THE DALY SHOW

Conference On Global and Green Economy

I am emceeing a big event in Las Vegas November 17 and 18 at the Las Vegas Hilton.  Here’s a video to explain it all.  If you’re looking to jump start your business in this new economy and go green, this is the place to start.  You will also have a chance to network with companies from around the United States and around the world while also being a part of the International Congress of Business Professionals.  I was enticed by their strong educational programs that will train and re-train workers and executives in this new world.  I’ve written many times here that the economy went through a tectonic shift in the past two years.  Those who understand it and are educated to navigate the wreckage and the opportunities will thrive in the next few years.  I think this is one place to start.

Preparing For Economic Earthquake

Get Ready.  The ground is shifting.  In this post at JohnDalyLive, I have put together a piece that should be a guide for this new shift in our economic, political, and social landscape.  Please give me your thoughts.

Setting Record Straight on Jon Stewart, Cramer Flap

MLB TV Spells Trouble In Two Ways

This is a posting after watching the first few days of the new television network dedicated entirely to baseball. I’m scared for myself now and for viewers later. Expect a nasty legal fight in a few years.

LAS VEGAS, NV (January 2, 2009) – I’ve just spent part of the morning watching Don Larsen throw his perfect game in the 1956 World Series.  It’s on the new MLB TV.

My fear: My business will start to fail and I’m going to get fat. (OK, fatter!)

I then caught myself during commercials – the ones for Gillette razors with Birdie Tebbets in the 1950s and the ones today – searching to see when other shows are airing. I have to know when the discussion of off-season trades and free agent signings – otherwise known as the Hot Stove League – will be airing. I’m so screwed.

I live baseball and diligently follow the Red Sox. I have been a baseball nut since I was five. I remember parts of the 1961 Series. I also remember the dramatic end to the 1962 Series: a line-out by the Giants Willie McCovey to the Yankees Bobby Richardson. The pitcher was Ralph Terry with whom I’ve played golf in the past few years and have been able to talk to him about it. Think about it. I talked to him about something that he participated in and I remember from 46 years ago. And now I can relive it all over again.

MLB will be like a sedative for many of us dealing with the economic downturn. Watching the fuzzy black and white of the Yankees and Dodgers in 1956 was very settling. It brought us back to a time that was simpler. As Jackie Robinson strides to the plate, we tell ourselves that even the seeds of removing our racist past were evident back then. For many too, it will help remind us of what our parents and grandparents loved.

Fortunately, MLB TV only comes in on one TV in my house. And apparently you can’t watch it online – only on cable or satellite.

That means there may be Information Age problems in a few years.

Major League Baseball owns the majority (67%) of the network while cable and satellite owners have a minority (33%) stake. This agreement allows the network to get on the air in many homes.

However, what happens in a few years when people start getting their television programming from the Internet? Will the minority ownership allow MLB TV reach more people at a lower cost at their expense? You could see a major fissure in this agreement or you might see cable and satellite companies restricting who can get MLB TV.

Already the seeds of this conflict are appearing. Ion Network (formerly Pax) is battling the cable companies. Ion wants to create an Urban TV Network, but they want to launch it with local TV stations that now have four or five channels to program once the digital age of TV begins next month.

The cable companies won’t air the Urban TV Network on the local television tier without getting paid for it directly even though cable companies are required to carry local TV stations’ programs. Expect a good battle here and to spill over to other media outlets who want more audience with less cost.

The fallout for cable could be this. The cost of cable has risen – despite the fact I can’t get whatever NFL game I want. So, if people can go to their local TV stations or the Internet for programming similar to cable and it’s free, then cable is in trouble.

This shouldn’t bother us baseball addicts too much over the next few years, though. So enjoy it.  Just warn your spouse.

Rethinking Watergate, Deep Throat, and You

This is a posting explaining why you have to be engaged when watching TV and reading a newspaper – even when reading this column.  News is not a spectator sport.

LAS VEGAS, NV (December 26, 2008) – Stratfor this past week offered a revisionist – and well-thought out – history of Watergate and the effects on journalism.

Keep this in mind, when you are watching and reading news.

