The Cavalcade of Casey

Webster's defines "cavalcade" as the following: "a : a procession of riders or carriages b : a procession of vehicles or ships. 2. : a dramatic sequence or procession."

We've certainly seen that the past few weeks.You couldn't get away from it, other than turning every device off. Ignoring every newspaper display. Fast-forwarding beyond every news break on television. Switching radio stations on the dial to iPod or CD play only.

The Casey Anthony trial, like the O.J. Simpson trial, gathered fever pitch to the point where people stopped what they were doing when the verdict came down. A friend tells me she was at the Magic Kingdom outside Orlando, and even at Disney World things ground to a halt as workers and visitors alike were glued to cellphones.

In the aftermath, it's providing a thought-provoking picture of the state of the news media.

It wasn't too long ago when "capital J" journalism newsrooms would have steered clear of stories with such public obsession. But on the day Casey Anthony is sentenced, NPR online's most-commented story is "Casey Anthony Found Not Guilty of Killing Her Daughter." The New York Times featured a full-color photo , at left, of Anthony in the courtroom as the verdict was read, front and center, just below the masthead.

Can Bill Moyers Journal be far behind?

This isn't a seismic shift among the media on how to use social media, or whether the newsroom web wunderkind got the bulletin on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc. etc. etc. It's a fascinating look at the continuing evolution of what's news, the diminishing power editors have in determining what's on the front page, and the growing power the consumer appetite for stories has in determining the editorial decisions publishing, broadcasting and web newsrooms must make.

Those institutions that wouldn't have spent ten seconds on stories such as Casey Anthony not so long ago now belly up to the pop news culture bar, albeit without the gusto and off-the-charts performance we're seeing on the television cable talk channels. Or the network talk shows (radio and television) for that matter.

Here in northeast Ohio, for example, the ongoing trial of Anthony Sowell for the murders of eleven women continues. Coverage has been above the norm, led by all four commercial television stations and of particular note the Plain Dealer. The work by the newspaper team and Cleveland.com is evident in this index of their coverage, providing a comprehensive view of the case from many angles. It was enough to merit a full hour of in-depth discussion on WCPN's Sound of Ideas program, not your usual public radio fare. But then, finding eleven bodies isn't your usual fare, period.

But we haven't been subjected to the shrieking guest list exhibited on Nancy, Dr. Drew and Jane.

Our local reporting has been thoughtful, audience-respectful coverage. It's what I suspect most local news organizations provide their respective audiences during the "big story" although the crush of media mob-style coverage can be a difficult thing to remain independent from. Locally, we saw the same in the case of Jessie Marie Davis and resulting trial of her boyfriend, Bobby Cutts, Jr., for her slaying.

Full disclosure: I was one of the on-camera folks on the Grace program during the trial, as was former reporter/anchor Tina Kaufmann and the Akron Beacon Journal's Phil Trexler.

When the circus comes to town, it's tough to not act like a clown.

The Nancy Grace types of the broadcast news/entertainment world don't purport to be journalists; there's no "capital J" in what they do, and what they do has an audience. A strong audience.

The Associated Press reports HLN (the network serving up Grace, Velez-Mitchell and others) scored high when it came to "capital R" with their coverage of the case. The highest number of viewers since CNN put "Headline News" on the bird in 1982, more than four and a half million people -- more than double the usual. On the day Anthony was found to be not guilty of murder and manslaughter, The Nancy Grace Show scored it's highest audience ever at nearly three million people.

Is it good journalism? I'd say not, especially watching the un-credible punditry leading up to the verdict and the howling afterward. But the changing face of the media means it isn't my decision. It's yours. You hold the power in determining accuracy and credibility when you hit the on button and pick a channel.

Is it good television or radio? If the metric for "good" means the number of people watching and listening, then the Casey Anthony coverage hit a home run for those organizations that went all-in and didn't mind going over the top.

There was a time when media organizations were a reflection on their society. It was reasonable in the 60s, 70s and 80s to picture the BBC as quintessential stiff-collar Britain, or the Guardian as liberal English. The same could be said for Japanese, French, German, and Italian media: if you really wanted a taste of those nations, watch their television. Even reading, watching or listening to state-controlled media such as Pravda, Radio Moscow, or CCTV in China would help form a picture of what life was like in those countries.

