[PRCo] Re: Power Company fights government in 1935

[Fred Schneider]

I think most news services have some shred of honesty.   You, as a reader, have to have the gray matter to know when it is in their interest to stretch it or spin it or not publish it to get advertising or to protect their advertisers.  The need to protect the advertisers or get ratings applies not just to newspapers.   Its all around you.

Most people would not have a clue how pervasive...  

You have to figure out as a reader who they might offend and what will get them the best ratings or advertising if they publish it (or broadcast it).  Which interest groups control?   Once you understand that, then you are well on the way to understanding what might be authentic. 

Phillip, I worked 36 years in federal, state and local government.  I worked many of those years with journalists.   If I sound cynical, I've earned that badge simply by survival.     


On Sep 23, 2010, at 7:59 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:

> Good points, Mr.Schneider; more believable than newspapers aren't they.
> Phil
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Sent: Thu, September 23, 2010 12:43:21 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Power Company fights government in 1935
> 
> No question about sensationalism.   BBC World News opined last April that the 
> broadcast channel that "shouts the loudest gets the highest ratings" and 
> therefore the greatest advertising revenue.   They went on to postulate that 
> accuracy mattered less than volume.  
> 
> It has always been that way as you suggested.
> 
> The newspapers blamed Pittsburgh Railways because it caused people to buy the 
> paper.   The streetcar hit the automobile always made for better sales than a 
> headline saying drunk driver can't see big orange street car.  
> 
> 
> But you have to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.  
> 
> There are two books which I think every museum curator should read by a man 
> named James Lowen (probably Löwen or Lion in English).   One was titled Lies My 
> Teacher Taught Me (everything the American history text books got wrong) and the 
> other is Lies Across America (all those things that we are told at various 
> historical sites that are incorrect).   No, the NCL conspiracy myth wasn't in 
> it.   But one example is a marker in Utah where there was a massacre ... the 
> word word was deliberately chosen because it would inflame people against native 
> Americans when the uprising was actually caused by Mormons.   And then there is 
> the chapter about my own home town titled, "You come to see the House, not to 
> hear about the man."   We tell you all about President James Bucahanan's house 
> in Lancaster but Junior League never told the visitors to Wheatland that 
> Buchanan never had a boy friend ... he lived with the Senator from Alabama ... 
> broke his engagement with his "girl friend."   Wonde!
> r why?  
> 
> He claims the biggest lies we are taught in school were perpetuated because the 
> Texas Board of School Book Censors control what is in books for that state and 
> becomes uneconomical to print a Texas edition and editions for other states, so 
> they just print a Texas edition for everyone.   Do you buy that.   Well, I have 
> a good friend who was a college history prof.   He had a contract to do a U.S. 
> history book for a major publisher.   He abrogated it when they told him he had 
> to pay, out of his royalties, for people to edit it to make sure he got right 
> what the women wanted, the blacks wanted, the spanish wanted, and so forth.   In 
> other words, he had to personally pay for rewriting history to suit multiple 
> special interest groups.  
> 
> 
> Regarding a media frenzy on what happens in the White House ... its cheaper to 
> report than sending out a reporter to dig up facts on something else.   People 
> might read it or listen to it but they won't listen to something about 17 guys 
> trapped in a mine in Chile since August 22nd.    But at least I think NPR and 
> BBC try to get the fact straights.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sep 23, 2010, at 11:42 AM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:
> 
>> Mr.Schneider;
>> There are a number of old sayings that come into play here aren't there:
>> "Believe only 50% of what you read, none of what you hear."  1940s and before.
>> 
>> "Newspapers write to sell."  Much sensationalism isn't there.  This has been
>> the case since newspapers were first printed.  Lowest common denominator
>> is the human element;  'humans' write newspapers.  If the human condition
>> has changed any over the millenia it is toward the downside isn't it.  That is
>> essentially the thrust of your observations isn't it.  "In our day we relied on 
>> 
>> the
>> papers for.....  whereas people today are misinformed."  And our parents and
>> their parents said the same thing:  "Times were so much better 'before.'"
>> Therefore, from these observations, one can state society is on an
>> endless downhill slide can't one.
>> 
>> There is a media obsessive-compulsive reaction to the 'alleged' administration 
> 
>> 'shake-up:'
>> 
>> "Summers' Exit Yet Another White House 
>> Shake-Up"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130041722&ft=1&f=1014
>> 4
>> 
>> 
>> They make it sound like the end of the world don't they.  Big deal; people 
> come
>> and go in all walks of life.  He is not a 'god' and his position is hardly 
>> sacrosanct.
