A recent UK study found that happiness is contagious. President-elect Obama has proven that messages of hope can also have a distinct contagion. It may be helpful to realize this, as the world is subjected to a collective of depressed thinking that is perpetuated by rudimentary media analysis as concrete sky-is-falling fact.
It is important to read between the lines of these media stories – with a particular emphasis on how numbers are positioned and revered. In some cases there are foundational shifts in revenue fundamentals – but there is a great and damaging amount of partially-informed media hype out there.
Let’s look at a recent scary headline: Payrolls Plunge by Stunning 533,000 in November (Marketwatch). The story goes on to note that the last time we have seen this kind of loss was 34 years ago – or 1974. If we are going to play in the space of raw figures, then we have to look at the total picture. According to the U.S. Census, the U.S. population in 1974 was 214 million, and today it is 306 million – that’s an increase of 90 million. While not seeking to diminish the pain of losing one’s job, 533,000 as a flat figure is less dramatic against today’s population and when put in the context of our core population growth relative to 1974.
Looking at the unemployment rate – as expressed in the “purity” of percentages – we are currently at 6.7% for November (the annual rate for 2008 will come in less than 6%). According to the US Labor Dept, we have crossed an annual jobless rate of 6% or higher 17 times since 1970. From 2000 to 2008 – during the Bush presidency – we crossed 6% twice. From 1990 to 1999 we crossed 6% four times; three times under Clinton, a period that is widely considered our great economic and surplus boom. What is also remarkable about our unemployment percentages is that we have been steadily moving from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy – and exporting record numbers of jobs overseas. So, percentage comparisons with the 1970s and the 1980s are not on a level plane.
While this is a number-heavy article, we are digesting number-heavy media these days – and we are not getting the full picture or the full analysis that should be expected of journalists. Keep in mind that the brightest in economics have just recently concluded that we have been in a recession since December 2007. This is a backward-looking statement, so it is hard to gauge the future from it. Are we bouncing along the bottom and on our way out? Look at recent investment hops in certain retail stocks. Some people are saying that retail has hit bottom – and if it has, this means another consumer-driven push forward.
Take a look at your neighbors and your friends and your family – does this feel like a full year of recession to you? If it has been a full year, do you think we’re coming to the end of it? Remember also our dynamic new president on the horizon – just over a month away from taking the helm, radiating hope and intelligence and pragmatism.
AT&T recently made big news with their 12,000 layoffs. But when you look at the fundamentals of their business, you find strength and growth and a real need for division realignments. A brief snapshot on AT&T’s revenue:
2003 = $38.6 million
2004 = $36.3 million
2005 = $38.6 million
2006 = $55.9 million
2007 = $107.4 million
They doubled their revenue in one year through acquisitions and through organic growth – particularly in their wireless division. AT&T and Verizon have been pummeling the cable industry and creating new business models along the way. Throughout AT&T’s stunning success they added whole populations of employees. The layoff announcement largely reflects a need for more agility and nimbleness – and an intelligent and preemptive pragmatism moving into a discordant new year.
There are certainly some significant issues out there. We have the specter of Detroit, for example. The housing crisis and subsequent Wall Street bet on the American consumer brought a harsh criticism to the notion of a free market economy – however, Detroit represents an arrogant lack of competitive understanding and a hardcore look at American labor unions in the face of the global economy that we have long sought to be a part of.
The United States is actively pursuing a participation in the global economy. The credit crisis that we have experienced is a necessary recalibration in this pursuit. American culture simply cannot continue to operate in such a vapid credit-heavy manner, whereby we live through materialistic projections of ourselves – in most cases, projections we will not manifest. Even in the throes of this crisis Americans live in a comfortable royalty that cannot be mirrored elsewhere in the world. This separateness is not a participation in the global community – and the recalibration that we are experiencing currently represents the first steps in our seamless trade in worldwide markets.
John Lennon said that happiness is a warm gun. But at whom can we aim it?
It is more and more apparent that a smile in the mirror will get us there. If happiness is contagious, let us go and infect the world.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
What Did We Learn From the Obama Infomercial (originally published in Ground Report on November 3, 2008)
33 million people watched Senator Obama’s half-hour sales pitch, according to Nielsen Media Research. In contrast, the Philadelphia-Tampa Bay World Series was the least watched in television history. There is no real correlation here – outside of numbers and desires and an intrinsic Darwinism that is looming larger in American culture.
