Clear, Concise, Complete

The secret of good writing is not in knowing what to put in, but in knowing what to leave out.

   The three C's of good writing are these: Clear, Concise and Complete, and the goal of writing is to communicate an idea, a message or information to others or to preserve it for posterity.
   If readers don't grasp or understand what you write, you have failed to reach your goal.
   Writing for broadcast news is harder, because you have only one chance to communicate your idea or message. In print, if readers fail to grasp the message immediately, they can go back to the beginning of the sentence or paragraph and read it again, several times if need be, until they fully understand.
   Don't make them do that, because they may decide it's not worth the effort. Therefore you, the writer, have failed in your mission.
   Broadcast writing does not have the luxury of a second read.
   Here, then, is where the Three C's of good writing form a useful guideline. It is often a challenge to be concise and complete even as your message must be clear.
   But the secret is not in knowing what to put in, but in knowing what to leave out.
   Ask any headline writer, whose job it is to convey in six or ten words the essence of a story that may go to a thousand words when all the details and supporting information is included.

Finger Pointing

Don't Fix Blame, Fix the Problem

   The continuing conflict between the president and the press now is over who's to blame for the miscue of naming former Gen. Mike Flynn to a Cabinet post, only to see him resign after just a few weeks on the job.
   Whenever something doesn't go his way, the new guy in the Whine House blames someone else, adding an attack on the news media for good measure, just to please his adoring supporters.
   This time, he blames his predecessor, Barack Obama, for not properly vetting Flynn before giving him security clearance. But after all the earlier attacks on Obama for everything that's a problem in America, the new guy tries a copout for his own failure by blaming his predecessor.
   Question: If everything Obama did was so bad, why accept the Flynn security clearance without doing your own?
   Over the weekend, President Donald Trump went on the campaign trail, to a rally in Harrisburg PA where he again trashed the news media. In doing so, he deliberately avoided the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association, traditionally attended by sitting presidents and marked by comedy take-downs of politicians and journalists alike.
   The last time Trump attended, however, he clearly could not take the heat, so it was no surprise that he avoided this year's event.
   That didn't stop him from setting up his own event at a competing time where he was the dominant speaker and could attack his critics and bask in the adulation of his supporters.
   Tough talk, however, may win a brief encounter, even at a long distance, but constant insult plants a seed of resentment that grows to subtle retaliation. And unlike the current president, journalists have thick skins and are used to disagreement and criticism. Even so, reporters remain human, and constant attack eventually gets under the thickest skin. And at some level, no matter hard they try to remain neutral and objective, there are ways to get back at those who diminish their value as people, as citizens, and as professionals who have an important job to do.
   This retaliation may be subconscious or it may be deliberate. Either way, it can happen as journalists pursue their duty of speaking truth to power.
   To paraphrase what Jeff Mason of Reuters, president of the association, said at Saturday night's dinner, reporters are not going away.
   "It is our job to report on facts and to hold leaders accountable," Mason said. "We are not the enemy of the American people."
   "Speak softly but carry a big stick," advised Theodore Roosevelt. Some, however, speak loudly to overcome the reality of their own small stick.

Ponderosity

If you sound like you know what you're talking about, people will assume you do. -- Pug Mahoney

   Garbled sentence structure betrays a lack of thought and knowledge. No matter how vivid the image of confidence and competence may be, it is easily shattered by verbal stumbling.
   And no matter how brilliant the presentation, listeners quickly realize that ponderosity does not evoke visions of the Cartwright family ranch, nor will it bring a bonanza of political support.
   In fact, incomplete sentences imply incomplete thought and incomplete knowledge, and a rambling presentation tells the audience that the speaker doesn't really know what he's talking about and is trying to cover his ignorance with bluster.
   If all this sounds like it would apply to people generally and politicians in particular, you'd be right. And if it brings to mind one individual who is more flagrant in his lack of organized thought, sentence structure, grammar, presentation and inconsistent ideas that contradict each other daily, suggesting that not only does he not know what he's talking about generally but emphasizes easily disproven falsehoods as if they were or should be common knowledge, you'd be right again.
   And therein lies the danger, because many listeners mistake confidence for competence. A master salesman can project confidence with extensive use of meaningless superlatives and "truthful hyperbole" aimed at overcoming caution and enhancing believability.
   Once the seed of believability is planted, it can be nurtured by attacking those who present contrary evidence as fake, and emphasizing the need to accept "alternative facts," as if his facts are more believable than those offered by competitors or by that most unreliable of all sources of information, the news media.
   So as Chico Marx wisely put it, "Who you gonna believe, me or your eyes?"

Slowdown

If it's good news, politicians claim credit. If not, they blame a predecessor.

   Economic growth faded to an annualized rate of just 0.7 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to a first estimate by the Commerce Department. The fourth quarter of 2016 posted a rate of 2.1 percent.
   Expect the Whine House to proclaim this as proof that the economy is a mess, and that "only I can fix it" to "make America great again."
   Reality check: The slowdown is happening on your watch, and the evidence was posted just as you mark the first hundred days of your presidency.
   Recent years saw steady -- albeit slow -- growth and recovery from the Great Recession.
   So now a slowdown is the other guy's fault?

Who's He Kidding?

