[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]
The Book of the Week is “All the Worst Humans, How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians” by Phil Elwood, published in 2024. This short volume was authored by an alcoholic adrenaline-junkie and occasional drug addict who was happiest when he was afforded opportunities to use his creativity to help his clients weasel out of image-trouble, burnish their image, or launch a smear campaign.
Born around 1980, Elwood began to acquire valuable contacts in Washington, D.C. when he did a summer internship in the U.S. Senate. Elwood was pleasantly surprised that, after ruining his own reputation, one such contact wrote a recommendation letter on his behalf to help him get accepted to a different college.
Most of the time, the following publications are the major influencers on breaking news: Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg, Politico, Axios, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. The last three have a paywall– users must subscribe to them, and pay to read their articles. As is well known, in the last several decades, elected officials and their staffs in Washington, D.C., the media, the entertainment industry, Silicon Valley, professional sports and Wall Street have all incestuously melded together to create one big gossip circle. Readers who are no longer willing to pay for news, miss out on the gossip.
The author commented that there are currently a few tens of thousands of people who call themselves “journalists” while there are a few hundreds of thousands of people employed in the public relations industry. Very nearly all (except for this blog!) global communications are now sponsored-opinions, after so many decades of changes to information-sharing. Four of many milestones that set shameful precedents include:
- In 1963, a journalist broke the taboo against prying into the personal lives of professional athletes when he revealed that Sandy Koufax was adopted. After that, privacy invasion became the norm.
- In 1982, the New York Times eliminated the firewall between its editorial and advertising departments. Sports Illustrated did the same in the late 1980’s.
- The year 1984 saw Republicans launch a fishing expedition of, and vicious smear campaign against Democrat vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro’s husband. Even for modern times, the high level of nastiness was extreme– and Republicans have continued such behavior to date, more than the Democrats.
- Beginning in the 1980’s, the FCC relaxed its antitrust laws, allowing Rupert Murdoch to create a monster-sized multimedia empire (by purchasing the New York Post newspaper, Twentieth Century Fox, HarperCollins and the Wall Street Journal, to name a few propaganda outlets) with its attendant extremely large concentration of resources that allowed for infinite conflicts of interest that afforded him and his cronies the kinds of growth opportunities that free-market competitors couldn’t possibly hope to match.
To get additional information on how money, power and political hacks have corrupted every aspect of how people find out what’s going on in the world, feel free to read all the posts in this blog’s category “Publishing Industry Including Newspapering.”
Anyway, the author planted the following naive passage in his writing: “Salaries in some newsrooms are going up. Private equity is buying up media companies left and right. Foreign nations are investing heavily, too. Lines of ethics are blurring.” Newsflash: all these trends are decades-old!
Nonetheless, read the book to learn of the author’s adventures in image-management.
Along these lines, here’s a song about yet another downfall of someone once-rich and powerful (brought to you by Elwood-style PR.). This is what the Democrats are singing to the American president, whose name rhymes with “rump” and “dump.”
MIDTERMS-KARMA
sung to the tune of “Instant Karma” (1970 version) with apologies to the Estate of John Lennon and to whomever else the rights may concern.
Midterms-karma is gonna get you.
Gonna flip the states that are Red.
You’ll try to give yourself a pardon.
No one will shut up and take your bread.
All the world has had enough,
laughing behind your back,
all over the earth you’re a TACO.
They know you go low, yeah, low.
Midterms-karma is gonna get you.
A man like you is once-and-always.
Even the “new” Nixon wasn’t the “new” Nixon.
Yours is an open and shut case.
Your sins, the whole world is gonna see.
You’ll be blasting the fools in your GOP.
Everyone on earth knows who you are. A has-been tsar.
Far Right you are.
Well, we all pile on.
Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone.
Well, we all pile on. Everyone. Come on.
Midterms-karma is gonna get you.
You lay down with dogs, you got fleas.
You know a man is known by,
the company he keeps.
Everyone knows you’re outa here.
You’ve made so many live in pain and fear.
Why are you there, when you should be nowhere?
You got more than your share.
Well, we all pile on.
Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone.
Well, we all pile on.
Gone and gone and gone, gone and gone.
Yeah, yeah, alright, uh-huh, uh.
Well, we all pile on.
Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone.
Well, we all pile on.
Gone and gone and gone, gone and gone.
Well, we all pile on.
Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone.
Well, we all pile on.
Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone.
Well, we all pile on.
Very soon you and your suck-ups will be gone…