There are more general lessons in media consumption, but it is Senator Obama’s use of the infomercial format that is particularly telling.
The infomercial has long been the medium of choice for the waffle-maker and the cable/pulley-based exercise equipment manufacturer and the at-home bread-baker and real estate investment charmer and the spring-loaded thigh-thinner. The infomercial is the venue where particular breeds of manufacturers or service providers deploy – usually late at night or on weekend mornings – to convince an audience to buy into something that is unnecessary to the core needs of that audience.
They use the 30-minute format to explain themselves because they generally do not have an advertising agency or a public relations machine or the machinations and raw admirations of agenda-setting media empires.
Senator Obama’s use of this venue – produced as it was in high-quality video for optimal theatrics – was an unnecessary sales pitch, bought as it was in primetime and presented to a population 33 million deep that the media outlets have already sold through their open support for the Democratic candidate.
But what did we learn from Obama’s half-hour advertisement that trusted American journalists had not already vetted for us? Well, we were first introduced to a woman with representational cartoon stickers on her SUV – nearly ten of them, reflective of the litter of children she has mothered. The woman cited the rise in food costs (remember the irresponsible number of mouths that need feeding) and fuel costs (remember the SUV) and the fact that her husband works for a tire treading factory.
And she voiced to Obama’s camera crew a general need for change. This segment of the infomercial should have been sponsored by a condom manufacturer.
We were later introduced to some numbers – the most interesting of which was the reduction in tax threshold figures from $250,000 in household income to $200,000. Just a week before a national election, the Democratic candidate showed his cards on the largest tax increase in American history – and the fact that considerably larger swaths of the population are going to pay. This was not the stuff of investigative journalism, as American journalists have since fancied themselves celebrity bloggers and columnists and opinionated talking heads.
This was a culmination of salesmanship and of propaganda and of a voting population eager for a charismatic character and unwilling to discern the victims or the costs or the truth.
The infomercial was brilliant – as it was a poetically perfect environment for the most uneasy of sales presentations and during a most uneasy time. It was and is a window on what likely is to come – not only in this presidential term but in future contests.
Tomorrow we will know our new president, and he will arrive as all of them have – dubiously. This election – as all elections before it – was a matter of sellable merchandise.
But this time around we have bought something more – an intangible transaction that hums at the marrow of our democracy. The infomercial was and is the embodiment of this purchase.
Hold on to your receipt.
There are more general lessons in media consumption, but it is Senator Obama’s use of the infomercial format that is particularly telling.
The infomercial has long been the medium of choice for the waffle-maker and the cable/pulley-based exercise equipment manufacturer and the at-home bread-baker and real estate investment charmer and the spring-loaded thigh-thinner. The infomercial is the venue where particular breeds of manufacturers or service providers deploy – usually late at night or on weekend mornings – to convince an audience to buy into something that is unnecessary to the core needs of that audience.
They use the 30-minute format to explain themselves because they generally do not have an advertising agency or a public relations machine or the machinations and raw admirations of agenda-setting media empires.
Senator Obama’s use of this venue – produced as it was in high-quality video for optimal theatrics – was an unnecessary sales pitch, bought as it was in primetime and presented to a population 33 million deep that the media outlets have already sold through their open support for the Democratic candidate.
But what did we learn from Obama’s half-hour advertisement that trusted American journalists had not already vetted for us? Well, we were first introduced to a woman with representational cartoon stickers on her SUV – nearly ten of them, reflective of the litter of children she has mothered. The woman cited the rise in food costs (remember the irresponsible number of mouths that need feeding) and fuel costs (remember the SUV) and the fact that her husband works for a tire treading factory.
And she voiced to Obama’s camera crew a general need for change. This segment of the infomercial should have been sponsored by a condom manufacturer.
We were later introduced to some numbers – the most interesting of which was the reduction in tax threshold figures from $250,000 in household income to $200,000. Just a week before a national election, the Democratic candidate showed his cards on the largest tax increase in American history – and the fact that considerably larger swaths of the population are going to pay. This was not the stuff of investigative journalism, as American journalists have since fancied themselves celebrity bloggers and columnists and opinionated talking heads.
This was a culmination of salesmanship and of propaganda and of a voting population eager for a charismatic character and unwilling to discern the victims or the costs or the truth.
The infomercial was brilliant – as it was a poetically perfect environment for the most uneasy of sales presentations and during a most uneasy time. It was and is a window on what likely is to come – not only in this presidential term but in future contests.