The examination was done in conjunction with the death of Mark Felt – aka Deep Throat. Stratfor didn’t revise any wrongdoings by President Nixon and his White House. But they questioned how the story was presented to the public and how that might have affected journalism decades later and today.

In short, the unveiling of Watergate was directed by an intelligence and law enforcement agency – the FBI. And the sole source, known by the journalists and the Washington Post, had an axe to grind; Felt was not chosen as the head of the FBI by Nixon. Felt then engaged in J. Edgar Hoover-like moves by spilling insider information on the executive branch of government.

By keeping Felt’s secret for so long, the public was denied full access to the motivations and biases of what could have been considered a rogue shadow government behind the leaking of the story.

Stratfor concludes there has been no real examination by news organizations of undisclosed sources over the years. As a result, Stratfor concludes:

What appears to be enterprising journalism is in fact a symbiotic relationship between journalists and government factions. It may be the best path journalists have for acquiring secrets, but it creates a very partial record of events — especially since the origin of a leak frequently is much more important to the public than the leak itself. Stratfor December 24, 2008.

Watergate and the success of Woodward and Bernstein launched many journalism careers: yours truly included. For three years in newspapers and four years in TV as an investigative reporter, I used my share of confidential sources to get stories. Corroborating those sources with other sources that went on the record was my main objective. Trust me, if I was going to be attacked physically, verbally, and legally, then I wanted to know I had the story stone cold.

No doubt it was exciting and rewarding work. I truly think I helped correct some wrongs. But it was also a heavy responsibility. You could be destroying people’s careers or futures. Knowing the motivation of the people in the shadows is paramount. But anyone who watched my reports would have to trust me. In today’s checkbook journalism world credibility is hard to sell.

The easy journalistic frauds to figure out are folks like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Neil Bortz all of whom continued to dredge up half-truth stories about Obama only days before the election while failing to offer other, most times more qualified, sources. We all know that the entertainers at night on Fox News Channel, talk radio, and MSNBC deliver stories with an angle – their angle. If you quote them as a source, then don’t be surprised if someone questions your fairness or accuracy.

That being said, it’s the major news organizations – like the Wall Street Journal (now owned by Fox), The New York Times, and the Washington Post – that you need to really question. Do these companies exist to deceive us? No. They’re reputable organizations. But they’re working in a non-scientific field; things change and they get stories wrong either innocently or through lazy reporting and editing.

These organizations should be scrutinized as much as they allegedly scrutinize our elected officials and business leaders. We should examine the news organizations and their sources motivations – and not just because they’re “liberal” or “conservative” which is the fall-back attack of extremists against news they don’t like.

Take the Blagojevich story. Has anyone really shown what crime he’s committed? Not yet. Does that mean he’s guilty? We don’t know. Should we question the motives of Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald? You bet. But we need time to see this through – for the sake of justice.

Remember: news reporting is just a one day snap shot in time. There’s the story about Einstein’s student telling him that Einstein had mistakenly given the same questions on a final exam from the year before. Einstein said he knew it. Even though the questions were the same, he explained to the student, the answers this year are different.

In addition, let me add that all news organizations are facing tough financial times. News staffs are being cut back here and around the world. Meanwhile, more journalists are being killed or arrested around the world. Though not as ominous, our new Administration is depending more on social networking sites to reach you. They could also be controlling the message, too.

What does this mean? It means you are the most important journalist in your life. You need to work when you watch and read the news. Let me help you.

If you want a copy of my book – for free – write to me at info@johndaly.tv and put “free book” in the subject line and I will email you a copy of the book.

More Media Changes: Anchors Away

This is a posting about the changing landscape of local TV news and why you won’t see me on an anchor desk again.

LAS VEGAS, NV (December 2, 2008) – People ask me why I won’t return to the local anchor desk.

I offer many personal reasons: local news has become less relevant; too much entertainment; too much blood and guts; local news offers little depth or context to issues; and local news is losing viewers to the Internet.

Personally, I have plenty of other projects with more financial upside — including some internet TV productions.

Those reasons are truthful and maybe a bit arrogant.

The truth is this, though. The local news anchor is a becoming extinct. Take a look at this recent New York Times article about stations dumping experienced news anchors due to budget and revenue problems.

