What Happened to the News Media in America? Part 2 – The Golden Age of News – Destroyers of the Truth

Finally, I get to Part 2, the “Destroyers of the Truth.”  Turn your clock back to the 1970’s, the twilight of the Golden Age of news.  Events starting in the early 1960’s like the Cold War between the USA and Soviet Union, the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy assassination, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinations, then Watergate shook the news business to the bone.

Instead of a fifteen-minute national news broadcast, they expanded to 30 minutes with additional “news” shows like 20/20 or Sixty minutes among others added to the line-up.  This and a demand for real time coverage of events like the Kennedy assassination in 1963, where network coverage pre-empted regular programming, changed the face of media forever.

Suddenly national and local news became a big deal which led to an explosion of media innovations including the live broadcast of events, field reporting, live inter-active reporting between news anchors and field reporters, and a digital revolution in the collection, processing and distribution of news.

The second major shift taking place simultaneously was the wild and wacky decade of the 1960’s, as the post-World War II baby boomers became the dominant force.  Suddenly the youth of our nation faced crisis after crisis as they filled secondary and college educational institutions with their thirst for a new world.

The Baby Boomers, born in the shadow and deadly radioactive fallout of the only two atomic explosions ever used in war, which were dropped on Japan and ended World War II.  It would take a book to describe the impact the 1960’s had on this new generation and so far, none have done it justice.

“Within the span of a single decade the greatest revolution in world history took place…”

Within the span of a single decade the greatest revolution in world history took place as the Boomers faced civil rights bloodshed, demands for academic freedom, the threat of a Cold War, the added threat of biologic or chemical warfare, death in Viet Nam, death on college campus’s protesting the war, political assassinations, bloody peace protests, and so much more.

The entertainment industry also reached their Golden Age as Broadway, movies, and television all exploded before they would settle into bitter rivals in the battle for the hearts, souls and pocketbooks of the people.  How appropriate the end of the decade would result in Woodstock, a rock festival and anti-war protest drawing over 400,000 concert-goers to a muddy field in the other New York, meaning upstate from NYC.

“I call it the Second American Revolution.”

This amazing decade is what I call the Second American Revolution.  What emerged at the end of the decade showed little, if any, resemblance to what began the decade.  There was not an institution, idea, principle, or political policy that was not tested, tried and trampled over.

At this point I will offer you multiple choices of what caused such a venerable and respected institution like the news media to pretty much self-destruct in the ensuing decades until today.  Decide for yourself which were most responsible as the “Destroyers of the Truth” here in the American. News media.

Causes of the Collapse of the News Media

Cable News? Competition

Internet Technology

Changes in news media valuation from viewers to profits

Profit-driven companies bought news interests as investment

Astonishing increase in political spending for media

Courts rejecting campaign finance laws

Failure of government to regulate Internet

Proliferation of media advertising revenue

Blurring of the distinction between news and editorials

Apathy of a disenfranchised population

Reporters becoming advocates of causes and politics

A general public seemingly disinterested in the truth

Conflicts of interest between media and politics

No enforcement of News Media Code of Ethics

Lack of media accountability for sources and stories

Government abuse of classifying information

To sum it all up, greed, a lust for power, and exorbitant advertising revenue from politics and the private sector fueled the demise of the news media.  Once again, the pendulum has reversed itself and the credibility and believability of the news media by the public has gone off the cliff.

What was once intense competition between news groups has morphed into an insidious and ruthless effort to not only dismember and destroy those of opposing views, but to trample on the free rights of everyone but yourself.  Respect for our Constitutional rights to individual freedom, opportunity and free speech are spit upon by ego-centered, celebrity-driven news media.

“A new, more powerful special interest has cast a long dark shadow over our world.”

A new, more powerful special interest has cast a long dark shadow over our world, the digital answer to control.  Dominated by greed and the lust for power and fueled by an explosion of ad revenues from even more special interests, the news media of today, have no code of ethics.

When it comes to the Internet news providers and news aggregators, stories being pursued are no longer of broad interest but serve their own agenda.  Fake news is highly successful because, quite frankly, the reader is lost in the abyss of power and control.  People have willingly become pawns, because they have no backbone for the truth.

The news media embraces polarization, character assassination, and political agendas which are a violation of the Journalism Code of Ethics.  They are caught up in a tangle of special interests whose interest may be the enslavement of the general public to technology.  We are data-driven fools whose every thought, action, purchase, interest, and personal health and wealth are already under the microscope of Big Brother.

