believe he should.

One former Ringling Bros., -- employee said -- under oath, "As the elephants enter and exit the arena, they blow moisture from their trunks hitting people in the face, exposing them to tuberculosis."

In depositions from a former chief financial officer and a former private investigator, both say as far back as 1993 Feld knew and hid the fact that his animals had tuberculosis.

Joel Kaplan, one of Kenneth Feld's Private investigators, says a Ringling veterinarian told him:

"About half the elephants in each of the shows had tuberculosis and the tuberculosis was an easily transmitted disease to human beings..." "I think it is immoral to have elephants traveling in every arena in the country with tuberculosis. "

Kenneth Feld will finally face charges in court for allegedly abusing the endangered Asian elephants. After 8 years and millions of dollar in a Herculean effort to put the court date off -- a gutsy Federal judge finally set a trial date for October 7th.

Feld is also entangled in another law- suit -- one that has been on- going for 10 years. He is charged with trying to ruin the career of a reporter who exposed his family's history.

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2001/08/30/circus/print.html

The forest is burning and your government officials are either whistling through the grave yard or too busy to notice.

                        

McCain becomes Borat

Watching John McCain lately feels like meeting Borat.

On exporting cigarettes to Iran:

Sen. McCain: "Maybe that's a way to kill them."

Borat: "Throw the Jew down the well

           So my country can be free

           You must grab him by his horns

           Then we have a BIG party."

Reporter: "Mr. McCain you voted against a bill that would require health insurance to pay for birth control."

Sen. McCain: "I don't know what I voted." McCain scratches his head.

Borat: "In Kazhstan we say...

1.    God

2.    Man

3.    Horse

4.    Dog

5.    Woman

6.    Rat

7.    A small Katzoee (?) .."

Message from comedy lovers to Sen. McCain: Satire only works when people don''t believe you would do it.

PAM-EE--LA   help!         

Cindy McCain: Pretty in Pink

The Huffington Post/7-10 The San Francisco Chronicle

Do we want our daughters pretty in pink?

This story took a week to ferment and bubble to the surface of my psyche. It is directed at women, and it's about a stupid news magazine cover that should not mean anything -- but for deeply complicated reasons it does.

The magazine is Newsweek and Cindy McCain is on the cover.

It's the message the cover of the magazine sends -- a message of conformity that First Ladies of old were mostly forced to project. Look closely -- conformity is illustrated in every pixel. Pick it up and take a look with an open-heart and an unjaundiced eye. Are we backsliding?
Or are we getting pushed.

The fingerprints of political consultants and image therapists are smeared over the cover like flies on -- well you know. Cindy McCain is no dummy. She's married to John McCain for goodness sakes, and she is the chairwoman of her own company. She's the age of most grandmothers, so why make her look as if she is just another Paris Hilton-ized size two?

Forced to project a pretty in pink image is not so easy, and once a woman gives the okay, it is hard to get the power to say no in return.

Most female anchors go through the same drill. Corporate owners of newsrooms -- often deeply entrenched in the entertainment business -- require subservience and deference. The pastels begin multiplying in the closet.

Consider the older man -- younger -- woman anchor teams with the same demographics as Cindy and John McCain. Many of the ultra-conformists running newsrooms across the country make sure the female is perky, smiling, deferential and pretty in pink. Is there a parallel? Are we selling out to be loved?

One anchor-woman in San Francisco wears a pink leather suit! Now really who is she trying to please? The answer to that question is the men who consider her an appendage -- a sweet little pussy cat -- purring perfection while giving up her own soul in the process. Hillary in blue slacks is their nightmare!

Why is it that the more conservative corporate leaders get, the more pretty in pink women show up to wave their pom-poms for the men in power -- men who often have few boundaries and wouldn't be caught dead in a pink suit.

We are back to the same old question: Why do women work so hard to be loved and why does that continue to involve being thin, having no wrinkles, smiling on cue and SHUTTING THEIR MOUTHS?