In some respects, it’s sad. A number of news anchors have become neighbors to many viewers for years and sometimes decades. And yes, some anchors are merely readers who walk into the studio a few minutes before the newscast to get the script. But in many cases, anchors who have been with their stations for years are valued journalists who know the issues and especially the context and relevance of stories.

I think, overall, audiences will be cheated for a while. Granted, new journalists will eventually fill the gap. But there will be stories that lack that deeper knowledge.

In the long run, the news anchor – and for that matter all reporters – will be forced to be more things for less money. Having a news anchor who just reads is not economically feasible for a news organization. That anchor must be able to do other tasks: editing, assignment desk; maybe even shoot his or her story with a camera. On top of that, the new journalists will have to write their stories for the station’s webpage, thus becoming a broadcast as well as a print journalist.

In many respects, the public is becoming the news anchors of today. The news consumer can decide how to deliver the news – to themselves — by using the Internet much quicker and more efficiently.

Because of this, the successful news anchors that remain will be the ones who can draw a large audience – and the draw will be how, unfortunately, entertaining they are.

It all goes back to this: the most important journalist in your life is you.

Media Changes Evident: Mumbai Attacks

This is a posting about the news coverage during the Mumbai attacks. And it has nothing to do with the reporters from TV networks and newspapers.

LAS VEGAS, NV (December 2, 2008) – Like we saw during the Asian tsunami in 2004, the journalists with the best eye witness accounts of the Mumbai attacks weren’t the traditional journalists.

The citizen journalist gained even more importance in another catastrophic event. This piece in the New York Times explains how many people used Twitter to keep others informed.

The attacks in India served as another case study in how technology is transforming people into potential reporters, adding a new dimension to the news media.

In fact, The Times reports that many citizen journalists had an advantage in India.

Citizen journalists avoided some of the bureaucratic headaches faced by media organizations. At the end of the day on Friday, CNN’s license to transmit live video in India expired, forcing the network’s correspondents to report via telephone. CNN and other channels in the United States relied on live coverage and taped reports from Indian networks.

The trend of the citizen journalist will only grow. This is good if the citizen journalist is acting primarily as a recorder of events – not an interpreter.

For catastrophic events like the Mumbai attacks, the citizen journalist makes news more interesting and more enlightening. As I mentioned in my book, the person on the scene can record what is happening even before a trained network correspondent can hop on a flight. This way we news consumers get unvarnished, raw video that – for the most part – imparts the truth or reality of the situation.

However, my fear is the citizen journalist who lacks true news credentials on how to interpret events properly. Or you may have the demagogue who wishes to take advantage of a news event. That’s why it’s important that citizen journalists are trained in journalistic methods and ethics.

TV Review: John Adams and Politics Today

LAS VEGAS, NV (May 26, 2008) – I finally saw the HBO mini-series John Adams. It’s fabulous. Rent it or record it. Better yet, read the book by David McCullough.

I’m fortunate to have done both. As usual, the book is better. John Adams is at the top with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s work on Lincoln called Team of Rivals.

Thanks to David McCullough I lived with John Adams in my head for two weeks after finishing the book. That’s how good it was. More importantly, McCullough’s prose offers perspective of why John Adams, though not the marquee name like Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, was so critical to our nation. A TV production has a hard time doing that, although the Broadway musical 1776 correctly portrays Adams as the main character.

However, none of this media comparison can degrade the HBO version one bit.

The direction, cinematography, along with performances by Paul Giamatti (Adams), Laura Linney (Abigail Adams), David Morse (George Washington), and Tom Wilkinson (Ben Franklin), will all get a fair share of awards for this TV season.

As usual, I looked to see if the HBO production took creative license. Were there hidden comments on today’s politics? Certainly, there were lessons for today, but there was nothing partisan. The political innuendo, if any, seemed to target both Democrats and Republicans.

Clearly, any viewer would think of the border-fence conservatives as President Adams and Vice President Jefferson argued about a law that would ban all French from the U.S. in 1800 at a time when France was hinting at going to war with us. Adams weighed the security reasons while Jefferson said such a law would be impossible to carry out while violating the Constitution and every principle fought for in the American Revolution.

