It's very confusing trying to figure out what an elitist is these days. Who qualifies to be an elitist? Are there standards? Certain physical characteristics? Is it catching? If you somehow become one, are you better off? Worse off? Very confusing.

Like everything else, the meaning depends on who uses...

"Child 44" - Audio Book
by Tom Rob Smith; Narrator: Dennia Boutsikaris

While there are flashes of a compelling police mystery in this first novel by Tom Rob Smith, the primary problem is the plot and characters come off as plodding, bleak and brutal as the oppressive...

"'Citizen Journalist' Broke Obama Story," reads the headline in the Los Angeles Times. The 'citizen' is HuffPo blogger, Mayhill Fowler. The story is the exclusive recording and article about Obama's 'bitter' bite from his speech about small towns - which became as ubiquitous on TV screens as "Law and Order."...

The AP runs a story announcing to the world that Mariah Carey has surpassed Elvis for the most sold No. 1 singles on the Billboard Chart, and is now second only to the Beatles in single sales. Big. And statistically correct. But statistics, like everything, should be viewed in context....

Every solid reporter and editor knows the key to journalistic success: assume nothing and question everything. For successful business executives, it's a survival mantra. Educators call it critical thinking, the ability to see an advertisement, hear a presentation, read a news story with a questioning eye on what's behind the...

A lot is being made in the current presidential campaign-a-thon about meaningful words versus action. Let's stipulate: words do have actionable meanings -- UNLESS they are so over-used they become meaningless as in "Your call is important to us," endlessly repeated while you're on hold for 20 minutes, then disconnected....

Thanks goodness for SpitzerFest. Yes, it's a tragedy on so many personal and societal levels -- but isn't it one of life's ironies that there are always folks who benefit from misfortune? Electronic news, like cable TV and the Internet, were certainly looking at a viewer slow-down with the Pennsylvania's...

Email is the workhorse of modern communications at work and at home. Yes, we still use letters -- mostly for bills and other unrelenting official forms. Office memos are morphing into CYA missives for the files. At home, we no longer write personal letters except the warm greetings in our...

If a truth gun were put to our collective TV heads asking why we watch American Idol, and The Apprentice, the answer might be: we like watching people being humiliated. If that's true -- then how come? There is a sub-set of Reality TV that can only be described...

Wolf Blitzer was the big loser in CNN's recent Democratic debate twixt Clinton & Obama in Hollywood. It was clear that the two candidates decided not to replay their South Carolina squabble or duplicate the cross-talking Romney-McCain slap-back from the previous night's GOP debate. But Blitzer was having no part...

The Reality-TV mini-series we call the Presidential Debates is running out of juice. Same questions, same answers endlessly re-looped as the media-candidate interview process grinds on from state to state. Yes, the candidates are trying to goose things up with oppo- research gotcha barbs. But the TV newsies are...

Folks who work media and politics understand the notion that perception trumps reality -- most of the time. In Hillary's New Hampshire upset, it was her three Oprah moments that changed women's perceptions and derailed the speeding Obama bandwagon. Three? Uhhuh. The first one came during the New Hampshire debate...

CNN's Iowa Caucus coverage was so visually hyper, so jammed with conflicting graphics and people that the only thing missing was a flashing disclaimer that 'sustained viewing may cause discomfort and nausea.' The whole evening looked self-consciously high-tech as if the producers believe that content alone will not sustain viewer...

Every decade seems to have its particular buzz words that roar through the culture and become mantras in media, business and political lexicons, then disappear after few years like Boy George. Topping the business charts in the 1970 was the very buzzy 'Management by Objective'- MBO. CEOs and Governors twitched...

Media commentators like to label each generation as it emerges on society's center stage. The current spotlight is on the Boomer Generation. Boomers rule...for now. Pity the poor generations that are following the Boomers. They get labels like Gen X, Gen Y, Next Gen. Hurricanes get better names. If you...

While our government may not be meeting its quarterly goals of spreading democracy around the world, we are doing a helleva job spreading our media values to non-democracies, sometimes called totalitariats. And that just may be the way to enhance our real influence and power in the world.
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The media pictures last week of protesting Pakistani lawyers massing in the streets while being clubbed and gassed by the police, is a most remarkable sight. And they were all in suits and ties. It's one of those mind-bending scenes that flies in the face of centuries old negative lawyer...

There's a fundamental ingredient in journalism that all reporters look for -- where's the friction? Who's up? Who's down? Who's in, who's out? Without the friction, the story won't get ratings and it won't get on the front page, above the fold. Why friction? Because friction is what makes the...

It's October and we cannot escape the media's scary Halloween onslaught. Once again, Freddy, Jason, and Michael are Chainsaw-ing their way down Elm Street on Halloween. All this slashing flesh and witchie stuff is profitable for the media and fun for all unless, of course, you have a 3-6 year...

It's October and we cannot escape the media's scary Halloween onslaught. Once again, Freddy, Jason, and Michael are Chainsaw-ing their way down Elm Street on Halloween. All this slashing flesh and witchie stuff is profitable for the media and fun for all unless, of course, you have a 3-6 year...