There is no getting around the fact that Bill O’Reilly must be one smart guy. Just ask him. He is a Harvard graduate with a couple of Masters Degrees, plus extensive training in the art of assholism (I know there’s no such word, but in explaining the use of the word, “refudiate,” Sarah Palin assured fans that it is okay to make up words because William Shakespeare made up words. And speaking of masterful writers, I made up assholism in my masterpiece, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger. Indeed, I’m adding another contribution to literature by composing long parenthetical digressions).

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/07/19/sarah-palin-refudiate/ 

Getting back to Bill O’Reilly finally, I am fascinated by his remarks regarding the influence and impact of Fox “News” on television viewers—more influential he claims than other networks.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/20/bill-oreilly-fox-news-bet_n_652477.html

O’Reilly is correct in believing that the Republican propaganda network gives viewers the news they want to hear, which is basically what he is saying. However, the comment makes me wonder if he really received a Masters in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University. After all, O’Reilly once falsely claimed that he was awarded a Peabody. If he’s telling the truth about his Masters, I want be recommending the journalism school to fledgling reporters. The role of news is to report the truth and give people information they need to know. My old employer, CNN, at least tries. But Fox fails miserably as a legitimate news organization. The network so slanted to the right that discerning truth is a formidable test for viewers—even if they cared.

I concede that Fox “News” has considerable influence on its viewers. On a regular basis, I encounter Fox folks who take the attitude of “Don’t confuse me with facts.” Some are simply too lazy to think for themselves. Others are angry, unhappy people facing economic setbacks and other difficulties they don’t understand. O’Reilly and his right-wing comrades provide viewers targets to assign blame. Primarily Democrats. 

But lets face it, monkeys in a room filled with typewriters (are any left?) will compose one word that is comprehensible. And even though God may punish me for this, I’m going to give Fox ”News,” Bill O’Reilly and Megyn (this is hard to spit out) Kelly an A+ for criticizing Bob Scheiffer, the CBS host of Face the Nation. Crazy Megyn’s point……

Attorney General Eric Holder sit downs with CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer for a half hour, a one-on-one interview. And not one question about the now-infamous New Black Panther voter intimidation case….

I’m telling you one of two things happened. You tell me if I’m wrong. Number one, Schieffer doesn’t care about the story and just decided to punt on it, even though you can find facts about it on CBS.com. So, the Web site over there is doing its job, but Schieffer apparently isn’t interested in the story. Or, number two, the DOJ sent guidelines for this interview and told him you can’t ask about that.

In reality, the Black Panther case is a non-story stemming from a decision by the U.S. Department of Justice to drop a civil case regarding allegations of voter harrassment at precincts in Philadelphia during the November, 2008 Presidential election. Critics of Eric Holder—wing-nuts mostly—have accused the Attorney General of showing favoritism in cases involving African Americans. In this instance, there is no monetary value in pursuing a case against individuals without assets.

The so-called scandal has been conjured by Megyn Kelly and other Fox loonies. But it received enough publicity to a warrant question by Scheiffer during Holder’s appearance on the Sunday program. In an interview with Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz, Scheiffer pleaded ignorance. The veteran CBS newsman said he had been on vacation and was unaware of the Holder “scandal.” Shame on Scheiffer. Unless he was trapped in the remote jungles of Borneo fighting for his life against headhunters, he must have been in contact with the rest of the world. Most reporters maintain a casual interest in public affairs while on vacation. And besides, news shows like Face the Nation employ producers and researchers to provide questions and background. So O’Reilly wins one.

Let me tally the scorecard. He is correct that Fox distorts the news to fit an audience, wrong to suggest this is good journalism, right that Fox has influence on its viewers, wrong in believing they have good sense, correct in saying Scheiffer screwed-up, and wrong in considering the Black Panther case worthy of Scheiffer’s attention. According to my Tuscaloosa High School math skills, O’Reilly has three rights and three wrongs. That comes out to 50 percent—a miserable grade.

Hey, Bill. How the hell did you ever get into Harvard? On an assholism scholarship?  

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

I resisted the temptation of titling this post, ”A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss.” But I am still using the trite phrase because it’s true. The magazine has been around for more than four decades. And the article that resulted in yesterday’s resignation of General Stanley McChrystal as commander of troops in Afghanistan is not the first time Rolling Stone has caused Washington heads to roll—or at least flinch.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/23/AR2010062305371.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

Although most of Rolling Stone’s readership is less than half my age, I used the magazine as a background reference many times in gathering information for investigative stories I tackled. Indeed, an article printed a few years ago in the publication is part of the material I’ve accumulated in connection with a possible book length investigation I am working on(the topic to be revealed in the future).