I know a woman who jogs six miles a day and cries as she pushes past all the other wives out doing the same thing. She says frankly that her husband will look elsewhere if she is not fit. He hasn't listened to a thing she's had to say in years

Imagine Princess Diana after attending a state dinner holding back her hair in the bathroom praying to the porcelain God. How many times did that dear woman wipe vomit from her designer gown or pick it out of her hair before leaving the restroom -- all in an effort to make a man love her who never did and never would?

What young women need now are heroes. They need to see women saying no to image consultants and unreal expectations. They need to understand images on most magazines are PhotoShopped and the lies of perfection are created by the publishers.

We've had President's wives who love birds and flowers and designer clothes and wanted nothing more than a title and a closed mouth. But there were a few who sat as equals: Abigail, Roselyn, Eleanor come to mind.

Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain -- who are you really? The consultants tell you not to speak of issues when those issues have defined your lives just as they have ours. Remember, for every person who hates you for opening your mouth -- two will admire your courage and feel protected by you.

This time around, America needs a woman in the White House tempering the testosterone with reason and helping an often isolated president understand the condition of the people living in the nation he governs for them. We need an Eleanor Roosevelt.

Between the years 1933 and 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt dictated 2,500 newspaper columns, wrote 300 magazine articles, published six books and gave roughly 70 speeches a year. She served as chair of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and was routinely called "The First Lady of the World." That's the kind of First Lady America needs. We are tired of lies whether they be verbal, ocular, or PhotoShopped.

Ignore the consultants, be brave -- the times call for it and the people are demanding it. When Michelle and Cindy speak, we will spot the wife who is the friend to her husband and the woman who can be a friend to the nation. Yes, you must choose your words carefully, but after all -- that is what separates the girl from the woman isn't it?

Worn out images of perfection always self destruct. Nature makes sure of that. But honesty during hard times can make us stronger. Damn the consultants, damn the people who tell you to close your mouth.

Speak.

Bill O'Reilly meet bill Moyers

...violence does not consist so much in injuring and annihilating persons as in interrupting their continuity, making them play roles in which they no longer recognize themselves, making them betray not only commitments but their own substance."
                                                                        Emmanuel Levinas, Totally and Infinity


                                                    

I have just returned from the "Reform the Media" conference in Minneapolis. I was full of hope which is often mistaken for naivete.  That's my lame excuse for this:


(First published on the Huffington Post, 11 June, 2008)

I wanted to write an old-fashioned letter to both of you. I wanted to put pen to paper so you could each see I have a school- teacher's handwriting. It can be clean, precise, truthful and sometimes even amusing. I am not a threat. There is no anger in me.

I just returned to San Francisco from Minnesota where the "Reform the Media" group met for several days. I found it renewed my hope, but it also worried me. There were too many labels on our lapels. I am not liberal. I am not conservative. I am just me.

I don't know what those labels mean anymore. They seem terribly antiquated during these divisive times.

Consider the young man who spoke at the conference who started a popular hip-hop-on-line newspaper. He did so partly because the "ink gets all over your hands" from newspapers. Anything that is growing is in motion, constantly changing. The feel of the newspaper in the hands of my generation -- so comforting -- was just another mess to clean up for the young hip-hop entrepreneur.

Mr. O'Reilly, I apologize for what happened to your producer at that conference. It was unacceptable. The exchange with Bill Moyers was a flincher for me, but the worst part of the video was the young girl saying disparaging things about you. I hope for all our sakes she was not a journalist.

Bill Moyers taught me that UN-civil - discourse riles people up. Civil discourse educates and enlightens.
   
Having said that, I know it took balls for Bill O'Reilly's producer to walk into that convention hall among the perceived liberal-biased-self- righteous-wolves and it certainly took cajones to make a bee- line for the man journalists at the conference consider our present day Benjamin Franklin. Bill Moyers is the essence of who we all aspire to be. (without B.F's appetite for excess -- I hope.)

