President Barack Obama of the United States of America, Nobel Laureate. It has a nice ring to it. Now get ready for the real noise. There will be a cacophony from both the right and the left. Many will say he doesn't deserve it. Just as many will laud the...

The next Olympic Games are still a few months off, the Winter fest in Canada in 2010, but the good ole USA has already won it's first gold medal. In the naivete competition we are the Usain Bolt of nations.

Following Rio's selection as the host of the 2016...

Genius is a funny word. It has been attached to a variety of people over the years, some deserving, most not. It's a lot like 'superstar' or 'legend' or any of a number of other superlatives that when thrown around willy nilly lose their impact. So it is with 'genius.'...

Welcome back students!

As you know, this is back to school time across the nation and fresh young faces and minds will be crammed into lecture halls all across the USA's college campuses this week, many of them in that ever popular Econ 101. Well, kiddos, I've got a...

And I didn't even get kissed.

I had a business deal fall apart this week and it started me thinking. Actually, "fall apart" may not be putting it quite right. It was more like bending over in the shower to pick up the soap at San Quentin and having...

It's rare that television moves me to take action but it did while I was watching the ABC and NBC "specials" on the death of Michael Jackson. They moved me to take a shower. Made your skin crawl at more than just a few levels didn't it?

First, strictly...

It's one of the oldest moves in television news: hire a babe. Melissa Rycroft, ex star of The Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars on ABC is now a 'summer contributor' covering "fun" stories for Good Morning America. You suppose that's what David Westin means by the "new normal"?...

It's a 'Lewis Black moment'. I'm sitting on a conference call in my running shorts. Sweating. I'm in the Southwest and the rest of the participants are somewhere in the Midwest and Northeast. When the moderator plugs us all in the usual introductions begin. Halfway through I'm thinking maybe they've...

It was always my favorite act at the circus, the clown car. No matter how small it was, they just kept coming: one goofy looking clown after another. It seemed endless and funny. Just like the constant chatter these days about how to 'fix' the American news media. Except for...

I just got a 'butt phone call' from Omaha, Nebraska. A buddy of mine is there and he must have sat on his phone because I could hear him in the background talking to somebody else. 'Look at all those clowns, ' he was saying. 'What are they doing?' 'Oh,'...

It was with a silly grin that I read about TV Week's selection of the NBC news honchos as the 'most powerful' person or in this case group, in TV news. You want to see power? Shove some cheese up your nose. Then, particularly if you work for a well-known...

About a month ago I had a conversation with the CEO of a major construction clothing manufacturer; work gloves, boots and so forth. We were talking about his branding and marketing efforts and he told me he was sticking with his tried and true strategy of advertising in magazines. You...

'Broken record!'

That's what someone in the audience yelled at the judges during the latest round of the 'American Idol' sing-off. Or was that someone at the G20 summit in London?

No matter, they've both 'jumped the shark' in TV parlance--the G20 and the G8 and the 'Gee Whiz'...

Want to 'save' broadcast journalism? It's time to throw the baby out with the bath water. Film at 11!

As journalists we will look back at these last couple of years as the 'Hand Wringing' era, the same way the Romans looked back on Nero's reign as the 'toasty'...

Booyah Jon, Welcome to Cramerica!

I've come to the realization that if you were to describe The Daily Show and Mad Money to a blind person they likely wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Both try to be entertaining, they both use 'goofy' sounds, they both try to be...

It was a few months back when I read that the New York Times was going to start selling advertising on its front page. I guess I read it wrong. There was advertising in a strange place in Monday's NYT but it was on the front of the Business Section...

Live long enough and nearly everything comes back around. It's the reason my 80 year mother thinks we're headed to The Great Depression II, a sequel. Let's hope it's not as 'good' as the first one. I think Brando was in that one too.

It's also why I'm chuckling at...

Question--Why do they call them the 'jobs numbers'? Shouldn't they be called the 'lack of jobs' numbers? There's no way around how dismal the government's report on unemployment is--8.1 per cent in the U.S.-- thanks in large measure to revised numbers on the two previous months of an additional 100,000+...

Be careful what you wish for, because it just might come true. Or, how reporting from the "pit" can turn into the "pits."

How much better can it get for an obscure, at best, cable TV "reporter"? A shot at the "bigs" -- a guest spot on The...