The Internet changed the dynamics.  The loss of integrity, absence of fairness, and failure of news groups to take responsibility for their stories or actions has undermined any hope for credibility in the news media.

“Social media news organizations and so-called news aggregators for the Internet services have become the new overlords of the news media…”

Social media news organizations and so-called news aggregators for the Internet services have become the new overlords of the news media, and the new censors for determining news media content.

I suspect somewhere along the line the institutions of higher learning who once defended the freedom and fairness of the news media decided corporate underwriting of the academic endowment funds was more important than telling the truth.  Or, perhaps they were just taking care of their university graduates in the private, “capitalism” sector.

In summary – the truth has been checkmated, the game is over.

What Happened to the News Media in America? Part 1 – The Golden Age of News – Defenders of Truth

There was a time between the Civil War and the dawn of the twentieth century when the American news media became so corrupted and so viciously biased that character assassination, fake news, lies, scandalous rumors, bias, racism, and invasions of privacy were the new norm.

In time the few honest news organizations and reporters decided such “Yellow” journalism tactics had to end in order to protect the integrity of the entire news industry that claimed Constitutional protection under the Bill of Rights.

For those of you ignorant of history and blinded by political correctness, the term “Yellow” at the time was used to denote gutless, unethical, immoral and outright lies promulgated by certain publishers and reporters.

The general public was sick of the nonsense and the vast majority no longer believed the news media or press.  To the public, the media had lost all signs of objectivity, were beholden to their advertisers, and intent on destroying opposing views or competition.

The newspaper business started in the 1800’s with papers being affiliated with political parties.  In time the editorial was introduced to allow papers to post articles showing the other party opinion on issues, a technique adopted more to expand the business than to result in fair coverage.  Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune in 1841, is credited with inventing the idea of segregating news reports from opinion writing, by giving opinion its own page.

No national media organizations existed at the time but eventually a group that today is known as the Society of Professional Journalists, founded in 1909, first adopted a Code of Ethics in 1926 covering the print media only.

Although the Code was not enforceable except by voluntary means and had no basis under the law, it was still embraced by all major members of the news media, including radio and television networks and affiliates after the 1973 rewrite.

Three major technological advances would eventually revolutionize the news media industry with the commercialization of the radio in the 1920’s, telephone in the 1930’s, (just 32% of American households had a phone by 1937), and television in the 1950’s (in 1950 just 10% of homes had black and white television, by 1964 a staggering 94% of all homes had television).

Reporting, as a result of the Code of Ethics, took a sharp turn to become popular with the general public.  This tremendous growth in public exposure by television heralded in the Golden Age of reporting, the 1960’s and ‘70’s.

Suddenly television news anchors were among the most trusted people in America, like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley who drew millions of faithful followers for their nightly news broadcasts.

Announcing death of JFK

Cronkite’s integrity was so beyond reproach he reached 57 million viewers for the Apollo landing on the Moon in 1969.  At the time there were 125 million viewers in a population of 202 million Americans meaning nearly 50% of all viewers were tuned to the CBS News with Cronkite.  In terms of average network followers, the 1969 average was about 31 million, with Cronkite pulling 11 million versus 9 million in each of the other two networks.

The population has tripled since the 1969 Moon landing but what happened to network news watchers?  As noted, 125 million people watched the Moon landing on all three networks, with Cronkite pulling 57 million.  Today, with three times as many people, we still only have about 119.6 million network viewers.

From the 31 million average network news viewers in 1969, it rose to 48 million viewers in 1985, then began a rapid descent.  By 1998 there were 30.4 million network news watchers, but today the number has dropped to about 21 million total watchers.

As for the popularity of anchors, Walter Cronkite was consistently voted the most trusted anchor on television and in 1972, he was named the most trusted man in America in all walks of life.  Today the most trusted network news anchors are only known by 21% of the TV audience.

Watch for Part 2 – The Golden Age of News – Destroyers of the Truth.
  

The Melchizedek Chronicles - The Art of Mediation - Melchizedek Style

Meditation

Melchizedek Style

Find a space offering a safe haven, harmony, Oneness and peace with minimal electronic devices, minimal noise, and minimal distractions (no cell phone).

Create a unique environment within your safe haven with books, quotes, objects, sacred stones or artifacts, photos or other items that trigger your joy, peace and tranquility.

Begin transitional breathing exercises to reduce your anxieties, fears, blood pressure and pace of breathing.