With that said, there is no excuse for degrading others. Our differences keep this engine of democracy oiled. But the discourse has to be respectful. In this country, we can still speak our minds and not go to prison. When we as journalists help citizens see through one another's eyes, we are doing our jobs well. The well-oiled machine begins to move forward. Bill Moyers taught me that too.

Now, stay with me as I present what at first will appear to be a non- sequiter.

In Kenya, an equatorial country, I have witnessed a man standing on the north side of the equatorial line with a plastic worn-out-bowl- in his hand. He drops a needle into the bowl. Gravity at the equator pulls the needle slowly toward the south. When that same man stands just a few feet away on the south side of the equator, the needle is pulled again by gravity and it points north.

On both sides, the needle is pulled toward the world's strongest point of gravity. Movement -- even at zero latitude. Movement at ground zero!

The confrontation between Bill Moyers and Bill O'Reilly's producer had much to with which man would appear on the other's show first. Each refused.

So what's the big deal? Americans have no leader telling them the truth, we are craving discussion.Why not start with the two of you? Help us see the world through the eyes of two men who represent the views of a a lot of people. Certainly, not everyone, but a lot.

Let the American people hear the conversation between them. Let's have the discussion, and let's make it fun not hateful. Let's learn. Let's act like free American citizens who don't have to bully each other to get a point across. Let's have civil-discourse with two leaders of two very strongly divided movements in America. The media corporations will love this proposal. But this time, let's use them!

Bargain for some of the proceeds of this televised meeting of the two Bills and get it in writing! Both sides should give the money to a group they believe is advancing democracy.

Here's the proposal:

A conversation with Bill Moyers and Bill O'Reilly.

Here are the rules:

The conversations should be on neutral ground -- (neither man's studio.) This civil discourse may get better ratings than the Super-Bowl!

Both networks should air the conversations simultaneously. Neither Bill gets top billing.
Have two moderators -- both men pick one. I nominate Phil Donohue for Bill Moyers -- he was my Oprah, so I naturally pick him. Bill O'Reilly can pick any moderator he wants. So can Mr. Moyers for that matter.

The moderators ask the questions. The American public is smart enough today to see when a moderator has an agenda to trap and insult and bring the conversation to a close. Stirring the pot will not make either of the Bills more popular: to do so will reveal the true nature of the man. Do his words come from the heart and promote public good, or do they injure and confuse?

Muckraking does not help create informed citizens, conversations do.

These two men represent many people on both sides of America's present day divide. Let's introduce ourselves to one another through them. Perhaps we will find we have more in common than we imagined. Perhaps.

Wise-well- chosen- words and empathy can only bring peace. Pride can only bring more ego driven fissures.

Before I left for the media conference, a woman, I consider my friend in the area, told me she "hates Bill Moyers and loves Bill O'Reilly." Remembering how much I like and admire her, I began to wonder how she finds comfort in the words of Mr. O'Reilly, and I felt sick that anyone could say they "hate" Bill Moyers. He is my version of Gandhi. His words move me to be a better neighbor and friend. He has taught me humility. He has shown me the value of an open mind and the value of a determined heart. He is my standard for good journalism.

As Joan Rivers might whisper in our ears, "Can we talk?"

Genetically modified Mouthpieces

Published June12, 2008

The San Francisco Bay Guardian.

In 2003 when I was working as an anchor for a San Francisco television station, anchors and reporters across the country were asked by the White House to refer to the Iraqi invasion as Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). We were asked to call the war in Afghanistan Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Operation Infinite Justice (OIJ) had a rocky start because most of America’s Arab allies were offended. Muslims believed only Allah could provide “Infinite Justice.”
Even so, with press releases in hand journalist’s repeated genetically modified words as if their DNA depended upon it.   Genetically modified language is when propaganda wins, journalist sell out and the public loses. It is when words are twisted and massaged and spun until an entire suit of lies is woven to cover the guilty and cloak the truth. The Genetically Modified language, in the case of Iraq, was full of false bravado and moral superiority, in attempts to turn lies into honorable causes our dear children were willing to go to war for. 

