GOING OFF THE DEEP END
OUT OF CONTROL Our electronic news media is out of control. This is yet another example. I realized this with the coverage of Princess Diana's death. The entire world was caught in the grip of that one. Allegations about a paparrazzo on a motorcycle swerving in front of the car were broadcast around the world without ever being substantiated. Information travels so fast that a rumor can not be verified or facts checked- everyone wants to be the first to scoop the other. The motorcycle story was replaced by the story that the driver was drunk, which led to another storm of outrage against the man and the hotel. Videotape later surfaced that showed Henri Paul in complete control of his faculties, and the limo leaving the back door with no motorcycles in pursuit and no high speed getaway. Months later the investigation into what really happened in that tunnel is still not settled, focusing on a white Fiat that may have collided with the car in the tunnel- a random hit and run? Or a deliberate swerve to cause the crash by M-16 agents determined to end the pregnancy and impending marriage of the mother of the heir to the throne of England? LATEST NEWS: They may have found the Fiat- it belongs to a photographer who was already being sued for harrassment/stalking. So we are back full circle to the papparazzo story after all. FIRST STRIKE "First Strike" used to refer to the idea that if we got a report of incoming ICBMS we would only have minutes to decide to launch a counterattack or be destroyed. In the post Cold War era, information is everything. Emails travel around the world on the internet in seconds, voice and digital wireless cell phone communications bounce off constellations of sattelites in low earth orbit. Has that improved the quality of the information? No!!! Exactly the opposite. THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD A rumor can fly around the world in seconds and people and systems are forced to react. We saw it with Diana. We see it now with Bill Clinton. The next "media virus" that gets transmitted around the world could start a war or cause the stock market to crash. Mass psychology is a tricky thing. Our interdependent world tends to follow a pattern called "self-organzied criticality"- as the internetworking gets more complex, it is like adding more dominoes edgewise to a tabletop. Eventually there are so many dominoes on the table that it only takes one to tip over to knock all the other ones down. That is what happened in WWI. LIFE IMITATES ART Two recent movies reflect the ironies in the current situation- as is often the case, art imitates real life. In the current movie "Wag the Dog" which I haven't seen, the White House decides to stage a war to distract attention from a sex scandal involving the president. At the same time that this Lewisky situation is going on, advisors from the Pentagon were meeting with the President to decide what to do about Iraq, even talking publicly about a military strike. (MY PERSONAL SPIN ON THIS EVENT- in my next email.) I AM ANDREW SHEPPARD AND *I AM* THE PRESIDENT In the movie "The American President" which we have seen about five times on cable lately, the widowed president has an affair with an environmental lobbyist that causes his approval rating in the polls to drop- only when it drops to 41 percent does the president decide to act. This weekend, Clinton's polls dropped to 41 percent- on Monday he was speaking out. Watch that movie again the next time it is on and look for Michael J Fox's speech about the need for leadership- it FITS the current situation to a TEE. SPIN CONTROL On the CNN Message board about the President: Submitted by: Bill Bartel - 03:13pm Jan 27, 1998 ET (#17659 of 17661) Readers Here Know The Same As The Media: NOTHING! One more time: Only two people on this planet know what did or did not happen between them. If you are reading this now, I guarantee you this: YOU ARE NOT ONE OF THEM!!! An unstable former White House staffer with an admitted grudge against the President who vowed to help bring him down, wraps herself in wires for a month or more to coerce statements from a young woman who admits that "...I've lied all my life." She gives a sworn statement that NOTHING HAPPENED. Now, the prosecution says the tapes proves she's lying. When? Was she lying on the tapes, or in the deposition? Has she ever told the truth? To whom? And, the press reports the events like they are proven, which they are not. The only source reporters have for information now is each other! The Dallas newspaper learned the lie of the so-called "Eyeball Witness" and dropped their story. Duh.... LATEST EVENTS L.A. = Town without Pity Media treats Monica like a DOG War with IRAQ Imminent
What do you think? Share your thoughts with me
(gcmastra@mcs.drexel.edu) via email.
GOING OFF THE DEEP END