As this crisis waned, you couldn’t help but think there was a message for the current White House occupant. Eventually, France, and their new Emperor, wanted a peace treaty with the U.S. which Adams wisely allowed to happen by refusing to saber-rattle or build-up troops. Clearly, the message was this: hold out for peace.

Peace was at hand for Adams and our fledgling country. But the word of the treaty and the news that there would be no war came too late for Adams: he lost re-election. Yet, the attitude of Adams was that peace was more important. Here is a swipe at all politicians who manufacture scorched-earth campaigns to win at all costs.

And there was a message for Obama and Clinton: no matter how much you fight or how dirty you fight, you can end up respected friends. Adams learns that his presidency was undermined by Jefferson who paid Adams’ critics to write about Adams. Still, Adams and Jefferson ended their feud by corresponding at great length in their old age.

If you haven’t seen it, then hold off and break it out during the Fourth of July.  It will help remind you what this country should be.

Good Economic Sense That Should Hit Campaigns

This is a posting about some pearls of wisdom from a smart friend who reads and another who has been to China.

LAS VEGAS, NV (May 4, 2008) – In my book, I talk about mind filters when you consume news and information. These filters are solid ideas. When correctly embedded into your thinking, they will parcel out the garbage from the campaigns.

This was written in this week’s Kiplinger Washington Letter.

That’s why blaming trade pacts for lost jobs misses the mark. Closing trade paths won’t help. Opening routes to training will.

Special thanks to Aundrea Beach-Greco for sending this to me.

Granted, I’ve been saying this for years. Knight Kiplinger said it more gracefully and efficiently. But this is information grounded in economic fact. The more economic barriers we raise, the more layoffs and higher prices we suffer.

The only candidate who even mentioned job re-training was John McCain. But that was in Michigan where Romney beat him.

Folks, it’s all about education. I don’t mean just our kids. It’s about re-training adults for the new jobs of the new century. That’s why I launched Real Money Show to help people start online businesses. That’s why I’m also an officer for one of the top wealth management companies.

Anyone who tells you those manufacturing jobs are coming back is lying to you. I just spoke recently to Gary Murphy of Arisa Global, an outsourcing company with contacts in Asia. Gary tells me that the next China is either Vietnam or Taiwan. Notice, it’s not the United States.

Without education and re-training, the rest of the world is going to keep growing financially – without us. The Twentieth Century is gone. Sure, the American consumer has fueled the worldwide economy. And yes, the downturn is caused by our lack of spending. But in the future, the world economy won’t necessarily need us. All those other emerging market countries will have money to spend in years to come – because they have jobs and we have debt.

Check out the companies that have seen recent stock gains. They all have exposure to foreign markets.

The bottom line is this. We’ve become lazy. Maybe this isn’t germane, but I seem to notice more fat teens than before. I don’t necessarily mean the morbidly obese youngsters. No, I see kids with middle aged paunches, love handles, and cellulite.

That tells me how unhealthy we are physically and mentally. And if one of our presidential candidates doesn’t start telling the truth, we could be in for a quick fall.

By the way, John McCain might have scored economic points for mentioning re-training in Michigan. But he, along with Hillary Clinton, fell on the economic smarts scale when they both called for a gas tax holiday. Again, a lazy idea. Give us something small now – a tax break – that we’ll have to pay for later – more money to re-build crumbling roads and bridges.

A Defecating Dog, Political Candidates, and The Media

This is a posting about the week which saw a controversial debate, a not-so surprising investigation into the media being duped by the Pentagon, a defiant doggy act – and what you can do about two out of three.

LAS VEGAS (April 20, 2008) — Our puppy Nike was obviously angry. My wife and I were gone for five hours at a charity event. He was left in the portable kennel for five hours. When we returned, he went outside to pee. But then he ran upstairs and pooped in the bedroom; not in one area, but three different spots.

He’s a smart dog. He got his point across. But he also understood our anger. He hung his head and stayed stationary in a “time out” position. Hours later, he remained a model of good behavior.

We need to do the same – show our anger — with our elected officials and the media. But we also need to realize they are like pets: they have their own specific agenda and they’re not really aware of what’s going on with us. Too often we’re apathetic owners of this country we claim to so dearly love.

