Friday, January 1, 2010 - It's so tough to be critical these days, unless you're a member of the online media when, apparently, you're instantly believed, or at least heard.

There's a funny limbo I suspect many are in ... well-to-enormously experienced, with many thoughts about where the media is and should be, who make timid attempts to write about their thinking, and then immediately get responses about their "cynicism," their "negativism," their "selectivity."  So, while we are absolutely drowning in idiotic quasi-insights by the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Keith Olberman, those with actual decades of experience are dismissed.  The fact that more than 50% of Americans believe the collective group above have "the answers," beyond being profoundly depressing, deserves some serious analysis.  How does this happen? Why are people so dumb?

My sense is this is not a new question.  In the early days of the Republic, it was clear that there was an elite with finely-honed differences of opinion.  They were very busy thinking and writing. Now, we're much closer to the notion of democracy that the Founders could never have foreseen ... and which is problematic.  Viewing the U.S. media scene from Eastern Europe these days is not at all supportive of the democratic ideal - "Why would anybody here think that there is hope and order in the Freedom of Speech being practiced in the U.S.?" ask many of my students when I try to pitch the idea that our concept of journalism is a pillar of our democracy.  A cogent response is a tall order.

It's especially difficult in the environment of AUBG, where the commitment to fairness, honesty, and transparency is irregular, at best.  We're so busy assessing the alleged marketplace that we've lost all understanding and belief in the key constitutional guarantees that we happily regurgitate but seldom think about.  Consider this:  AUBG has actually said that the most important evaluative tool of faculty practice is student evaluations.  So, instead of any other faculty member visiting a class and assessing the teaching therein, we officially rely on the flip perceptions of 19-and-20-year-olds.  Can you think of anything more crazy?  That's about as American as sub-prime mortgages - i.e. corrupt.

I've noticed a serious over-sensitivity about being pro-American continuing in various former Soviet states since I started working and consulting in the region.  It's very interesting in its contradictory manifestations.  Obviously, for many years, the U.S. presence in most countries, from Vietnam to Tokyo to South Asia to Central Asia, has been very careful and overly-sensitive.  By the time we left Tokyo in the late 1980's, one of the most unpleasant experiences, even for an American, was to visit the U.S. Embassy.  The logic of this attitude, especially toward Americans, was unclear to me.  Later, in Kyrgyzstan, the new, equally curious reality was to move the Embassy to a secluded, suburban location with a snake-like entry road and three barriers of security to get in.  Concurrently, the USIA Library in downtown Bishkek, which has been for years the informational access point for many foreigners, was shut down.  The reversal of this kind of nonsense is what many of us have been looking for from our new President and SecState.  It hasn't happened, yet.

These days, at the American University in Bulgaria, the idea of being American is not a positive.  Local professors, many of whom can speak only average English, even though we teach entirely in English, are openly dismissive of U.S. professors.  The university's attitude seems to be almost apologetic about being American.  We're now frantic because the percentage of Bulgarians coming to AUBG has dropped by almost 50%, even though the logic of Bulgaria's entrance into the EU is obvious, as is the competition for cost-based higher education.  After all, there is nothing more American than competition, and if AUBG can't compete on a quality basis, plus the uniqueness of the residential, liberal arts style of education, then perhaps we should perceive ourselves as the "Survivor" of higher education, and lose with grace.  Instead, though, AUBG is aggressively going after students in Turkmenistan, China, North Korea, and Turkey.

Who knew?  We thought we were just signing up for an adventure and career change, and we've accomplished that.  But we find ourselves involved in something we think is much more important - a sense of hope and opportunity - which has defined our country for a century. My family members think this notion is stupid; could be, but I have to admit that I've had this idea since I was in Vietnam and knew that the people there thought of us as the "light at the end of the tunnel."  Thus, even with all our problems and excesses, we should know that the freedoms we've enjoyed need to be universal; they are  fundamental to the modern idea of democracy.  Is that so difficult?

Frankly, there is nothing better than teaching some of the best-and-the-brightest from 30+ nations, most from former Soviet dictatorships.  They're hungry, smart, multi-cultural, and endlessly curious; it is the classic two-way-street of education, where we teach and learn - terrific!  But to really teach, I think you need to believe, in something ... your subject might do it, but it has to conform to an exigent reality, and that's what's missing here.  We're JMC professors, and journalism and media in Bulgaria - and student media at AUBG - is anything but free.  How does one teach quality journalism and media in an environment where it doesn't exist?  Show largely irrelevant news videos from the U.S.?  Critique local news coverage that is not in your language and doesn't adhere to your standards? Worse, should we model our instruction on such pathetic, ubiquitous sources as CNN, MSNBC, or FOX News?  Happily, here we have BBC World, EuroNews, and Al Jazeera which offer a broadly pertinent sense of the news.