One exercise I was taught requires you to inhale deeply through your nose four (4) counts (seconds), hold your breath for twelve (12) counts, and exhale deeply through your mouth for eight (8) counts.

The point is to rapidly expand your lungs to full capacity by intensely breathing through your nose, then empty your lungs by intensely exhaling.

Repeat this cycle rapidly ten times without stopping.  Then rest and try to feel the heartbeat of Mother Earth that binds you to her.  Obviously, it works best when undertaken in nature but it can be felt inside as well with practice.

Should you feel as if your mind is distracted, or you are not at ease, repeat the breathing exercise after allowing a few minutes between cycles.  If you ever feel overcome by fear, anxiety or foreboding, this breathing sequence can have a great calming effect on you.
   

[If you are in nature you should be sitting and barefoot to magnify your experience.]

Allow yourself to relax, deeper and deeper, and imagine becoming one with the life force and soul of nature, and see all of the intrinsic parts, from earth to water, land to sky, and everything occupying them.

Then recognize, witness or imagine the infinite multitude of miracles it took to create you, and to create all of Creation.

Marvel at the explosion of creative thought it took to create you and your beautiful world through these miracles.  Acknowledge the Perfect Love of the Creator when generating the explosion of thought resulting in you, and in all of creation, by returning your deepest expression of Love to our Creator.

With your acknowledgement of the Creator’s love, and your thanks by returning your love, you seek to unlock doors to open yourself to the higher frequencies of the Earth’s plane of existence.

Then talk to God, pray through words, thoughts, images, or conversation.  Ask the Father and Holy Spirit to help you find the path to Jesus who waits to show us the way to achieve Oneness with Father Creator.  Jesus lights the path, the Holy Spirit illuminates the soul, and Father Creator waits for our return.

You should try to meditate every day, just as you should use conversational prayer every day.  If you combine this discipline with the Melchizedek method to maximize your body balance while eating, it will ease your digestive system, and strengthen your immune system, allowing you to make far more effective use of the natural tools God gave us to survive.

Food - Fast - and Prayer

To achieve maximum value in your food consumption Melchizedek says you must combine Food, Fast and Prayer.  Many of us were taught to thank God for the food we eat every meal, which most of us stopped doing long ago.

In truth, you have the power to transmute food from the state it is served to the state your body requires for nourishment, for body the body and the soul.  We achieve this through food, fat and prayer.

Before you begin, you should bless the food in the name of God and Jesus, thank God for providing it, and pray it be transposed from whatever it is to whatever your body needs to heal.

For those worried about making a spectacle in front of those around you, do it quietly if you must.  However, Melchizedek cannot imagine how you could be making a spectacle when you are praying to God.  That sounds much more like a human vanity issue.

After blessing and transmuting the food, there are two other issues you must deal with to be successful.  Your body is the temple God gave you while on earth.  If you do not consider it such, and you ignore or refuse to make an effort to keep it as a temple to God, it is an affront to the Creator.

Every week you must work to purify your body.  Melchizedek says we must fast one day every week in which you should be on a liquid diet for the day.  It is a natural way to help detox your body.  You can never detox enough in this age of toxins and electromagnetic waves bombarding you.  

Ask and you will be heard.

Seek and you will find.

Follow and you will be One again.

Amen...

Elvis on The Ed Sullivan Show - The Real Story about his "primitive physical movement that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos" - September 9, 1956

On September 9, 1956 Elvis Presley made his national television debut on the Ed Sullivan Show before a record 72 million people.  Here is the Man and the real story.



 The Real Story - Elvis on Ed Sullivan Show September 9, 1956

by Christine Gibson, former editor at American Heritage magazine.

Given that many fans think Elvis is still alive despite his death certificate, highly publicized funeral, and gravestone, it’s no surprise that misunderstandings abound about his career. Among those events surrounded by fallacies—perhaps because it strongly affected popular culture as well as Elvis’s work—is his legendary first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, 49 years ago today, on September 9, 1956.

Books and periodicals mentioning the show, which broke ratings records for the young medium and was one of the first to bring rock ’n’ roll to a mass audience, have erroneously reported that Elvis was shown only from the waist up, a triumph of censorship and evidence of the continued prudery of the 1950s. Others, aware of the hoopla surrounding the program, remember it as Elvis’s first performance on TV. The truth, as usual, is a little more complicated—and more interesting.