From the 60s on, we had people like Chet & David, Uncle Walter, Peter, Dan and Barbara to show the kind of stuff we were made of. 60 Minutes carried forward the Murrow standard. All (then) three networks had outreach beyond America's borders through radio and television. CNN added to the mix, then MSNBC, then Fox.

Was our society a reflection of them, or were they the reflection of us? If the latter, watching HLN this week is like looking into a national mirror.

How's that looking for us?

The Humor of Budget Blowback

There's plenty of humor to find in what has become the immediate rough-and-tumble of virtual debate; even some very over-the-top stuff.

Just a couple from the email bag this week before, during and after Governor John Kasich's budget Town Hall meeting and the continued sniping from side to side in Washington as both capitals grapple with the legacy of spending more than they have:

(Columbus) The Ohio School Boards Association both praises and questions the budget's treatment of elementary and secondary education, correctly noting the details are still to be delivered in assessing impact on the state's 600 plus districts. My favorite quote:

"..it is unlikely that those methods mentioned -- health care pooling, changes in procedures for reduction in force and new regional shared services -- will make any substantive difference in the upcoming budget cycle. These are possible changes that may help districts over the long term."

So let me get this straight; it's unlikely consolidating services will make a difference but it's possible it'll help over the long term. That's going out on a limb.

(Washington) Following the House vote to de-fund National Public Radio (NPR), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) issued their take by claiming it would cripple AMBER Alert programs.

"In his partisan zeal to defund NPR, Representative Bob Gibbs opposed an effort to protect NPR's vital role in disseminating AMBER Alerts. The AMBER Alert program is a partnership between law-enforcement and broadcasters that activates an urgent bulletin in child-abduction cases. Under an agreement with the Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, NPR was designated as a disseminator of AMBER Alerts."

Now I happen to know a thing or two about AMBER Alerts, and this is a stretch. A big one. Not only to public stations issue AMBER Alerts, but local commercial stations do as well. We all do so in Ohio because we participate in the Emergency Alert System (EAS) -- those announcements usually preceded by beeps and tones before getting tornado, flood and severe weather warnings. The equipment is in place and has been for years to allow local law enforcement and emergency services, including the state emergency operations center, to issue such alerts. In the vast majority of cases, these alerts are automated -- meaning radio and TV stations pass them along to the public without the touch of a human's hands. The system is designed expressly for that purpose. Whether NPR gets funding or not won't impact stations automatically broadcasting such alerts. Whether NPR gets funding does impact if any humans are left behind to report on it.

(Columbus) My personal favorite is in this item from my friends at ProgressOhio, the group of Progressive Democrats. The topic is the Kasich Administration's ham-handed treatment of the press by ordering, then reversing, a ban on cameras and microphones at a budget briefing. It took about a half-day of protests from reporters to overturn the ban, but critics are still playing it for all it's worth. In the process, however, ProgressOhio's Brian Rothenberg might have used spell check for his subject line:

"Ohio is not Lybia: End the Statehouse Blackout!" Errr...not only was the blackout short-lived...there's also no Lybia. It's Libya. You might have heard of them. Wacko dictator (see at left), lives in tents, takes down commercial airlines, fights his own people? They've been in the news lately...

I Heart Terry Gross

I love radio.

It can be somewhat passive like television, something to be enjoyed while stretched out on the couch. One doesn't need to be in the Met to enjoy an opera, or standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a cow pasture to revisit Woodstock.

It paints wonderful pictures in the mind like a book, but instead of using the highway of the eyes it uses the back roads of the ear to spark the mind into taking up pigments and brush to make me see without even opening an eyelid.

It can push us into action, drawing even the most hard-core wallflower to dance with abandon in private or in the company of family and friends. Books don't make my toes tap; television doesn't let me see my world as I choose to view it. This is a medium where the announcer can be the author, producer and creator with a direct route into my soul. It has always been, at least in my view, the most intimate of media.

Terry Gross of WHYY-FM in Philadelphia takes it to a new level, and tonight's Fresh Air on NPR (3:00 p.m. on 89.7 WKSU, 7:00 p.m. on WCPN) was one of those landmark moments where she literally turned dung into gold.