Tomorrow we will know our new president, and he will arrive as all of them have – dubiously. This election – as all elections before it – was a matter of sellable merchandise.
But this time around we have bought something more – an intangible transaction that hums at the marrow of our democracy. The infomercial was and is the embodiment of this purchase.
Hold on to your receipt.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Not All Newspaper Companies Equal to the Public Trust (previously published in GroundReport, October 19,2008)
With the financial markets asking newspaper companies to atone for their general revenue shortcomings, the question of the nature of the newspaper business – that of a double-digit profit conglomerate or that of a public trust – is underscoring a murkiness that dwells insistently on the fact that not all newspaper empires are equal to the measure of the public trust.
The most dramatic example of this question can be found in the unusually public wrangling between civic leaders in Los Angeles; the LA Times; and the corporate leadership of the Tribune Company, owner of the LA Times. The Los Angeles community leaders are asking Tribune to either invest in the LA Times or sell it outright to someone who will. The LA Times editorial leadership has publicly refused to apply the staff cuts that Tribune’s leadership is insisting upon. In the middle are the profits and the public.
This matter of the Public Trust (caps intended) is one that is more shapeless than the more tangible data one can find in a financial report. And this is what makes it so difficult and so compelling. The public trust is a direct extension of democracy itself – with free societies believing that true power resides in the trust the public puts in the institutions that govern the maneuverings of society.
Newspapers were established to satisfy and to serve the public trust. For example, The Wall Street Journal was established in the 1800's to offer objective financial perspective in the face of fictional claims made elsewhere in newsletters posing as legitimate news sources - particularly around the explosion in equity investment the railroad industry inspired. In the case of The Wall Street Journal, there were significant losses in household wealth due to the dubious claims of other illegitimate sources - and the establishment of WSJ was a function of public order.
There were many newspapers that took similar steps and made similar claims - particularly with regard to regional judicial and other governmental reporting. Some were successful and some failed – however, these newspapers took admirable steps to retain the full spectrum of the public trust.
But somewhere along the line the public trust was given a lower relegation in comparison to the pursuit of unabashed profit models promised by larger empires eager to collect newspaper titles across the country. Greed overtook the boardrooms of the very constitution of these companies – and the threat of public trust erosion became more apparent.
One result was the broad incorporation of Associated Press content. The Associated Press effectively acts as an outsourcing venue for written journalism. The Tribune Company, for example, is currently working to untangle itself from this model.
What does an AP selection mean for a news entity? It means layoffs for writers - the core mainstay of a given newspaper business. Releasing journalists in the pursuit of more profit represents an erosion of the public trust – as the readers have previously contracted with the given publication to report on the matters that most concern them. The readership did not ask for amalgamated newsfeeds among the pages of their respective regional newspapers. Corporate boardrooms asked for them.
For instance, I live in New Jersey – where The Star Ledger is on the verge of going out of business. Pick up The Star Ledger and a significant portion of the content is Associated Press stories. What does that say to the local community? It is a drive-through McDonalds-like journalistic experience that has lost its particular voice and resonance and has lost also its connection to the people and to the prospective audiences in the community. You might as well pick up USA Today or go to Google News.
So we have entered an environment where journalism is a commodity. And commodities have unstable shelf lives - in terms of stock prices. Just look at oil.
However, not all newspaper companies are equal. For example, Washington Post won 6 Pulitzers in 2008 – a sweep by every measure. Though Washington Post employs a smattering of AP content, their continual ability to win awards and to be respected in the manner that they are cannot be accomplished with a reliance on AP content. Winning 6 Pulitzers is a feat born out of a firm commitment to the national public trust.
The Washington Post has a heritage of upholding and defining the tenets of the public trust - and it is this heritage that affords them the high quality audience they enjoy today. Quality attracts quality - it could almost be a law of physics. The Pulitzers and the top-shelf quality of their journalism compel a top-shelf audience to come back for more. This is a media-agnostic experience - not at all tied to the confines of a printed product.
Quality audience attracts quality advertisers, which in turn attracts quality revenue. There is proof and truth that one can have it both ways – satisfying both the public trust and the financial needs of the organization.
Dangerous precedents abound if the public trust is ignored. Two recent decisions by the New York Times come to mind.
