It’s been a long time since I last blogged. I’ve been laying low. With all the changes going on, and all the chickening out due to Trumpian lawsuits, I wasn’t sure about our rights regarding free speech anymore. But I’ve escaped my self-induced paranoid mental or emotional bunker.
The initial reason for keeping quiet began a few months ago when my identity was stolen … for the eighth time or so. I first noticed when I could not get into my bank account on my phone. WTH? Then I could not call the bank or make any phone calls! I was freaking out! There was no way I could fix this major 21st century problem, couldn’t even call anyone in these businesses to report what was going on.
I couldn’t do a thing for hours, first finishing the workday, then rushed home best I could in traffic, and then while choking back tears tell a neighbor what had happened and if I could please use their phone to fix my problems. My phone got hacked by someone in the Dominican Republic, the fraud investigator with my phone company relayed after spending about ten minutes tracing my number. The criminal kicked me off my own phone number and plan and took it for himself.
Fortunately, it was fixable, and the fraud division went to work with my number restored to me. Then I had to call my bank, for the umpteenth time since continuing life in the Digital Age, to let them know I did not have online access to my account. Someone, perhaps the same perpetrator, hacked into my account and changed my password, leaving me no access. I was livid … but knew the FDIC (which we still have, right?) guaranteed funds up to a certain amount digitally stolen from my account would be restored after investigating. Like I said, I’ve been through this several times, too many, and I have online protection, too. With the bank’s fraud division on the line, I had to change my password, and then my account was in my control again … for now.
The first time this sort of thing happened to me, someone in Eastern Europe (that’s what we were told back then) got my number(s) online. That’s how they rob banks now: getting real account numbers stored in cyberspace and going to work figuring out log-ins and clever passwords. The bank actually has been on top of these crimes for years and contacts me, often on a Saturday, asking if I recently purchased a big TV from Walmart in some town I’ve never been or donated to the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Good bank. They know me well somehow. OK, it’s a little creepy. But I guess this is how modern bank robbery crime is fought this century. [I thought the high-tech chip cards were supposed to stop easy online theft.]
This time the bank hacker wasn’t able to get into my account (that’s happened to me, and I had to start a new bank account) but did kick me out somehow, taking over the account. Just scary times we’re living in. It actually makes me extremely depressed … every time it happens. So now I guess we understandably go through life with high anxiety.
Media roll over
The other big thing going on since President Trump took office has disturbed me just as much as online bank and cell phone hacking and that is the American media, like many of our nation’s largest corporations of all types, avoiding any dust ups with the Man. Because he is a sewer, er, suer. Everybody knows this about him. He sues and hangs on like a bulldog for years and years. Meanwhile, the defendants cannot afford to stay in business and deal with a Trumpian lawsuit. That’s what’s going on with our nation’s corporate media.
I never thought I’d see the day. Yet here it is: American news organizations playing nice with a sitting U.S. President. That’s not how it’s supposed to be at all. Give me the days of Bernstein and Woodward along with Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katherine Graham. They knew how to play hardball. AND HARDBALL IS THE NAME OF THE GAME BETWEEN THE MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT.
Journalism, as a government reporter, was my first career. But now the general public is convinced nothing reported in the news is real; it’s all fake. The public actually believes our current President will be the One to let us know what is real and what is fake. This is so … stupid … and lazy. I expect better of my fellow Americans. Each one of us must know how to tell the difference between real and fake news. It takes time and effort, like voting every year for leaders to run our form of government. And don’t believe everything a U.S. president tells us. We never did before Trump. We always doubted politicians.
Also, a free press is written into the U.S. Constitution. It took a few centuries to figure out how to produce thoroughly substantiated news (I’m gonna use the phrase honest journalism), but the American media did it better than any other country. From our nation’s founding, there’s always been the tabloid media. I grew up in an age when EVERYBODY KNEW THE DIFFERENCE. Now with the internet’s lingering Wild West anything-goes news and playing fast and loose with the facts, dressed up to appear legit but with the real intention of keeping us alarmed, Americans have lost their way. This is an American problem. Quit blaming the internet and social media, as Fred Sanford would punctuate to us, “dummy.”
Right now, our U.S. Congress is looking to cut federal funding to PBS and NPR. They stand for the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio, the latter title’s implication that it belongs to and is for the People, something to trust, something we could be proud of. It’s a nonprofit—the profit motive doesn’t exist as it does in corporate media. This is about as good as it gets to ensure what you’re reading or seeing or hearing is fact-based journalism. And now gone? Except dubious fast-and-loose-with-the-facts social media and ‘citizen journalists’ and the likes of Trump’s ‘Truth’ Social which will continue to exist for our … let’s call it what it is, entertainment.
Off with their talking heads
And there’s another development with big league journalists that started with the unnecessary 24-hour news cycle. Reporters have been sitting with TV and internet news ‘shows’ to provide insightful commentary into their beats, especially the national government beat. This is not allowed among serious news organizations. Reporters are not opinion writers and columnists. Nowadays journalists who cover the national beat are mixing with show biz. And it’s part of the problem with public trust of the media.
The latest story was a long-time respected national network news reporter getting canned for his social media comment criticizing our current president’s administration. Say the same about any other president, and there’d be no problem. But not so with Trump. The major broadcast company canned the reporter rather than deal with a costly and lengthy lawsuit that would have put the network out of business.
Reporters should remain aloof. They have a job to do not unlike a homicide detective. The public doesn’t need to know everything. (I can’t believe I just wrote that.) But with two terms of President Trump, I see how important journalism is. Truly it’s as if we’re in a war of sorts, a search for truth. Make that Truth. And reporters are investigators. The public sees their faces, hears their voices, knows their names. But we shouldn’t know much more about reporters including their political views. [I can’t believe I wrote that either.] For the sake of our country’s unique and honored relationship with the press, reporters should get off the celebrity circuit and just do their job—which is: Find out what’s really going on including how, why, who, where and when.