The downside of Rolling Stone is it reminds me of my age. Lady Gaga graces the cover of the same issue that has created the McChrystal furor. I know she is a performer, but ignorant of what she performs. I’m still in the age of early rock and roll. More traumatic in making me aware of age is the fact that my only encounter with one of the magazine’s star writers occured when he was eight years old. Matt Taibbi’es father, Mike, is an old friend and former colleague in the late 1970’s when I headed the investigative unit at Boston’s ABC affiliate. Mike is currently an NBC correspondent.

One of the memories Mike and I share is a puzzling invitation extended to us and our wives for a party at the home of a top station executive—a Harvard graduate, who was the quintessential preppie. I describe the invitations as puzzling because we were the only station peons invited. Believing it would be a casual get together, we dressed for such an occasion. Instead, it was a formal dinner party of Boston blue-bloods, complete with designated seating. Mike, our wives and I squirmed uncomfortably while listening to conversations about who should be appointed to the Board of Trustees of Wellesly College and other subjects in which our give-a-shit factor was infinitesimal. I told Mike afterwards that I was tempted to ask the matrons on either side of me, “Ladies, do you fart after eating pork’n beans?”

Anyway, back to Rolling Stone. As stated in the Howard Kurtz article I cited earlier in this missive, the success of the magazine’s in-depth reporting is the freedom given writers with respect to length and language. Matt Taibbi, for example, sprinkles his story with the “F” word and other obscenities—presumably to emphasize points for his under-30 readership. Certainly, the women at the aforementioned dinner party would find such language offensive. Then again, I’m jumping to a conclusion. New Yorker, the magazine of sophisticated society, periodically carries episodes in its Shouts & Murmurs section, titled The Cursing Mommy—the most obscene and funniest feature I can recall reading in the publication.

Language aside, Rolling Stone articles are important because they are well-researched and give context to issues. The publisher has been a strong supporter of President Obama, as well as a campaign contributor. Yet, the magazine does not spare him from scrutiny. Taibbi has done some of the best reporting in exposing the duplicity and missteps of the Obama administration. Fortunately, he and other Rolling Stone writers have a venue to fulfill the obligation of journalists in an era of superficiality.

With the exception of the PBS Frontline documentary series, television has pretty much abandoned that obligation. As much as I like to brag about my awards and success as an investigative reporter, I know that I was only as good as my employers commitment to in-depth journalism. In Baton Rouge, particularly, I was given the kind of freedom that astonished television reporters throughout the country. One-hour investigative documentaries without commercial interruption were unheard of in TV broadcasting.

At the beginning of my ten years as CNN’s Senior Investigative Correspondent, I was optimistic that I would receive the same kind of commitment in a national forum. That’s why I took another network job after spending seven years in muckraking paradise. But it was not to be. I was an old guy in an environment that gradually began targeting a young audience. Not too successfully, if current ratings are any measure. In the wake of General McChrystal’s resignation, I find it ironic that young guys are now influencing an older generation.

Maybe it’s time for all of us AARP dudes to learn about Lady Gaga.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

For eight years, pundits made exaggerated complaints that George W. Bush was too dumb to be President. Remember Ronald  Reagan? And for two years, the same pundits complain that President Obama is too smart. Remember Bill Clinton? I ain’t got no fine college education, but I’m smart enough to recognize stupidity when it comes from the mouths of no-it-all political commentators, reporters and talk show hosts. 

In the latest stupid episode of the dumbing-down of America, an alleged “expert” on speech patterns characterized the President’s recent Oval Office speech about the Gulf oil spill as too complicated for the average television viewer to comprehend.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/17/obama-oil-spill-speech-cr_n_615796.html

I watched the President’s speech and understood every word he said. Didn’t go to the dictionary even once. Granted, I went a little bit beyond the 9.9 grade level that the “expert” claimed was required to understand the address. In fact, I’m the proud owner of a diploma from Tuscaloosa, Alabama Senior High School. Graduated in the top 80% of my class. Sadly, I couldn’t maintain the momentum during one semester at the University of Alabama, where I failed every course except ROTC. The school has a dumb rule requiring students to attend classes. A few years later, I attended disc jockey school for four semesters. However, spinning records only makes people dumber. Have you heard of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other ex-disc jockeys now make a living by drooling on microphones? 

Anyway, I rated Obama’s speech as okay—though unnecessary. I rate it much higher than saying, “Let’s bomb the hell out of Baghdad and give CNN some visual news to report.” The President did what President’s are supposed to do. He re-enforced his Administration’s commitment to assist people and businesses effected by the spill. Proof came the following day when he shook-down BP for $20-billion—”shake-down” being the decription given the escrow fund by a stupid GOP Congressman (told you I recognized stupid when I heard it). 