For 2010, we have some worthwhile options, including (finally) a  Multi-Media course and the prospect of a thorough curriculum revamping that has the potential of solidly launching the program into this new century.  That's what makes the work at AUBG JMC so exciting and worth the effort.  Now, if we could only get lucky with some real TV production capabilities and vastly improved internet capacity, including capturing software and streaming speeds, we will be very close technically to moving into the 21st century.

After a summer of peaks and valleys - the peak clearly the glorious graduation at the University of St. Andrews in late June - it's surprisingly calm and settling to be back in Blagoevgrad and the classroom.  Our third year here, the second of a 3-year contract, and Sandra is the interim Chair of the JMC Department.  [There but for the grace of God...] 

But it was not especially comforting to be in the US for three weeks, despite the wonderful times with family and the beauty of the Adirondacks.  It just doesn't seem to be a very happy place; it is so depressing to be around so many angry and scared people.  There appears to be no such thing as civilized discourse, and the political  idiocy is simply staggering.  This governance by polls and screaming voices is so unproductive, unseemly, and unappealing.  I'm still of the opinion that the MBO goal should be that all Americans have easy access to health care comparable to that offered their representatives in Congress.  How we get there, I don't really care ... but cheaper would be better, and models abound.

And as we both slide past the big 6-0, it's difficult to look forward with a lot of hope and anticipation.  We're holding our own in the health area, no thanks to Bulgarian medicine, but American health care is a bad joke, especially to the 43-million who don't have it.  It ain't so great, frankly, for those of us who do.  

Then there's retirement; what a sad story that is in America these days.  I saw the following in The New York Times today:

     "The typical American receives just 45 percent of his preretirement wage through Social Security, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. By      contrast, a worker in Denmark, which has one of the most comprehensive and generous retirement arrangements in the world, can retire with a state pension that is 91 percent of his salary."

I don't think I really ever imagined that I would fully retire, but that was back when I enjoyed and admired the work I did and its benefit to society.  I have hopes that teaching will allow for more meaning in my work, but the administration of higher education seems to leave very little room for caring.  So, yes, I've actually checked on our SS payouts.  Sad.

It's been way too much ... of course. 

It couldn't be any other way, I'm afraid.  It brought out mostly the worst in many - certainly in my pathetic industry of News (not!) - but there were surprises.  One of the ironic outgrowths of our collective media engorgement is that we must, or can, pick and choose our poison, as well as our enlightenment.  As I tell my students, we have no choice but to become our own gatekeepers in the endless flood of data which, decoded, becomes information.

So, I woke this morning in the relative information wasteland of Bulgaria, got my coffee, turned on CNN at 9am.  Miraculously, the morning after the Memorial Spectacle, the lead story only went for 12 minutes ... before moving on to the other _____ guy - Mr. Obama.  After a week of stunning, annoying excess, I finally got just a little more than I needed.  Sure, there were still the idiotic moments -- "as the coffin leaves the Staples Center we have our last look at ..." (not a chance!!!), CNN resisted reminding us again that "(he) only can die once" (again, not a chance!!!) -- but while the purported social impact was way overdone, the individual impact was not.

Okay, I admit ... like so many, I was transported ... not so much to the person of Michael Jackson, nor his music, nor his marvelous dancing, and certainly not to his fame or actions of the last two decades, but to the times he represented in his early years.  They were so good, when I was a teen and young adult, and the experience of music was so important ... whether the shock of my parents that I wanted to go to a James Brown concert in Denver in the early 60's, my collection of Motown albums, the joy of sock hops and street dances where I could dance the twist or the boogaloo (sp?) or the skate or the surfer stomp, the ecstasy of the first Beatles concert at Red Rocks outside of Denver, regular nights at the Peppermint Lounge in SF listening to Big Brother & the Holding Company (and their cool lead singer, Janis Joplin), hanging in the panhandle of Golden Gate Park to the tunes of the Airplane or the Dead or Creedence, or later as a DJ in Vietnam annoying the leadership by playing Country Joe's "FISH Cheer" or Freda Payne's version of Pink Floyd's "Bring the Boys Home."