But nothing caught on like “The War on Terror.”  It was a White House propaganda bonanza! Whole networks built their news around swirling “War on Terror” graphics and anchors began stories with “Today in the war on Terror,” while most of the world considered Americans the terrorists. That’s when I pulled up lame and refused to dance the destructive dance. Most of us who complained are gone now after some pretty nasty break ups.

Journalists as conduits of mass manipulation. I was too naïve then to understand it was nothing new. The lies were as poisonous as the tons of saran, mustard and VX nerve agents President Bush told us Saddam wanted to use on us. But, as the lies began scrubbing the girl away and the woman’s eyes opened, I started seeing the media’s complicity in the pain and death that followed. I read every book on propaganda I could find. I quickly learned Genetically Modified language was one of Joseph Goebbels favorite propaganda tools. But the dopes got duped.

Even so, many corporate “journalists” eagerly grabbed an American flag pining it to their lapels. Rooting for the war is much easier than asking hard questions revealing a conflict based on lies and a country led by liars.  Hard questions lead to other hard questions. Linear logic in this case is frightening.

We all wanted desperately to believe the White House Mantras.  Many are still repeating subtle propaganda in the name of patriotism on our nightly newscasts today. That’s why I am writing this now.

As you most likely are standing in judgment, I offer up this sliver of attempted redemption.  Journalist like most Americans are patriots too, we don’t want to believe the government is lying, but as odious as it may sound to the “My Country Right or Wrong people,” finding and revealing those lies used to be our job.

“The fourth Branch” was created to watch the government and anyone else using lies to gain power and profit at the expense of the safety and security of the American people.

Also, I ask the American public to consider their own role in the Iraqi quagmire.

Five years ago, when President Bush likened Saddam to Hitler in order to justify going to war, questioning the President’s motives was considered by corporate America unpatriotic.  Corporations exist for one reason: to make money.

Patriotism and genetically modified language delivered to newsrooms directly from the White House was easy. The words were powerful because “War on Terror” not only sounds authoritative, it makes a great graphic! All the polls agreed!

The President’s approval rating was high when America invaded Iraq and the media corporations blow toward the money. More viewers= more money.  So Patriotism was served up instead of unbiased news.
The media corporations began buying anchors and reporters who did not understand their part in the body bags.  Anchors, producers and assignment editors who would go along to get alone were hired, and they got to keep their pay checks and health coverage. This is why Disney, Viacom, Westinghouse  G.E., Murdoch and Cox should not own newsrooms. They are often the very ones the press should investigate.

Cognitive journalists can now see that using the White House Genetically Modified language with unquestioning devotion is one of the many reasons we lost the public trust five years ago.

The fourth branch our fore-fathers envisioned is broken. We became stenographers. Does the red-tally light on that newsroom camera lobotomize us?  Part of the problem is putting corporate anchors in anchor chairs where reporters should be. Certainly experienced reporters would notice the genetically modified words and their own complicity when it seems completely lost on those covered in layers of lip-gloss.

Now that former Press Secretary and once staunch Bush ally, Scott McClellan is walking toward redemption and has found the courage to speak the truth, the “Deer in the headlights” look on his face as he turned in his resignation makes perfect sense. I knew something was up.
Practicing Prevarication for a living wears most people down.

Now that the president’s approval rating has plummeted, it no longer takes courage to toss the White House pompoms in the trash heap and the genetically modified language with it.

With Bush’s approval rating lower than a snakes belly, no commercials will be lost if journalists are brave now, but we have lost more than we ever imagined, “ the penultimate loss” nearly five thousand dead American soldiers.

I propose journalists stop repeating Genetically Modified White House language, but they also go a step further.  I am about to fall on my sword here, so please open your mind.

