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Posts Tagged ‘Congress’

Alzheimer’s disease is an affliction which we tend to think of as an old person’s disease.

But beginning this year, Baby Boomers will be turning 65 at the rate of 10,000 every day. Now, compared to 65 year olds of previous generations, the Boomer group tends to be much more active, agile and adventurous.

Nevertheless, it’s estimated that one out of every 8 Baby Boomers will develop Alzheimer’s disease and right now doctors don’t have any way to prevent it, cure it or slow down its progression. Today, someone in America develops Alzheimer’s every 69 seconds. By 2050, that rate is expected to increase to one every 33 seconds. Those are sobering stats especially considering the conversations that are going on in Washington, DC right now about the future of health care in America.

The Alzheimer’s Association has just released a study dealing with this issue. You can read and download “Generation Alzheimer’s: The Defining Disease of the Baby Boomers” by clicking on www.alz.org/boomers

Saturday’s assassination attempt of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords which claimed six lives has some pointing an accusing finger at radio and cable TV hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, claiming they had a role in the incident by provoking an unstable person. But INSIDE RADIO reports that the talkers are pushing back, calling it an unfair attack on conservative hosts.



What do you think?

Update: 1/12/11

To alert people to this blog, I posted links on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. My experience is that my postings on Twitter never receive responses and are rarely retweeted but I view using it as a connection device to be a learning experience. On both Linkedin and Facebook, I don’t know if people actually link to this site to read the entire blog but they usually post their responses on those sites.

Not surprisingly, the responses tended to fall along party lines. Those folks whose politics tend toward the “progressive/liberal” camp seem to believe that the rhetoric heard on talk radio and cable TV in some way influenced the Tuscon tragedy. Those whose politics are more “conservative” seem to believe that liberals are trying to use the tragedy to impose restrictions on their First Amendment rights of free speech. Unfortunately, South Caroline Representative, James Clyburn (a Democrat) is fanning that particular flame by championing a return of the Fairness Doctrine. I’ve written previously about how anachronistic, outdated and absurd that notion is considering 21st Century communications technology.

In any case, the debate on this topic has certainly been lively. Although I have concerns about what sometimes seems like the irresponsible use of inflammatory rhetoric to manipulate audience reaction and ratings, my sense is that it wasn’t much of a factor in the case of the shootings in Arizona. I was especially impressed with these reactions from columnist David Brooks and The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/opinion/11brooks.html?_r=1&ref=davidbrooks

href=’http://www.thedailyshow.com’>The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Arizona Shootings Reaction www.thedailyshow.com

Polls show that 60% of Americans don’t believe that political rhetoric caused Jared Loughner’s assassination attempt on Rep. Giffords. Nevertheless, it seems to me that those who dismiss the impact of inflammatory rhetoric are making a mistake. Research shows that humans, even those of us who relieve that we are reasonable and rational, react emotionally and then rationalize to reinforce their beliefs.

In times of economic instability like we’ve been experiencing for the past decade in the United States, fear, insecurity and distrust become more prevalent as what Seth Godin likes to call our lizard brain takes control. Couple with that the ability that we have with the internet, various cable TV and social media to filter the information we receive. Now, we can choose to avoid all that inconvenient information which doesn’t reinforce our beliefs.

I can recall watching coverage of the 2008 Presidential campaign when a woman in John McCain’s audience started ranting about how Obama was evil and wanted to destroy America. The woman looked like an average grandmother but she was regurgitating this rhetoric and McCain looked stunned and embarrassed. He felt it necessary to reassure her that Barack Obama was a good person and an honorable man, not something that this woman or his supporters wanted to hear.

Another woman waiting in line to enter a McCain/Palin rally told an interviewer that Obama was a socialist who wanted to destroy the country and that he wasn’t an American citizen. She was very matter-of-fact as if these were proven facts rather than unsubstantiated rumors spread through the internet.

Albany Times Union editor, Rex Smith makes some cogent observations in this recent editorial:
http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Words-the-first-step-to-civility-959442.php

Those of us who’ve worked professionally in media know how easy it is to manipulate an audience. It can be a source of childish delight to watch your audience jump through hoops at your whim but it’s also important to take responsibility for your actions and for the results of those actions whether or not they are intended.

Words have consequences.

In his blog today, Jerry Del Colliano offers his solution to the radio/RIAA Performance Rights Act standoff:

“1.Agree upon a very, very small fee for radio stations and guarantee the rate for the next seven years. Of course, you’ll never get the seven years but start low and give an increase — a small one — at one or two points along the way.

2. Local, independent operators (mom and pops), the real heart of local radio, should be totally exempt from any fees. I believe this can be negotiated in. Local operators are helping their communities and local and regional economies, they deserve a break. This is the strongest argument for local radio — where local radio actually exists — and this is the workaround.

3. Radio groups operating under 30 total stations should get an additional break no matter what market they are in because 30 stations constitutes a small group by today’s consolidated radio numbers. The number 30 can be 40, or 50 — it’s negotiable.

4. Large consolidators like Clear Channel, Citadel, Cumulus and others should pay the highest fee — but even that should be comparably low. Remember, the music industry just wants to get rid of the performance exemption so it can raise these percentages as soon as possible. Their compromise might have to be accepting pennies on the dollar for the first seven years.

5. This is a must and only a fool would knowingly agree to pay additional music royalty taxes for terrestrial radio without it. Radio stations would be exempt from paying these charges for their podcasting or online streaming of programming that is separate and apart from their terrestrial radio signal. The future is mobile Internet and as a result, this is the concession that radio operators need to get a leg up on the new frontier. The radio industry can argue, okay — you get some music royalties for terrestrial radio under certain circumstances but you give us music in this new space for free while we take the next seven years to build the podcasting and mobile and streaming businesses. It will be worth even more to you when we use our know-how to build these platforms and you can get a royalty on them as well later.”

You can read Jerry’s full blog at http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2010/04/radio-royalty-solution.html

As a political moderate and independent, I have concerns that a Democratic majority will let their biases override good sense and will create rules and laws which restrict freedom of speech on broadcast radio outlets. They seem to have some misguided notion that corporate edicts dictate the content of talk radio when, in fact, conservative talk radio replaced moderate/liberal talk radio because conservatives tended to be more passionate about and loyal to their favorite talk shows than did moderates and liberals.

Those in Congress who advocate the return of the Fairness Doctrine don’t seem to understand that when radio was deregulated during the Reagan era and there was an explosion of new frequencies on the dial each station’s programming had to become more focused and predictable in order to survive. Power was transferred from the programmers to the listeners who were able to get what they wanted when they wanted it and knew where to find it on their radio dials. Now, with streaming, podcasts, Twitter and soon WiFi distribution of Internet radio, there are abundant opportunities to hear different opinions for those who want to hear them.

Obviously, there is a liberal audience available and NPR stations whose programming tends to be more politically progressive than commercial radio boast large and loyal audiences. In fact, the success of public radio with listeners with moderate and/or liberal political views might be a reason why commercial radio stations have been largely unsuccessful in cultivating a significant audience base of those listeners.