The fund will go a long way in diminishing some of the fears of Gulf coast folks whose lives have been put on hold.  It will also help keep the courts unclogged by thousands of lawsuits. Though painful to plaintiff lawyers deprived of their 40% contingency fees, providing an alternative to litigation will expedite the payment of claims.

Obama’s speech notwithstanding, he can say nothing, nor can he do anything at this point to satisfy his critics and/or the people suffering from the tragedy. I hope he regularly recites the Serenity Prayer. If you don’t know words, it’s time to move out of your cave.

Unfortunately, a sizeable segment of society avoids making independent judgments about solutions to ongoing catrastophes, controversial issues and political dilemmas. Too often they are willing to accept the judgments of idiots. I ask again, have you heard of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al?

For most of my career in broadcasting, I worked with people better educated than me. As Senior Investigative Correspendent in CNN’s Special Assignment investigative unit, I was surrounded by reporters and producers with Ivy League diplomas and degrees from several prestigious universities. Earlier in my career, I spent five years an under-educated, redneck ex-drunk in charge of an investigative unit at a highly acclaimed local station in “Blue Blood” Boston. In these and other environments throughout my career, academic shortcomings caused me hang-ups. I compensated for the insecurities by reading everything I could get my hands on, developing a polysyballic vocabulary and a smart-ass attitude.  

My wife, who has two advanced degrees, has jokingly threatened to slap me (I think its a joke) if I repeat one more time, “I ain’t got no fine college education like you,” a phrase I frequently use when pontificating on some obscure topic I read about in books and magazines that are published for readers above the 9.9 grade level. I’ve subscribed to New Yorker for years. I read most articles and even profess to understand many of its cartoons. I hope that makes me seem sophisticated?  

I realize there are other smart-asses, who say I never needed to go beyond the 9.9 grade level. After all, I was a television reporter. Indeed, TV news is responsible for dumbing down America. Investigative reporting has all but disappeared from television. Too complicated. Therefore, most muckraking that is left falls into the category of superficial. In the latter days of my career, reporters were advised by so-called “news doctors” to make stories “viewer friendly.” 

Maybe the President should hire a “news doctor” so he can begin his speeches by saying, “Oil rig went boom, boom.”

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Former Panamanian Dictator, General Manuel Noriega, took an all expense paid flight from Miami to Paris this week to go on trial for money laundering. His extradition gives me flashbacks of a journalistic nightmare two decades ago when I found myself in the middle of a pissing match between CNN and a U.S. District court  judge in Miami. The controversy stemmed from a story I reported during my first year as the cable network’s Senior Investigative Correspondent. It was an example of a story getting out of hand.

In a nutshell, CNN extended its middle finger at a federal judge and he overreacted. An excerpt from the book tells why.

My involvement in the story began after a young reporter for CNN’s Spanish language network acquired copies of audio tapes of Noriega telephone calls, which were routinely recorded by the Bureau of Prisons. The tapes were slipped to Marlene Fernandez by former Panamanian diplomat Jose Blandon. I’m not violating confidentiality in revealing his identity. He has since been identified as CNN’s source in newspaper stories and court testimony.

As a former Noriega confidante, he was recruited by DEA agents and prosecutors to identify voices on the tapes and evaluate the conversations. Unbeknownst to the feds, Blandon made his own copies of the recordings. Because lawmen are barred from listening to attorney-client discussions under any circumstances, I was assigned me to work with Marlene to authenticate the tapes.

 Thus began a whirlwind series of on-camera interviews beginning with New York University law professor, Stephen Gillers. He confirmed that monitoring lawyer/client discussions is prohibited. He said the tapes could seriously jeopardize the case. The next day, I flew to Miami for interviews with Noriega lawyer Frank Rubino, former Assistant U.S Attorney Dick Gregorie and Neal Sonnett, then President of the National Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. 

I had a long acquaintance with Gregorie. He successfully prosecuted drug traffickers indicted based on the testimony of my late Baton Rouge smuggler pal, Barry Seal. After hearing tape excerpts, Gregorie agreed with Gillers’ assessment. 

A couple of hours later, Neal Sonnett described the tapes as an appalling violation of Noriega’s rights. Following the Sonnett interview, I made what turned out to be an expensive goof. I hit the record button while turning off the tape machine. Excerpts we brought to Miami were erased. 

Already an hour late for the Rubino interview, I asked him to be patient while arranging for an Atlanta producer to play the original tape over the telephone. The quality was terrible. But Rubino and a Spanish-speaking paralegal understood enough to confirm the tape was authentic. The lawyer said he planned to report the violation to the trial judge. I was now confident we had information exposing government overstepping in an extremely high-profile case. Returning to Atlanta, we made plans to break the story during a Wednesday evening newscast. 