On the very day it was leaked that Scott McClellan’s book reveals the country went to war based on known lies, the sweetest shiniest, dimple faced, airbrushed Bay Area Murdoch girl began a broadcast by announcing:
“Another American has given his life for his country today.”

Here is the falling on the sword part.

I was once that girl, but girls someday grow into women. Today I know that soldier was one of thousands who bravely believed in what the president said and died believing a lie the press helped promote.
I propose to this anchor women, who I imagine to be a nice person, read this instead:

“Another American has died in Iraq today, he was a beloved brother and child and he was number 4,084.
Then perhaps follow that with the number of wounded Iraqi veterans 30,329.
  In an attempt at truly unbiased  journalism end with the number  1,217.892 Iraqis who have lost their lives.

If this war, as McClellan says, and dozens of other experts have pointed out, was based on a great lie, let’s honor those who were brave and honorable and willing to believe the lie by bringing them home alive and stop repeating Genetically Modified words that glorify a conflict American journalists could have helped prevent by putting their pompoms down.

A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall

My next door neighbors are watching Chinese television. I self-consciously look up from time to time for a peek at them as they stare at Chinese news learning of the country they once fled. I watch with admiration and a thimble full of envy. Three generations under the same roof anxious to learn if anything had changed. The head of the family is known as the most competent builder in the Oakland Hills of California.

I am packing to return to Texas for a few weeks. My learning curve will be intense, but I don't know it yet. The lesson begins when the cab driver pulls up in my driveway.

The cabbie is from Africa. He says he is one of the few thousand allowed to come to America from Ethiopia because of U.S. State Department lotteries. He drew a lucky number. In the short ride to the airport it's clear he's funny, smart, and grateful for my business. He loves America, but during the ride he complains about Iraqi cab drivers at Oakland Airport. He says they take prayer breaks and consider that part of their job. "We all wait in line for the next fare, why cannot they?" he wonders. The practice of praying on the job and then cutting in line is not fair, he says. I tell him they are new immigrants, and they'll get the hang of things soon. He laughs and says he sure hopes so. He says he wants them all to be friends.

Arriving in Austin, the first kind face to great me is the African American hotel desk clerk who welcomes me with a warm smile and self confidence I rarely witnessed in African American men his age when I was growing up. He is the level head at the reception desk. We begin talking about the local headline in the newspaper.

Dell computers was laying off eight thousand eight hundred employees world-wide and the Austin area was about to get a high voltage jolt of present day reality. I ask the elderly gentleman about Dell and the fallout.

"Nine hundred jobs gone from here," he says. "Gone, just like that." He raises both shoulders and both arms in a gesture of empathy for those injured by this evolving global market affecting all our lives. It will be a hard hit for the local economy. Realtors quoted in the paper said residents fear they will have to sell their homes for the price of the remaining mortgage.

"Yep," I say. "Dell has a history of making hay while the sun shines and skippin' town when the going gets tough and the taxes get too -- well, taxing." I had read that Dell has moved plants to China, Ireland, Africa and India, just to mention a few countries with low paid workers and few labor unions. Apparently Poland is desperate for jobs now, so Dell is expanding there.

With fewer jobs, anger was running rampant through the psyches of those in the Austin area. It is anger born of fear and the inevitable by-products followed. Fear leads to arrogance. Fear leads to bullying. Fear leads to military buildups. Fear inflates egos and Texan egos are already legendary. Besides the size of the state itself, the oil industry made a lot of self- indulgent billionaires. Tennessee Williams would have had a wealth of good material here. Remember the television series Dallas in the eighties? Remember J.R?  But that was then: this is now.

My next stop is the 7-11 store owned by an Iraqi man who is itchy and anxious and his fingers never leave the cash register. He nearly jumps out of his skin when a group of Mexican day workers come in to purchase some sub-par nourishment for dinner. Some have worked as illegal labor all day mowing lawns and working construction. Their eyes are dark and tired and their clothes are worn. I stare at the calluses on their hands. They are hard workers. No one disputes that.