Oh, what a time it was!  Music with melodies, story-lines, and magical performances.  Yeah, Barry Gordy was almost right last night - Michael Jackson was probably one of the greatest performers of all time.   But watching Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton work their guitars, in much different ways, at the Winter Garden, or Janis assaulting the mic in "Ball and Chain," or Ten Years After's Alvin Lee and his manic "I'm Comin' Home" ... or even something as prosaic as following Paul Simon re-making himself every decade or so, a musical talent, like McCartney, who leaves MJ in the dust.

Still, I revere my copy of Motown's 25th at the Apollo, and there was a tear or two when Paris spoke at the end, and earlier when Mariah Carey choked a little as she sang.  But I think it's more generic than Michael.  We actually cared back then (or as my son says, rolling his eyes, "back in the day"); we believed in the pain and angst reflected in the music; we revelled in our compassion, as naive as it was perceived by others, then and now; and so it was the apparent authenticity of some of the emotion from last night that moved me.  I'm appalled that I might quote anybody from Fox News, much less Shepard Smith, but I do think he summed it up well with, "there were days when on the cover of The New York Post, he was just ‘Wacko Jacko.’ But today, just moments ago, his daughter reminded us all he was also, Daddy.”

Even though ABC News' Charlie Gibson was perhaps half-right when, in an apparent attempt to bring some gravitas (or maybe, fact) to the excess, he said, "People have gone back to the music,” he was downright insightful when he added, "“It’s as if the last 10 or 15 years didn’t happen.”  [Thanks to Allessandra Stanley of the NY Times.]

As Ms. Stanley, earlier in her Times report, perhaps inadvertantly summed up: 

     "Even on mute, the tribute mattered:  as the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, showed in 1997, communal sorrow is moving, public frenzy is alarming, but the two together make for irresistible television."  

Anyway, thanks for the memories.

An editor of great influence at The New York Times during the newspaper’s golden age, Robert H. Phelps helped shape coverage of some of the most formative stories of modern American journalism.

Phelps got his start in 1941, earning $20 per week as a reporter for the now defunct Citizen in Ambridge, Penn. After a stint with the United Press wire service, he joined the Navy where he served as an enlisted combat correspondent based out of Okinawa during World War II. Following the war, he worked at The Providence Journal before landing a job as a copyeditor for the Times, where he was promoted several times.

As the news editor of the Times’ Washington Bureau from 1965-1974, Phelps coordinated the paper’s reporting on such seminal moments as the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the Pentagon Papers, and Watergate.

In 1974, Phelps left the Times for the Boston Globe, where he supervised the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of school desegregation.

Phelps recently sat down with the Burlington (MA) Union to reflect upon his career and share his insights on the past, present and future of newspapers.

Q: What makes a good reporter versus a good editor?

A: With me, it was the fact that I was socially incompetent. In the job I had with United Press covering politicians, I saw the ones who got the good scoops were the ones who hung around in bars – and I didn’t even drink!

I realized that I had to get stories in a different way and then I tried to outthink the other reporters through simple things like reading the trade press. The lobbyists know what’s going on, like the Pennsylvania Pharmaceutical Association. I just signed up for everything they had. They sent me everything and they talked very freely because nobody else was even talking to them. So you would get advanced tips on stories. And even if the trade press had used it, I beat the regular press.

I got more satisfaction out of setting up the coverage. There’s also this contrarian sense — when something is going one way, you say, ‘What about the other?’ If everybody hates Nixon, try to look at it a contrary way that maybe he’s not all wrong. And that’s needed in an editor if you want to get balanced coverage.

Q: When did you start to see the decline in newspapers?

A: It came pretty fast. I can’t say I foresaw it by any means.

The Internet is primarily responsible. But that’s not going to last. I think the print press is going to come back.

Look at the Internet. What you have there now is almost an unedited cacophony, a Tower of Babel, with everybody saying what they want. They get they’re reporting from where? Because they read the newspapers mostly.

I think that the public will realize eventually — they’re going to zero in on things they can trust. And the advertisers will learn that. There’s a lot of advertising that when the economy improves will go back to newspapers. It won’t be as much. There’s no question about the Internet reach. I’m sure newspapers won’t be the way they were.

I think they’ll discover that the missing ingredient on the Internet is the lack of editing. It’s a tough thing to fight because people want something for nothing.

Q: Have newspapers lost some of their ethics and standards?

A: I think they’ve gotten a lot better. Most newspapers, I’m talking about, even tabloids. I think that’s the effect of journalism schools.