Early Tuesday afternoon, however, Rubino asked me to delay the story. He feared the on-camera confirmation of the tape could be interpreted as a waiver of Noriega’s attorney-client confidentiality. I explained that the focus of our story was government misconduct, not defense strategy. As a courtesy, though, I agreed to inform CNN’s legal department about his request for a delay.  

Given clearance to run the segment by our chief counsel, I called Rubino to tell him the story would air the next day. He angrily threatened to seek a restraining order. CNN’s lawyer recommended we beat him to the punch by running the story early Wednesday morning before the courthouse opened. Hence, we spent all-night writing a script, gathering archival video and editing the piece. The story ran at 7:00 a.m.

By hastening the report, I did something I’ve since condemned. I rushed a story to air to protect a scoop and in so doing failed to exercise proper caution, even though nobody else possessed the tapes. The decision would prove costly.

Exhausted, I went home to get some sleep. However, my snooze was interrupted by CNN President, Tom Johnson. He said the Justice Department denied recording any attorney-client conversations, perhaps because the quality of the tapes was inaudible due to my mistake in Miami. Tom wanted me back to the office. 

Meantime, Rubino had followed up on his threat. To the surprise of CNN lawyers, the judge granted a temporary restraining order. The ruling set off a series of Atlanta meetings involving Johnson, corporate eagles, and legal beagles from private firms. While they met, we put finishing touches on a follow-up report. I believed the Justice Department’s denial demanded a response. Our second story contained audible portions of the tape, as well as an on-screen translation of the conversation and the identity of the participants.

Friday afternoon while network lawyers were trying to overturn the restraining order, I sat in a conference room with CNN executives and lawyers waiting for the verdict. The updated version was scheduled to lead the 5:00 p.m. newscast. Thirty minutes prior to air time, one of the attorneys called from Miami. Not had the judge refused to lift the order, he demanded that CNN immediately turn over the tapes for his inspection. It was nut-cracking time. Tom looked around the room for dissent. “If anyone believes we should delay the report, speak now.”

There was silence. So he called the newsroom and gave the go-ahead. Watching the newscast, everyone in the conference room cringed when the story was introduced by anchor Bernard Shaw with words to the effect, “Today, a federal district court Judge in Miami, Florida ordered CNN not to air secret recordings of Manuel Noriega’s discussions with his legal defense team. F–k you, Judge.”

Federal judges do not react well to violations of their orders. Many have God-like complexes. From high above, they exercise absolute authority over their courtroom domains. The network’s defiance angered every God-like judge in the country. CNN was cited for criminal contempt, and when attorneys later tried to overturn the ruling at the appellate levels, they were treated like court jesters.

In my opinion, Tom made the right call, but made a tactical error. He should have gone on the air prior to the story and explained the reasons for our decision to defy the judge. Although the news media must abide by the nation’s laws,  journalists must have broad freedoms to expose government misconduct without interference from the courts. In this case, the restraining order shielded prosecutors under intense pressure to convict Noriega to justify the invasion of Panama.

Before all was said and done, CNN’s defiance would cost the network about a million dollars in legal fees, fines and related expenses. And we still lost on appeal. So did Noriega.

He was convicted based on the testimony of a line-up of drug-dealing criminal witnesses, who were given sweetheart deals. I’m not implying that Noriega was innocent. My criticism in the book directed at the overzealousness of prosecutors and their willingness to conceal evidence and make deals with characters whose stock in trade was deceit.

Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger gives details of the compromises—many of them outrageous and some borderline illegal. Worse, the invasion of Panama was probably unnecessary. 

But those are stories for folks who buy the book. I’m going to hit golf balls.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

I must be cracking up. Or maybe my eyes and ears are deceiving me. Whatever the case, I thought Rick Sanchez asked some intelligent questions while interviewing militia gun nuts and anti-gun nuts during his afternoon CNN gig. I hesitate to call ”Rick’s List” a news show since it is more about him than the news.

My opinion of Rick’s journalistic skills has a history. Twenty-plus years ago, I received a telephone call from a close friend and former colleague during my tenure at south Florida’s then NBC affilate. “You have to see to believe our new anchor, Rick Sanchez. He is like a Saturday Night Live character,” according to the description.

My TV investigative reporting career had begun at the same station when the call letters were WCKT and I still have a soft spot in my psyche for the station. Indeed, I collected my first two Peabody medallions in Miami during the the investigative reporting heydays that followed the Watergate scandal. In 1983, seven years after I left Miami for Boston, WCKT became WSVN. The station lost its NBC affiliation after the owner, Ed Ansin, refused repeated offers to sell to a network.