The first concerns their recent move to dissolve the International Herald Tribune's website. Imagine if you lived in Paris and regularly accessed the IHT. Then tomorrow it disappears – only to be replaced by generic "global" New York Times content. Is this not a breach of Europe’s public trust?
But the second New York Times decision is a bit more manipulative. When New York Times presented the John McCain marital affair scandal, the editors were pressed by the Republican establishment to source the story. The paper could not provide a source for the story that befitted standard journalistic integrity. This was a defining moment for them, as they had clearly taken journalism into the space of opinion and abandoned the public trust altogether in favor of their particular political agenda. This abandonment removes them from objective and reasonable thinking – a dangerous place for a mainstream national newspaper.
So the public trust / profit equation can be equal, but there is considerable differentiation in the application of this balance. It comes back to the kind of intellectual Darwinism free societies have long championed but rarely understood.
The most dramatic example of this question can be found in the unusually public wrangling between civic leaders in Los Angeles; the LA Times; and the corporate leadership of the Tribune Company, owner of the LA Times. The Los Angeles community leaders are asking Tribune to either invest in the LA Times or sell it outright to someone who will. The LA Times editorial leadership has publicly refused to apply the staff cuts that Tribune’s leadership is insisting upon. In the middle are the profits and the public.
This matter of the Public Trust (caps intended) is one that is more shapeless than the more tangible data one can find in a financial report. And this is what makes it so difficult and so compelling. The public trust is a direct extension of democracy itself – with free societies believing that true power resides in the trust the public puts in the institutions that govern the maneuverings of society.
Newspapers were established to satisfy and to serve the public trust. For example, The Wall Street Journal was established in the 1800's to offer objective financial perspective in the face of fictional claims made elsewhere in newsletters posing as legitimate news sources - particularly around the explosion in equity investment the railroad industry inspired. In the case of The Wall Street Journal, there were significant losses in household wealth due to the dubious claims of other illegitimate sources - and the establishment of WSJ was a function of public order.
There were many newspapers that took similar steps and made similar claims - particularly with regard to regional judicial and other governmental reporting. Some were successful and some failed – however, these newspapers took admirable steps to retain the full spectrum of the public trust.
But somewhere along the line the public trust was given a lower relegation in comparison to the pursuit of unabashed profit models promised by larger empires eager to collect newspaper titles across the country. Greed overtook the boardrooms of the very constitution of these companies – and the threat of public trust erosion became more apparent.
One result was the broad incorporation of Associated Press content. The Associated Press effectively acts as an outsourcing venue for written journalism. The Tribune Company, for example, is currently working to untangle itself from this model.
What does an AP selection mean for a news entity? It means layoffs for writers - the core mainstay of a given newspaper business. Releasing journalists in the pursuit of more profit represents an erosion of the public trust – as the readers have previously contracted with the given publication to report on the matters that most concern them. The readership did not ask for amalgamated newsfeeds among the pages of their respective regional newspapers. Corporate boardrooms asked for them.
For instance, I live in New Jersey – where The Star Ledger is on the verge of going out of business. Pick up The Star Ledger and a significant portion of the content is Associated Press stories. What does that say to the local community? It is a drive-through McDonalds-like journalistic experience that has lost its particular voice and resonance and has lost also its connection to the people and to the prospective audiences in the community. You might as well pick up USA Today or go to Google News.
So we have entered an environment where journalism is a commodity. And commodities have unstable shelf lives - in terms of stock prices. Just look at oil.
However, not all newspaper companies are equal. For example, Washington Post won 6 Pulitzers in 2008 – a sweep by every measure. Though Washington Post employs a smattering of AP content, their continual ability to win awards and to be respected in the manner that they are cannot be accomplished with a reliance on AP content. Winning 6 Pulitzers is a feat born out of a firm commitment to the national public trust.
The Washington Post has a heritage of upholding and defining the tenets of the public trust - and it is this heritage that affords them the high quality audience they enjoy today. Quality attracts quality - it could almost be a law of physics. The Pulitzers and the top-shelf quality of their journalism compel a top-shelf audience to come back for more. This is a media-agnostic experience - not at all tied to the confines of a printed product.
Quality audience attracts quality advertisers, which in turn attracts quality revenue. There is proof and truth that one can have it both ways – satisfying both the public trust and the financial needs of the organization.
Dangerous precedents abound if the public trust is ignored. Two recent decisions by the New York Times come to mind.