>> This is an excellent example of media thinking to highly of self, causing a 
>> stir 
>> 
>> to
>> generate sales and garner ratings.
>> 
>> People in the 1960s and 1970s often lamented the 'media' and specifically the
>> papers as contributing to if not causing the skewing of information to suit 
>> their
>> needs.  It was felt by not a few that there was an agenda which they pushed
>> that could undermine freedom for many.
>> 
>> There is also an extremely fine line between  'news'  and  'gossip'  isn't 
>> there.
>> Much of the 'news' is little more than the latter; it seems the endless 
>> speculation
>> around this 'alleged' media shakeup falls into this category doesn't it.
>> 
>> I know agnostics who prefer the 'Christian Science Monitor;'  I haven't read 
>> it.
>> Maybe some good writing there.  As Mr.Lybarger said the Journal provides
>> better information than many but I would still be on my guard.  Just because
>> it is in print doesn't make it gospel does it;  in many cases it is just the 
>> opposite.
>> 
>> 'Change' is the biggest constant in life;  if it weren't we would still be 
>> rubbing two
>> sticks together to cook.  Column width has changed with the inet which makes
>> reading easier.
>> 
>> Phil
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Sent: Thu, September 23, 2010 10:51:29 AM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Power Company fights government in 1935
>> 
>> I am making a jab that most people today do not read; they watch sound bites.  
> 
>> A few seconds on television instead of reading ten column inch story in the 
>> paper.   Pittsburgh lost the Press and the Sun Telegraph and in its place has 
>> gained Dick Scaife's Tribune Review but no one has the newspaper circulation we 
>> 
>> had years ago, not just because the population is down but also because we 
>> simply do not read.   Even here in Lancaster where the population is double 
>> what 
>> 
>> it was, the circulation is down and has reduced sales from two papers to one.  
>> 
>> 
>> We have also lost all our county weekly papers.    
>> 
>> 
>> And they probably don't even watch television news.   I suspect you have 
>> millions more watching some idiot getting voted off an island than watching 
>> news.  
>> 
>> 
>> Remember when a 12-year-old could make a decent income from a first job 
>> delivering papers?   I got a penny and a quarter a paper and had to tote over a 
>> 
>> 125 weekday papers plus almost as many Sunday papers.   I had the evening 
>> paper.   About 70 percent of the homes got it.   The rest got the morning 
>> paper.   Today they are motor carrier routes because so few homes get it that 
>> you get a neighborhood kid to carry them.   (And the kids are lazy.)   I can 
>> only think of one neighbor around us who gets the paper!  
>> 
>> 
>> Sad too because as the circulation drops, the quality of the reporting goes 
>> down.   It has simply become a summary of press releases and police reports.  
>> There is almost no real reporting in our paper any longer and very limited 
>> national or international news.   Why bother to print that.  No one cares about 
>> 
>> a flood in Pakistan or a Israel blocking deliveries by ship to the Gaza or wind 
>> 
>> generation in Denmark.   Hell, the fools do even know where Iraq is (you might 
> 
>> recall one of the late shows where some idiot pointed to Australia and said, 
>> "There it is") and don't ask them to spell Afghanistan.  
>> 
>> 
>> Sorry, Dwight but you push my buttons.
>> 
>> On Sep 22, 2010, at 10:32 PM, Dwight Long wrote:
>> 
>>> Fred
>>> 
>>> So what do residents of da Burgh read?  Since there is no more Press,  do the 
> 
>>> read the Cleveland Plain Dealer?
>>> 
>>> And, what other papers are there in Pgh other than the Post Gazette?  The Press 
>>> 
>>> and Sun Tele are gone.  I suppose there is the usual plethora of freebie sheets 
>>> 
>>> geared primarily to the entertainment industry, but what else?
>>> 
>>> Surely they don't all import the New York Times?
>>> 
>>> Dwight
>>> 
>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>> From: Fred Schneider 
>>> To: Pittsburgh-Railways at Dementia.Org 
>>> Cc: Ed Lybarger 
>>> Sent: Wednesday, 22 September, 2010 22:01
>>> Subject: [PRCo] Power Company fights government in 1935
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This item is priceless because it shows two things....
>>> 
>>> 1)  It is a utility company fighting the government attempts in the Depression 
>> 
>>> to break up utility holding companies and to take away their profits.   In this 
>>> 
>>> same week utility stock values crashed to an all-time low. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2)  It's an advertisement against the government by Associated Gas and 
>>> Electric holding company in the Pittsburgh Press.  Their nearest operations 
>>> were 
>>> 
>>> in Johnstown and Altoona.  You don't advertise in Pittsburgh unless that paper 
>> 
>>> is sold in your market area!   Imagine Johnstown and Altoona people reading the 
>>> 
>>> Pittsburgh papers.   Today Pittsburgh people don't even read Pittsburgh 
>>> papers.  
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The rest of the story will follow in a few days including the fight to force 
>>> Duquesne Light into a 30% rate reduction.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AXEbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=kUsEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5725%2C3425979
>>> 9
>>> 
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