Operating as an independent station prior to signing on as a Fox “News” affiliate in the mid-nineties, WSVN’s local news coverage became notorious for its blood, guts and sensationalism. It was, however, one of the nation’s most successful independents—in part, because of Rick Sanchez.

In 1984 at the age of 22, Sanchez became the youngest anchor in the Miami market. At WSVN, he developed a calculated on-air persona  of odd facial expressions, body language, and feigned empathy and/or outrage. For old traditionalists like me, he was a comical caricature of an honest-to-goodness newsman. But what the hell do I know. His age, style and Cuban heritage attracted viewers in South Florida.

After a stint at MSNBC and couple of local broadcast jobs, Sanchez was hired by CNN in 2004 for what seemed like a newly created position as a stuntman. His adventures included escaping underwater from a sinking car, wearing a stun belt that was triggered by a cop, and subjecting himself to waterboard torture. His reporter participation segments blurred the line between news and entertainment. But viewers—me included—were fascinated by this kind of stuff. Indeed, Comedy Channel’s Jon Stewart regularly shows Sanchez stunts, mainly because of Rick’s acting skills. Although the derring-do is performed in controlled circumstances, he is able portray a sense of panic that warns viewers, “Don’t try this at home.”

Anyway, given that Rick is so intent of being a performer, I’m always pleasantly surprised when he actually tries his hand at serious reporting. This week was one of those occasions. A large portion of “Rick’s List” was devoted to demonstrations in Washington,Virginia and elsewhere against gun control. The reasons are vague for organizing the protests on the 15 year anniversary of the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. There is no pending gun control legislation in Congress, nor has President Obama indicated any plans to encroach on the 2nd Amendment. As a result, Sanchez asked the proper questions. Why are these people waving placards in the nation’s Capitol and strutting around a national park in Virginia with guns strapped to their sides like a bunch of old west cowboys?

One of the guests answered that Obama voted in favor of a gun control law as a state senator in Illinois. But he could offer no specifics about the vote. In my opinion, wearing holstered guns is like driving a big SUV. It makes little guys feel like big men. I base my belief on personal experience. While playing the role of “great white hunter” years ago in California in search of Bambi’s daddy, I  used to strap on a pistol—a snake gun, I said.  The only time the gun was fired at a snake, I missed. Nonetheless, there was a warm fuzzy feeling buckling on the gunbelt. I guess SUV’s are now adequate to compensate for my masculine inadequacies. I have two.

But back to Rick. I think the guy has talent. Though not as a reporter. He would, however, make a terrific Larry King. Larry is nearing his 25th CNN anniversary, which is about five years too many from the standpoint of  the quality of his show, its guests and the dwindling ratings. Besides, the old guy may slump over dead if he continues to marry and divorce younger women. Although slow-motion reruns of his death would temporarily improve ratings, CNN needs to consider the long haul. 

So in an effort to save the show and Larry alive long enough to use his nursing home insurance, CNN should give the 51 year old “kid” a few pair of suspenders and let him play journalist in front of a prime time audience.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

While I have sat at home hurriedly writing posts for this blog so I could hop in my golf cart and head for the range, 78 year old Dan Rather travels to Iraq to do a report that will air tonight HDNet cable channels. He is a survivor. Although I never considered Rather a great journalist, he does a terrific imitation.

Creating the illusion of actually being working reporters is a  job requirement for news anchors. They read what others write—a TV deception that unjustly ended Rather’s CBS career after he was held responsible for an investigative report that turned out to be based on counterfeit documents. A 60 Minutes Two story prior to the 2004 Presidential election disclosing that George W. Bush was a National Guard slacker during the Vietnam War was substantially true—at least according to members of his guard unit and material documenting the absence of the future President from mandatory assignments. However, a confidential source re-created memoranda that was provided to a CBS producer. Although one expert verified some of the material, others cited forgeries. 

Reportedly under pressure from the White House as a result of the gaffe, CBS fired the producer and demanded the resignations of two news executives. Rather also eventually resigned.  But the old dude has kept on trucking. In 2006, he signed on with HDNet, which was established by Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas, Mavericks NBA franchise.

Coincidentally, former CNN war correspondent Peter Arnett also found a temporary home at HDNet. Peter resigned from CNN in the wake of a controversial exposé that accused the U.S. Military of using nerve gas during the Vietnam War. I was peripherally involved in the story—given the task of trying to prove its accuracy following complaints by the Pentagon. As I revealed in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, testicle-challenged CNN executives didn’t wait for the outcome of my investigation. Like CBS, the “most trusted network” fired producers and forced resignations in order to make peace with the Pentagon. It was the beginning of the end of CNN’s Special Assignment investigative reporting unit.