The first concerns their recent move to dissolve the International Herald Tribune's website. Imagine if you lived in Paris and regularly accessed the IHT. Then tomorrow it disappears – only to be replaced by generic "global" New York Times content. Is this not a breach of Europe’s public trust?
But the second New York Times decision is a bit more manipulative. When New York Times presented the John McCain marital affair scandal, the editors were pressed by the Republican establishment to source the story. The paper could not provide a source for the story that befitted standard journalistic integrity. This was a defining moment for them, as they had clearly taken journalism into the space of opinion and abandoned the public trust altogether in favor of their particular political agenda. This abandonment removes them from objective and reasonable thinking – a dangerous place for a mainstream national newspaper.
So the public trust / profit equation can be equal, but there is considerable differentiation in the application of this balance. It comes back to the kind of intellectual Darwinism free societies have long championed but rarely understood.
McCain and Obama and American Socialism: It’s The Economy, Comrade! (previously published in GroundReport - October 8, 2008)
Scrap any political party affiliation: both presidential nominees unveiled socialist agendas at last night’s presidential debate.
This is what it has come to.
John McCain spoke about federal bailouts for all distressed mortgages – under the banner of stabilizing U.S. housing prices and of saving the economy. Under this plan, the government would pick up roughly 4,500,000 mortgages and allow the delinquent homeowners to continue living on the property.
I can no longer calculate these projected costs in dollars – nor can I stop my spinning head. I am no longer sure that it matters.
Barack Obama leached leftism at every opportunity – most visibly with his class-based discriminatory tax policy and his state-controlled healthcare proposals. We were told that his tax plan is fair and that his healthcare program is progressive.
The central reason cited for the suggestion on state ownership is the current state of the U.S. economy – scaring the population enough to get the population to buy into state control of private assets. That is the game.
I am not an economist, but I have seen similar themes from other regimes.
Now, when Bill Clinton ran for office, his success was based on his ability to parallel his opponent’s poor direction with the poor direction of the overall economy. It’s The Economy, Stupid became his populist platform. But here we are now with candidates from two competing parties who have fallen remarkably in line with a lone solution: state ownership is the silver bullet. It’s The Economy, Comrade!
Except this time around, the voting public is the losing opponent. The collective dupe in this is that we are not economists – and we don’t understand why it is that we should be in opposition.
So, where is American academia? I have not seen their solutions. Where is Harvard and Yale and Wharton and Duke – all of those brand name institutions that demand the highest compensation for the privilege of their respective association?
Maybe they are mere vapid openings in our cerebral landscape. But nothing has come from them. Not a word. Not an equation.
Where are the economists and the thought leaders and the think tanks?
This election has come down to the dismemberment of Darwinism – Joe Six-Packs opening their beers and celebrating their shortcomings.
This is what it has come to.
John McCain spoke about federal bailouts for all distressed mortgages – under the banner of stabilizing U.S. housing prices and of saving the economy. Under this plan, the government would pick up roughly 4,500,000 mortgages and allow the delinquent homeowners to continue living on the property.
I can no longer calculate these projected costs in dollars – nor can I stop my spinning head. I am no longer sure that it matters.
Barack Obama leached leftism at every opportunity – most visibly with his class-based discriminatory tax policy and his state-controlled healthcare proposals. We were told that his tax plan is fair and that his healthcare program is progressive.
The central reason cited for the suggestion on state ownership is the current state of the U.S. economy – scaring the population enough to get the population to buy into state control of private assets. That is the game.
I am not an economist, but I have seen similar themes from other regimes.
Now, when Bill Clinton ran for office, his success was based on his ability to parallel his opponent’s poor direction with the poor direction of the overall economy. It’s The Economy, Stupid became his populist platform. But here we are now with candidates from two competing parties who have fallen remarkably in line with a lone solution: state ownership is the silver bullet. It’s The Economy, Comrade!
Except this time around, the voting public is the losing opponent. The collective dupe in this is that we are not economists – and we don’t understand why it is that we should be in opposition.
So, where is American academia? I have not seen their solutions. Where is Harvard and Yale and Wharton and Duke – all of those brand name institutions that demand the highest compensation for the privilege of their respective association?
Maybe they are mere vapid openings in our cerebral landscape. But nothing has come from them. Not a word. Not an equation.
Where are the economists and the thought leaders and the think tanks?
This election has come down to the dismemberment of Darwinism – Joe Six-Packs opening their beers and celebrating their shortcomings.
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