Presley, who had released his first three number-one hits by the time of the show, was already a TV veteran. He had appeared six times on the Dorsey brothers’ Stage Show between January and March 1956 and then on The Milton Berle Show on April 3, to increasing, if not yet fevered, press attention. But after his second Berle show, on June 5, members of the press expressed sudden revulsion at what the New York Journal-American called his “primitive physical movement difficult to describe in terms suitable to a family newspaper.” The New York Daily News reported that Elvis “gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos,” while the San Francisco Chronicle deemed it “in appalling taste.”

The reaction was enough to make Steve Allen, who had booked Elvis for his show before the backlash, briefly consider reneging, but in the end, Elvis did appear on his show on July 1, although in strangely tame form. Allen, going comically overboard to avoid scandal, dressed him in top hat, tails, and white gloves. Elvis soldiered on gamely, singing “Hound Dog” to a top-hat and bow-tie-clad basset hound.

Sullivan, never a fan of controversy, had already refused an offer to hire Elvis for $5,000. The famously prickly host had been burned before by rock ’n’ roll stars: He vowed to drum Bo Diddley out of television after his 1955 act on the show, when he sang his own hit “Bo Diddley” instead of Sullivan’s request, Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons.” But Elvis’s ratings—his stint on the Allen show had trounced Sullivan—changed his mind. Even as he professed to the press that Elvis was “not my cup of tea,” Ed Sullivan had already begun negotiations with Elvis’s agent, Colonel Tom Parker. His hesitation cost him heavily, however. He would end up agreeing to shell out $50,000 for three appearances, an unprecedented sum.

Elvis made his Sullivan debut on the show’s season premiere, but on the big night neither Sullivan nor Elvis was in the New York studio. Elvis was in Hollywood, filming his first movie, and he sang from the CBS studio there. Sullivan was recovering from an August head-on car collision, and Charles Laughton, the star of Mutiny on the Bounty, filled in for the host, hailing his guest by saying, “Away to Hollywood to meet Elvis Presley.”

Elvis, wearing a loud plaid jacket, greeted the audience from a set decorated with stylized guitar shapes. He announced that the show was “probably the greatest honor I have ever had in my life,” and then launched into “Don’t Be Cruel.” The camera stayed above his waist for now, sometimes closing in on his face, sometimes turning to show his backup singers, but something Elvis was doing out of lens range was causing unexplained screams from the audience. After the number was over, he acknowledged the vocal segment of the crowd, saying, “Thank you, ladies.” To finish the first segment, he played the title song to his new movie, “Love Me Tender,” introducing it as ”completely different from anything we’ve ever done.” Nationwide, disk jockeys taped the performance and played the song, which had yet to be released, on their radio shows, increasing pre-release orders to almost a million and pushing forward the single’s release date.

Viewers got to see the full Elvis—legs, hips, and all—during the second segment, when he performed the up-tempo Little Richard song “Ready Teddy” and two verses of “Hound Dog.” Young rock fans today would doubtless have a hard time understanding what all the scandal was about, as his frenetic swivels and shuffles look chaste compared to the gyrations common on MTV. But Elvis on that night (and his rock star peers in general around the same time) arguably set in motion a trend that continues today.

The press was quick to note that the cameras switched to close-up shots whenever he started dancing, in effect censoring him, but the TV audience got to see plenty, and besides, the girls screamed when he grunted, moved his tongue, crossed his eyes, or even stood perfectly still. With Elvis, censorship began to seem irrelevant. As Laughton noted at the end of the hour, ”Well, what did someone say? Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast?”

The viewing audience certainly wasn’t so offended that it changed the channel. The September 9 Sullivan show reached 82.6 percent of the TV audience, and Steve Allen hadn’t even seen fit to offer an alternative; NBC had showed a movie instead. Censorship did enjoy one last gasp during Elvis’s third appearance, on January 6, 1957, when Sullivan—or, as some historians believe, a publicity-hungry Parker—did indeed instruct the camera operator to show him only from the waist up, even when he sang the gospel tune “Peace in the Valley.” It was the last song he would ever perform on the show. Parker was now demanding $300,000 for future TV engagements, stipulating that a network must also commit to two guest spots and an hour-long special.

Even as he priced his client out of its range, Parker credited the program with the success of “Love Me Tender” and earning Elvis the esteem of American adults for the first time. Historians assert that Elvis’s three nights on the Sullivan show helped bridge the gap between the first rock ’n’ roll generation and their parents. Whether at the same time his behavior on those shows ultimately caused today’s generation gap—that is, whether MTV’s rump-shakers should look to Elvis as their earliest role model and parents can blame him for Britney Spears—is still up for debate.
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