Three months after the nerve gas debacle, I was reassigned to play golf for the remaining two years of my contract. I have continued the assignment ever since.

Occasionally, I have the urge to rake some muck. But the itch passes after hitting a bucket of golf balls.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career. 

On my blog today, I’m taking an “easier softer way,” a phrase that is familiar to my friends in our society of ex-drunks. I travel to Georgia this weekend to attend the funeral of my brother-in-law. He was quite ill for several years and his death was not unexpected. Even so, my wife, Annette, faces the pain of losing a sibling.

To fulfill my goal of four posts a week, I steal an excerpt from my book today. I wrote earlier about March being the twenty year anniversary of the biggest art heist in history, which reminded me that the month marks other anniversaries for me. I joined the Air Force in March 1953, took my first broadcasting job nine years later in mid-March, and reported my first investigative story in March, 1972.

The title ”investigative reporter” was never a career goal. I wanted to be a rock and roll disc jockey when I took my first broadcasting job in Sonora, California—a tiny town in the foothill’s of the Sierra Mountains. Actually, I was hired as an announcer/ad salesman by KVML Radio, which proclaimed itself as The Voice of the Motherlode.

Selling KVML ads required more skill than my previous jobs that included hawking Bibles, books, bouncing chairs and Fuller Brushes. Merchants were reluctant to advertise on a station they couldn’t find on the radio dial. The tiny 250-watt station reached about as far as two tin cans connected by string. Nor did folks listen to KVML after finally finding it on the dial. Fully automated, the station featured toe-paralzing  elevator music. The liveliest tune was The Stripper, which the owner considered dropping because of its suggestive title.

Repetitive music was intermittently interrupted by too few commercials and too many public service announcements. ABC News ran at the top of the hour, local newscasts at noon and six, and Paul Harvey commentary twice a day. The only other break from tedium was Don McNeil’s Breakfast Hour, network radio’s last variety show. Since automation replaced disc jockeys, my dreams of being a record-spinning star were dashed.

Though automated, FCC regulations required that someone man the station during broadcasting hours to monitor equipment, maintain logs and handle other trivial chores. KVML was too small to be a network affiliate. Our national news programming was picked-up via KGO in San Francisco.

My shift was sign-on to noon. I spent the time writing and recording commercials, and scheduling sales appointments. Afternoons were devoted to soliciting new accounts. Driving around the county, I kept the dial on KVML as far as the signal reached, listening to the joyful sound of my voice delivering commercials that I recorded earlier in the day. Advertisers fell into categories of small, tiny and miniscule. It was not unusual to spend two hours selling fifty-dollars worth of radio spots to a Dairy Queen to earn a seven-dollar commission.

Although my disc jockey dreams were on hold, KVML satisfied a childhood fantasy of being a play-by-play sports announcer. As a kid, I spent many hours giving vivid accounts of my own athletic feats of running for game-winning touchdowns, hitting home runs and winning championship prizefights―all in the confines of my bedroom. Announcing imaginary feats prepared me to do a pretty good job as a football and basketball play-by-play broadcaster for the Sonora High School Wildcats. 

But even before the opening kick-off of football season, a career-altering event took place. The station’s newsman quit. He was the only fulltime employee besides me. The departure caused a crisis. Two sponsored newscasts were vital to the station’s financial survival. The owner didn’t do on-air work, meaning that I was the lone remaining Voice of the Mother Lode. “Have you ever done news reporting?” he asked. I hadn’t done anything in a radio station before. It made no difference. I was appointed “News Director.”

Putting together a newscast was a complete mystery to me. I always figured somebody handed announcers a script and they read it. My ignorance was compounded by another problem. United Press International had repossessed KVML’s wire machine, our only source of state and regional news. Finding material to fill two newscasts seemed an impossible task.

I knew it was inappropriate to make up stories, though later events in the national media disabused me of the belief that it never happened. The second option was to blatantly plagiarize Sonora’s eight-page Union-Democrat. But it wasn’t available until late afternoon, which didn’t help me with the noon newscast. The final alternative was to go out and find stories. This was problematic since I didn’t know where real reporters found news. My predecesaor once took me around the police beat. He also left behind a list of news sources. Thus began my journalism career.

My beat covered the Sheriff’s office, the Police Department and the California Highway Patrol. I jotted down names of everybody arrested, and reported details of assaults, burglaries, thefts and fender-bending traffic accidents. The town’s two funeral parlors furnished names of the newly departed, along with a list of survivors that included the immediate family, nephews, nieces, dogs, cats and livestock. On slow days, I hoped a lot of people died. The boss banned the use of “in lieu of flowers.” He didn’t want to alienate Sonora’s biggest florist, who was a regular KVML advertiser.