It isn't often you can't turn away from something profiling the dung beetle but Terry's interview with University of Montana professor of biology Dr. Douglas Emlen is simply one of the most enjoyable, compelling, amusing and fascinating interviews I've heard from Fresh Air, and Terry Gross has done thousands.

His take on the advanced weapons systems nature creates from these waste-eating bugs made them appear smarter than anyone at the Pentagon; Mother Nature as the mother of all military-industrial complexes. Relaying the story of thousands upon thousands of beetles descending upon him as he observed a pile of elephant dung collected just to attract them made my skin crawl, just as the scenes from every Egyptian-locale Mummy monster flick does -- but I couldn't turn it off. The story of how Australia had to work so hard to find just the right species of dung beetles to clean up acres and acres of cow flop covered grazing land put picture and scent right between the eyes.

Even his observations on how sleek and slender suitors try to get past the heavily-armored male guards for the sweet reward of waiting beetle babes in the tunnels below the piles of...OK, you get the idea.

Terry Gross is the textbook example of how a radio interview can sound so simple, so natural, and so wonderful. When checking out the link above, make sure you check out the slide show of beetles -- they look more like sculpture than creatures doing dirty work. See the battle of the beetles caught on video -- Fight Club for real. But by all means don't neglect to listen to 38 minutes of a true interview artist.

The Update

Sure, we're supposed to update blogs at least once a week, maybe more. Here's why I've been such a slacker:

Emergency surgery to remove a gall bladder with some minor complications; Nature Girl's car losing "Ice Dancing" competition with an SUV during one of the recent ice storms; brother-in-law dealing with fatal health issues, trip to Michigan; father with some eye surgery (just one, thanks) and that's just since the last post.

I even have a photo of the offending organ before removal. Taken in the gut, so to speak, by the laprascopic camera, but Nature Girl was horrified at the thought even though there's no way to trace it back to her. Send those cards and letters of thanks to me and I'll be glad to pass them along to her. Someone has to be a conscience of good taste, right?

Overall, I can say my mind is now at peace knowing I met my health care deductible for the entire year by January 2nd. As a prize, I've been awarded the "stay at home, watch TV and surf the web" posting on the couch. Some observations flavored by pain-killers:

If your neighbor's kids were throwing hundreds of rocks at your house all the time and the cops did nothing, what would you do? Would you eventually toss them back? Would you take those kids to the woodshed on your own? If the kids with little rocks live in the Gaza Strip and you live in Israel with bigger rocks, what then? Seems to me answers across the hedge hold sway with the troubles across the ocean. Shouldn't any talk of peace start with a promise to put the rocks down -- even the small ones?

Still on the Middle East: anyone else think Hamas is like organized crime in owning the tunnels from Egypt to Gaza? Smugglers use to get goods and guns, charging tolls and getting their "vig"? It's enough to make even a Soprano green with envy. Imagine owning the highway, getting a piece of every shipment AND operating as the Toll Authority. Just why the hell do all those people still live in such deplorable conditions?

In Washington, the city quivers...as do the commentators who can't wait for the coming. On New Year's Eve I heard a commentary from NPR's Daniel Schorr equating Barack Obama to the Greek god who would swoop in and fix everything. Dan begs for cosmic help; "it's the only answer we have in this age of anxiety." As if the entire pull yourself up from the muck American spirit has been destroyed by the dumping of our net worth (or maybe just Dan's) the past three months.

Understand that it was our own grand American impatience to have it all without paying for it that finally caught up to October and November, 2008; time to pay the piper not for working hard to build wealth, own a home and put the kids through college but instead not working at all but expecting loopholes pushed by lenders, politicians and special interests to front load the American dream payoff without a penny of sweat equity.

Where's the next Ronald Reagan to point to American perseverance as the answer to working out of our problems? Where's the next FDR to note the only fear we have is fear itself, and maybe in today's age the only greed we should fear is our own? Are there no Teddy Roosevelts? As Obama tries to lash together fast action even his own Democrats seem uneasy, and you could almost feel the resentment with O's promise that earmarks wouldn't be tolerated. Now is the time for bold action, decisive leadership and to hell with tradition.

Schorr's was the last commentary I heard before my gall bladder screamed to be pulled from my body. Maybe the bladder has ears.