Tag Archives: Media

The Cowardly Broadcasting System

I remember how proud I was the day I reported to work at WBBM-TV, the CBS owned and operated station in Chicago. It was in October 1974. I was to start my first “real,” that is, “post school,” job. My position was “Assistant Political Analyst.” That was a fancy title for an entry level job more commonly known in newsrooms as a “legman.” Legmen, and legwomen, assist senior reporters and columnists as needed. One of the station’s anchors also had the title of “Political Analyst” and I was to help him in everything from researching and producing his stories to doing his expense account and picking up his laundry.

But here I was at bottom of the ladder at the company where Walter Cronkite presided over the evening newscast. The same newscast I had been watching for most of my life. Yes, I felt proud.

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RIP WCBS Newsradio

WCBS Newsradio Studio

A great radio station is dead, a victim of the ever-changing world of major media. WCBS Newsradio 880, a fixture in New York City for nearly six decades, has said farewell to its loyal listeners, me included. The shutdown on August 26, 2024, of the iconic all-news station marks the end of an era in local news broadcasting.

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The Truth is Out There

This is the 21st century. The Russians deny they are responsible for the slaughter of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine, claiming corpses were planted on the streets after Russian soldiers had left the scene. Satellite pictures clearly show bodies on the ground and Russian troops still on the scene.

There is a fiction making the rounds that says the average Russian does not know what their country is doing in Ukraine. Don’t buy it for a minute. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union worked hard to keep the truth out of their territory. Western news media were blocked, jammed, and banned. But the truth leaked in, and when the USSR fell in an economic collapse, the truth flowed in with a vengeance.

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