But regardless of the number of funeral notices, traffic accidents and crime reports, coming up with ten minutes of news each day was an awesome challenge. I filled  newscasts with public service announcements and news releases. Most were read verbatim. Steadily, though, my judgment and writing skills improved. A Broadcast News Stylebook had been left behind by UPI when the wire machine was repossessed. It became my first journalism textbook. I learned the old radio adage, “Tell’em what you’re going to tell’em, tell’em, and tell’em what you told ‘em.”

I soon went beyond the bare-bones stories written by the man I replaced. For weeks, he repeated the same story word-for-word. “KVML talked to Mr. Momyer at Pickering Lumber Company today and he said there is no change in the strike.” End of story. Pickering was the county’s biggest employer and labor strife at its plant crippled the local economy.

I believed listeners deserved a more comprehensive report. In a burst of journalistic creativity, I wrote, “KVML talked to Frank Momyer at Pickering Lumber Company and he said there is no change in the strike.” Using his first name was my initial enterprise report. Encouraged by my sudden creativity, I added a new line. “KVML also talked to representatives of the Sawmill Workers Union, and they report no change in the strike.”

In a matter of weeks, I was reporting underlying issues that caused the labor discord, as well as the obstacles to settling the dispute. To my surprise, an addiction to newsgathering took hold. I grabbed the Union Democrat each day to see what I missed. Significant omissions were stories of government meetings and court proceedings. So I added the courthouse and City Hall to my news beat. To spice newscasts, I acquired a portable tape recorder to do interviews and provide tape-delayed, on-the-scene reports. Concurrent with major national stories, I conducted man-on-the-street interviews.

As I became more comfortable in my role as the Voice of the Mother Lode, the newscasts began sounding almost professional. I covered meetings of the City Council, County Board of Supervisors, School Boards and other government entities. Trips to the courthouse taught me how to track criminal and civil cases, read docket sheets and gather information from interrogatories, affidavits, and depositions. I learned judicial procedures and protocols, and the rudiments of real-estate title searches. Working at a station with out a wire service machine was  turning me into a reasonably competent newsman.

Indeed, the skills I learned in Sonora were the most important component of my investigative reporting career, forming the foundation of my success as a journalist. All news is local. And Tuolumne County’s issues and government record-keeping were not much different than Baton Rouge, Miami, Boston and other metropolitan areas.

As the Voice of the Mother Lode, I was also introduced to live remote broadcasts. In addition to play-by-play and occasional in-store promotions for advertisers, I did live reports of events like the annual county fair. Every politician in a hundred mile radius came there to solicit votes and to be interviewed on KVML. The highlight of the fair was the crowning of Miss Tuolumne County. We carried the pageant live, including a marathon talent show that seemed to feature every child who took tap dance lessons, played a musical instrument, sang a song, or otherwise had an inclination to go on stage. A formidable challenge was describing juggling acts. “Now it’s up, now it’s down. Oops, now it’s on the floor.”

In addition to on-the-job training as a reporter, I took flying lessons by taking advantage of a  broadcasting benefit called “bartering.” Radio stations swapped ads for merchandise and services from advertisers, who were unlikely to spend hard cash. In lieu of a pay raise, I was allowed to barter flying lessons at Columbia Airport, the nation’s only air field offering stagecoach service. Columbia is a restored Gold Rush settlement. Visitors arriving by air could arrange a stagecoach ride into town.

Flight instructor, Lennart Strand, rarely advertised. Hence, he accumulated a decade worth of radio spots in our trade deal by giving me lessons and taking me as a passenger in my capacity as an “airborne reporter.” I taped eyewitness accounts while soaring above fires, ground searches for lost hunters and other mishaps in adjacent national forests and parks.

Noteworthy were my attempts to track the legendary Abominable Snowman. Every so often, a hunter, hiker or resident claimed to have sighted a six-foot tall, howling beast scampering through the woods. Like the Loch Ness monster stories, the reports coincided with the beginning of the tourist season. As KVML’s intrepid journalist, I taped stories from two thousand feet, intoning something to the effect, “I don’t see any sign of the creature, but in this heavily forested area he could easily be hiding.”

Twenty air miles from Columbia airport across the Stanislaus River canyon is a county made famous by Mark Twain’s short story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” The annual Jumping Frog Jubilee attracts “thoroughbred” frogs and their owners from across the country. Before the 1963 jubilee, I climbed into the PA-11 and made the short hop to a grass airstrip at the Calaveras County fairgrounds. It would have been just as easy to drive. But that didn’t have the exhilarating effect of landing my plane and taxiing up to frog jumping headquarters, where I recorded interviews with promoters and competitors. The result was a three-minute feature for my newscast.

