After reading today about our state's dismal bottom ranking in rate of high school graduations rates I wondered what elected officials must be thinking. Would they be held accountable and asked for explanations?
In the six years that Susana Martinez has been governor of New Mexico, has she ever held a full news conference attended by numerous reporters and writers, with out limiting questions? I can't remember one. Isn't it time now since she has had a chance to learn the issues?
Before I started my own political career, I was news secretary for democratic Governor Bruce King. After finishing that job at the end of his term I took on the same duties for republican Harry Kinney. Both of them regularly held news conferences or allowed unrestrained questioning in one on one interviews with journalists. Journal reporters, TV reporters, editorial boards only had to call to ask for an interview on any subject and they were allowed right in to King or Kinney's office. Those two great leaders often squirmed and fidgeted under the questioning, but they understood they had to do it.
Now we have elected officials who have never held a full scale wide ranging news conference. They hide from such things either because they are cowardly, apathetic, or don't really know what is going on in their own offices. I think in Susana Martinez and Mayor Richard Berry's case all three reasons are true. They evidently just like being there, and don't want to face reporters.
Where are the journalists? Why are they not moving together to insist on regular news conferences with no limiting of questions and no political consultants present. Well mostly I suspect, it is the corporate ownership of media and their control of the news departments. Look at how the corporate ABQ Journal lies in bed with everything rightwing. I can't remember a negative story on the Governor during her terms. I could be wrong.
Before I started my own political career, I was news secretary for democratic Governor Bruce King. After finishing that job at the end of his term I took on the same duties for republican Harry Kinney. Both of them regularly held news conferences or allowed unrestrained questioning in one on one interviews with journalists. Journal reporters, TV reporters, editorial boards only had to call to ask for an interview on any subject and they were allowed right in to King or Kinney's office. Those two great leaders often squirmed and fidgeted under the questioning, but they understood they had to do it.
Now we have elected officials who have never held a full scale wide ranging news conference. They hide from such things either because they are cowardly, apathetic, or don't really know what is going on in their own offices. I think in Susana Martinez and Mayor Richard Berry's case all three reasons are true. They evidently just like being there, and don't want to face reporters.
Where are the journalists? Why are they not moving together to insist on regular news conferences with no limiting of questions and no political consultants present. Well mostly I suspect, it is the corporate ownership of media and their control of the news departments. Look at how the corporate ABQ Journal lies in bed with everything rightwing. I can't remember a negative story on the Governor during her terms. I could be wrong.
5 comments:
Nothing has changed since the Deomcrats were in power. Susana inherited this mess which was created from years and years of inept and mainly Democratic leadership in this state. At least they are trying to shake things up.
Susana will blame Richardson. Berry will blame Marty. This is the no accountability that we have come to expect from these austerity folks. It's everyone else's fault, never theirs.
After six years they have accomplished absolutely nothing. Six years! A do nothing government hating Governor.
New Mexico's problems go back to the conquistadors. Har.
I encourage people to do a Google search using the terms "corporate control of the media". Depending on how you dice it, five, or six, corporations control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. GE, for example, owns NBC, Comcast, Universal Pictures and Focus Pictures. Time Warner owns CNN, HBO, Time and Warner Brothers. Rupert Murdoch owns a big hunk. Viacom, Disney and CBS own the rest.
Things tend toward monopolies under Capitalism. Always have, always will. It's built into it. It's the nature of Capitalism. Teddy Roosevelt the "trust buster" slowed things down for awhile. Changes in the economy, with new corporations rising and old ones falling, slowed the trend for some decades, but now we have banks monopolized, which is very significant, and the collective brain of the populace being monopolized.
If anyone can see a way of out this please let me know. I can't seem to get anyone interested in overthrowing Capitalism.
Didn't another Roosevelt make inroads into regulating capitalism for quite a while? We forget why the regulations were put in place, and undoing them causes crises.
After the Savings and Loan Crisis, hundreds of bankers went to prison. After the latest one, that didn't happen -- they just got richer and more powerful. And I don't think the regulations from the Glass-Steagall Act that Bill Clinton undid have been fully restored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legislation
Post a Comment