Let’s look at the Democratic debate last week. First, understand it was a TV debate. That means it needs to be entertaining and lack substance. So, I don’t have any problems with the questions to Barack Obama about what he said about angry people clinging to guns. I have no problem with people criticizing him for his less than stellar responses. I have no problems with him being asked about the stupid questions about whether his psycho pastor loves America or why he doesn’t wear a lapel pin.

My problem is that the debate was lopsided against Obama just as I thought some of the earlier debates were lopsided against Hillary Clinton. Why wasn’t Hillary grilled on her now former operative Mark Penn and his connections to a Colombian trade deal?

I’m a big fan of Charlie Gibson. So, I was disappointed in his performance as an entertainer more than a journalist that night. I doubt we would have seen that performance from the late Peter Jennings. George Stephanopoulos’ performance doesn’t surprise me. He’s not a journalist; he’s a political operative. We know this and he once worked for Bill Clinton’s White House.

(For the record, I have met and spent time with both Gibson and Jennings. I have never met Stephanopoulos.)

Here’s the point. Watch these debates for entertainment only. Don’t let these silly versions of reality game shows help you decide who to vote for.

As I write in my book, television is good for two things: immediacy and emotion. Depth of issues is something you get from books and websites using experts.

Like lax pet owners, we seem to forget the mounds of crap shoveled to us by George Bush that made us vote for him in 2000. We elected an intellectual lightweight who we thought he’d be a good guy to have at a backyard barbeque. We’re not deciding who our neighbors are. We’re electing a commander in chief who will have the fate of our jobs and our lives in his or her hands.

You need to reprimand both the candidates and the networks for their behavior. Did we really get any answers to Social Security, Medicare, the War in Iraq, immigration, energy independence from this debate? No. Frankly, any debate between Barack and Hillary is a waste. They agree on most issues, so it comes down to an ugly popularity contest.

Now let’s look at the New York Times investigation of the TV networks use of military experts who are controlled by the Pentagon and the Bush Administration.

My take: any general or military expert who helped push the WMD argument to get us into war should be banned from appearing on network TV. We’re fining networks for showing some skin on TV. So why wouldn’t you push a worse punishment for smart people who knowingly deceived the American public about going to war that has led to the deaths of four thousand troops? Frankly, I would prosecute them.

Many of these retired generals had jobs with defense contractors. They clearly put their own economic principles ahead of their duty to the United States people.

Again, I have no problems with their opinions. My anger is two-fold. One, they never disclosed that they were getting their talking points from the Pentagon. Two, they never disclosed they were working for defense contractors bidding on government contracts.

And the networks are as much to blame. They never vetted these so-called experts. Why? It’s to easy not to do that. That takes time and money. And if they found someone who’s an independent thinker, then that person won’t have access to the White House.

Again, TV is not an information medium. It’s an entertainment medium. Its main goal is to get ratings and if being a propaganda tool brings in ratings and dollars, the media will do it.

Watch CNBC. They no longer disclose what conflicts the guest analysts have with certain stocks they’re discussing. They were quite vigilant a few years ago after the Enron and Martha Stewart scandals. But not now.

And if CNBC was that worried about the truth why wouldn’t they have fired Jim Kramer of Mad Money. Two days before the collapse of Bear Stearns he yelled that Bear Stearns is fine. Kramer’s not on for his stock picking; he’s on for ratings. He’s an entertainer. Would you pick stocks or set up your portfolio based on that show? I hope not. (Some disclosure: I work for BNY Mellon Wealth Management. See how simple disclosure is.)

The same is true about the political debates. Why would you decide who to vote for based on this artificial, lack of substance debates on TV?

This is why you need to be the most important journalist in your life. You need to question everything you hear on TV news. Everyone has an agenda. That’s not to say there isn’t good information, but you need to be less accepting of its total veracity. And you need to realize that networks are cutting corners, so you’re not necessarily getting the best trained and most experienced journalists.

Again, please read my book. (Blatant disclosure: Yes, I’m trying to sell my book.) If not, then the media and the politicians will continue pooping on your bedroom floor.