For the hell of it, I sent the tape to an ABC radio show called Weekend West. The five-minute program ran each Saturday. Surprisingly, I got a response from ABC programming executive, Ted Toll. “Very nice handling of the frogs,” he wrote. “I’ve got it tentatively spotted for 9:30 network airing Sat., the 18^th.”  The letter caused my knees to get weak and my bladder to contract. Not only did he like the piece, the network was paying me twenty-five dollars. It was my biggest broadcasting thrill to date.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career. 

During a visit to Atlanta last week, I had a chance to visit with people from my CNN days. The news is not good. Network morale was already low when Christiane Amanpour annouced she was leaving to anchor a Sunday morning ABC news show. People who worked with her had nothing but kind words to say about the experience and Christiane’s professionalism. My ten-year tenure as CNN’s Senior Corespondent overlapped her rise as one of television’s best international reporters. But except for passing in the hallways, we were not acquainted. Nonetheless, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the granddaddy of television’s 24-hour news networks can ill-afford to lose high-profile personalities. Its ratings have hit a low point.

On most days, I keep CNN on my home screen throughout the daytime hours with the volume muted and the captions on. I’m reasonably certain that if news of major significance breaks, the network will be the first to report it. Periodically, some piece of video or a fragment of captioned narration will catch my attention and I will watch for a few minutes. My prayer is that big stories don’t break in the time period occupied by Rick Sanchez. I can take only so much torture.

Driving to and from Atlanta, I experienced the opposite of my daily routine. I listened to CNN on XM Radio without the benefit of pictures. It re-enforced my opinion that the network has too few correspondents and too many pundits. Sunday, in particular, was painful. In addition to commentators representing all parts of the political spectrum, there was the usual parade of Congressmen—all with repetitive remarks that I could almost lip sync. In between, Washington reporters interviewed each other. And even worse, was the scorecard. Health reform had enough votes. No, no, it was still short. Back and forth and all around.

Where were the real people? I sure as hell would not call the Tea Party protesters a cross-section of real people—especially after the idiots that shouted epithets at African-American Representatives and spat on a black Congressman. I don’t blame this on Tea Party. It was a moronic minority of racists, who reverted to the kind of crap that ended forty years ago. Really disheartening was seeing a Republican Congressman defend these idiots by blaming the Democrats for the racist comments. I wonder who elects low-life characters like him.

Fortunately, CNN displayed a bit of restraint in its coverage of the protests. But not much. As usual, context was missing from CNN’s coverage. There were charges and counter-charges throughout the day. Each side was given equal time—unchallenged by reporters. Indeed, the network made only a minimal effort to check-out information it passed along. There is a reason for the oversight. CNN no longer has the will to dispatch correspondents across the country to dig into multiple dimensions of stories as important as health care. The reporting is usually anecdotal—a profile of one person in one town with one problem that is complicated by lack of health coverage. The stories are often chose based on the drama they will provide.

A veteran CNN producer told me that the network now measures stories in terms of entertainment value instead of news value. Positive viewer reaction means a segment will air multiple times, regardless of its importance. Action video like fist fights, car chases, etc. are insured a long life in the 24 hour cycle. Granted, there are stories in newscasts that cover significant issues. Many, however, are superficial.

Every TV network and local station has pretty much the same priorities as CNN in selecting what stories to feature. The term “viewer friendly” has haunted television journalism ever since the first so-called news doctor appeared on the scene in the 1970’s. Their advice was keep substantive stories short and entertaining. Otherwise, viewers would change channels, which is probably true. Consequently, viewers are to blame for the state of contemporary TV news—not the news executives themselves. Television gives viewers what they want to see instead of what they need to know. Ratings are far more important than substance in the profit-drive media conglomerates that control networks and stations nowadays.

Though not completely innocent by any means, CNN is a slightly less inclined to sell its soul. Any perceived legitimacy remains linked to the bottom line. Despite low ratings, CNN is still the most profitable of the cable news networks—mainly because of corporate components that include Headline News and CNN International. 

Thanks to worst elements of the Tea Party and people like Tea Party idol, Glenn Beck, there may be some light shining beneath the toilet bowl in which CNN resides. The passage of health care reform removes a protest issue that has rallied many Tea Party demonstrators. Added to the comments of a few protesters who disgusted a lot of folks,  the group’s sympathizers may diminish in number. As I’ve said before, I understand the reasons for the demonstrations. Fear and uncertainty in a troubled economy has always brought out the worst in people.

It will be fascinating to see what happens if the Obama Administration is successful in restoring an era of prosperity. Progress in the seven months between now and the November elections will make voters forget all about the health reform issue. As a nation, we have a short attention span. The thickness of billfolds dictates the outcome of elections.

To quote the great philosopher, James Carville, “It’s the economy stupid.”