I begin the drive to my sister's home in Marble Falls, Texas, about an hour-and-a-half away. When I pull over for lunch I see a nail salon. Inside are about twenty mostly underage female workers from Thailand waiting to scrape the dirt from underneath the toenails of women with thick southern accents and big hair. The young women watch like abused animals for glances of displeasure from the clients. If the boss sees a dissatisfied customer, I get the impression the consequences could be grave.

Back on the road, I remember I have forgotten my e-mail ticket home and call United Airlines for help. I cannot understand the ticket agent on the other end of the line. He is in India.

I pull over thinking the connection must be bad, and if I can get out of traffic, and turn off the engine, I will be able to hear. There is a delay on the phone line that is so frustrating we spend the first few minutes in bizarre overlapping conversations that sound much like talking on a two-way radio. Is it the distance or the phone companies recording the conversations at the U.S. government's request? Reluctant admissions of such events had recently been made.

Either way, after five minutes of trying to understand one another, I eventually feel as if my brains are about to explode and exit via my eye-balls. I begin screaming at the ticket agent who is trying to help me as he sits in what I imagine to be a cheap fabricated cubicle near a busy road in New Delhi. I hear loud diesel fuel vehicles passing by. I am crazy with impotence. No matter how frustrated he is, it does not show. He has a script he has been taught to follow, and he is unflappable as long as the answers are in the script.

"I need my reference number," I speak much too loudly and condescendingly into the phone. I wait for the pregnant pause to pass so I can hear his answer.

"Yes, ma'am, your number is R-ruh, P-uh, R-ruh." At this point I am torn between the liberal guilt I feel for being angry and the impulse to break the phone into little pieces by assaulting the dashboard with it.

I finally ask for his supervisor. His voice raises several octaves. "Am I not pleasing you ma'am? If you will hold on, I will get another agent." I remember my manners and say, "No, let's try one more time." He begins again. This time the combination of numbers and letters contains what I think he is calling a "B." I'm not sure, so I stop him for the umpteenth time.

"Is that a 'B' as in bunny or a 'P' as in pony?" He is off script now and therefore completely lost. I finally ask him to hang on a moment. I let the phone go limp from my hand into my lap and wait a few moments while fighting back tears of frustration. I pick up the phone and spend another ten minutes pulled over on the loud busy roadway trying to understand this very kind, patient man who most likely considers his job a blessing from God.

I cannot wait to get back to Northern California. When I finally do, I stop by my favorite coffee shop in Oakland run by a Cambodian woman whose life story is too horrible to share. She will only say the Khmer Rouge "hurt her family."

I want to get to my house and spend as much time there as possible. I am considering selling it, but the "downturn in the economy," is in full swing in my neighborhood, and it is not a good time to sell. I manage a smile as I think of my southern brother saying, "All Californians ever do is brag about the cost of their real estate!"

I begin asking a friend at the coffee shop how homes are selling. A realtor within ear shot of our grievances about our nest eggs getting fried chimes in. "Advertise in Dubai, the new financial capitol of the world...there are plenty of millionaires there who will buy a home here!"

When I finally walk through my front door, I go directly to my Dell computer. It's dead, and showing no signs of life. I call the help line and reach India. As usual, a very well-mannered man answers, ready to walk on hot coals to help me.

There is a sea change occurring in America and we are now a world connected, whether we like it or not. So we must ask ourselves, how can we survive? Is there a way to build bridges? How can we take this potentially explosive mix of chaos and find the promising essence of it?

Will we react by alienating some? Will America become isolated? Will America create more wars in order to remain a "Super Power" while the country is run by third world workers? Or will America re-invent itself and raise diplomats and economists and entrepreneurs and react with wisdom? Will pragmatism win over nationalism?

A hard rain is falling, as Bob Dylan sang. Will America's great thinkers gather the droplets and be part of a bountiful bouquet, or will the nation become dehydrated, and stuck in archaic thinking that could lead to continual drought?