   On instructions from the president, the Commerce Department will investigate the dangers of aluminum imports to U.S. national security and military preparedness.
   "Today is an historic step in our efforts to restore America's depleted manufacturing and defense industrial base," according to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
   He noted that "eight U.S. based smelters have either closed or curbed production since 2015," and there is "only one North American smelter capable of producing high purity aluminum needed for national security applications."
   However, there is only one major U.S. company producing aluminum -- Alcoa -- and it is doing quite well, thank you. The company reported first quarter earnings of $225 million on revenue of $2.75 billion. But it has four smelters in the U.S. So where is the North American smelter that Ross deems so important to U.S. national security -- Canada?
   Moreover, the source material for aluminum is bauxite, most of which is found in Australia, which produces 81,000 metric tons of the ore annually. Second is China, with annual production of 47,000 tons, but increased world demand has meant China is importing bauxite.
   Alcoa's biggest competitor is Kaiser Aluminum Corp., based in California, which reported first quarter net income of $36 million, on revenue of $355 million.
   Kaiser said it has been focusing on high quality aluminum products for aerospace, automotive, and engineering markets.
   So if there are only two major aluminum manufacturers in America, both doing well, why does it take a federal investigation to protect these two major American corporations from foreign competition?
   Unless the foil maker of Reynolds Wrap wants protection, but that company focuses on the consumer market, not military aircraft parts.
   The only other possibility that comes to mind is a payoff by the business-friendly administration for corporate support during the election season.

Laffer Curve Ball

It's baaa-aack!

   Remember supply side economics, the idea that if you make it, they will buy?
   Remember the Laffer Curve, the principle set forth by economist Arthur Laffer that if you cut taxes, producers will reinvest the money and make so much more stuff that prices will come down, people will buy more and the economy will surge?
   Remember the label "voodoo economics," put on the plan by the elder George Bush back in the Reagan era?
   
   It's back, now resurrected by the zombie in chief and his minions, who insist that the tax reform plan outlined Wednesday will bring prosperity to everyone and push national output (GDP) easily above a 3 percent growth rate, as promised by the candidate during the campaign, and perhaps even double that rate.
   One of the big advantages cited at the announcement was that under this "massive" tax cut proposal, families with an annual income of $24,000 a year or less will pay no income tax.
   Big deal. That's true now, and for a family of four, that's barely above the poverty level.
   
   As for a surge in the growth rate of Gross Domestic Product  to more than 3 percent, that's dangerous and unsustainable. The U.S. is already a mature economy, and a higher growth rate will only lead to labor shortages, inflation and eventual recession, if not collapse.
   Yes, it's true that some nations -- China, for example -- are currently enjoying a growth rate of as much as 7 percent, but considering where its economy was, that's understandable. There was plenty of room to grow as the nation moved from a largely agricultural, if not medieval, status, to a modern industrial economy.
   The U.S. and other advanced economies had already gone through that process, so expansion must be tempered with caution.
   And that's where the Federal Reserve comes in.
   The American economy has been recovering from the Great Recession for several years, and the Fed has been monitoring its progress with an eye to tapping the inflation brakes to prevent a too-rapid expansion.
  But the nation may well face a conflict between a central bank that cherishes its independence and an administration that wants to bring the Fed under its control as it pushes for lower taxes, less regulation and surging economic growth.
   As for supply side economics, so warmly embraced by conservatives and corporate mavens and encapsulated by the slogan "If you make it, they will buy," remember this: Without jobs and adequate wages, "they" won't be able to buy anything, no matter how much is produced.
   Better to focus on demand side economics.
    The Laffer Curve Ball misses the strike zone, since it assumes supply side beneficiaries will use the money to expand production and reduce prices. More likely, they will stash the money in corporate bank accounts, boost investor dividends, increase executive bonuses, and buy back stock to "increase shareholder value."
   As the railroad executive William Henry Vanderbilt said many years ago, "The public be damned, I'm working for my stockholders."

The News Noose Tightens

Back fence gossip goes viral, and computers never forget

   Words matter, and often come back to haunt.
   In this day of ubiquitous recording devices, both pocket size and professional video units can preserve everything someone says or does for the world to see.
   This applies not only to politicians and other celebrities in the public eye, but also to police, flight attendants, and anyone else in the middle of any incident that attracts the attention of bystanders.
   Except that bystanders in this digital age no longer simply stand by and watch. They take out their devices and record the fuss.
   Next, they transmit the cellphone video to their Facebook page and to their local TV station, which passes it on to a news network, and within minutes, the whole world is watching.
   Soon, public outrage dominates the news cycle, embarrassing the perpetrators of what is perceived as mistreatment, and reaction sets in.
   Result: Employees are fired, police officers are suspended, corporate executives resign, and politicians demand new laws to deal with what not long ago would have been forgotten within hours or passed off as gossip.
   But the truth is no longer out there somewhere in a netherworld of unprovable speculation, but glares at viewers from computer and television screens worldwide.
   No longer can politicians claim they were misquoted, or their comments were "taken out of context," insisting that "what I really meant was ... " 
   The response from broadcast journalists now is this: "Roll the video. This is what you said and how you said it. If you meant something else, you should have said something else."
   Print journalists have the same documentary evidence to back up their coverage, and can post it on their newspaper's Internet page, with referrals to the more extensive story in the print edition.
   Many corporate types are so used to getting their own way, demanding that underlings do as they're told or lose their jobs, that when the business types go into politics they forget -- if they ever knew -- that journalists, especially the independent investigative reporter types, are not on the candidate's payroll.
   Indeed, some never learn that the quickest way to get a story in the paper is to try to keep it out.
   Moreover, the bullying chant of "fake news" sets up an answering chorus of "show me the evidence."
   Of the famous five W's of journalism -- Who, What, Where, When and Why -- the most important is the last one: Why.
   And to the charge of "fake news," the questions become, Why is it fake? Who says it's fake? What's fake about it? When did it become fake? Where is the evidence to prove its fakeness?

   Until the allegations can be supported by evidence, the burden of proof is on the allegators.