And They Wonder Why “Traditional” Media Is Dying?

The industry of professional journalism took several significant hits in 2009, but I think the episode that deserves the most criticism is the one that occurred in October, when the media got a fair share of mud in its eye following a fake press conference orchestrated by a social activist group posing as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

On the morning of October 19, a short press release went out to dozens of journalists declaring that the Chamber would be holding a press conference to announce a sudden about-face concerning its position on climate change legislation it had previously opposed. It apparently went unnoticed by reporters that the Chamber president’s name was misspelled on the release, but let’s not trifle with the details just yet.

Shortly after receiving the release, about a dozen journalists representing several prominent news organizations gathered on the 13th floor of the National  Press Club (um, yeah) in Washington, D.C. to hear the “news.”

During the press conference, which lasted all of 20 minutes, a supposed Chamber spokesperson (who went by the name Hingo Sembra) told reporters that the organization had changed its mind. The bill, he said, was good for American businesses. The legislation, he said, might not be so bad after all.

And the media gobbled it up. Fast.

In less time than it takes to download an album from iTunes, several major news organizations, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Reuter’s, rushed to post stories of the press conference on their respective Web sites. In its news story, Reuter’s declared, “The Chamber of Commerce said on Monday it will no longer opposes climate change legislation, but wants the bill to include a carbon tax.” A CNBC anchor, who actually sought—and found—comment from analysts, interrupted herself mid-sentence to announce “breaking news,” cutting away to a reporter who read from the fake press release. Apparently he too missed the spelling error.

When it was revealed shortly thereafter that the affair had been nothing more than a hoax orchestrated by the cultural activist group The Yes Men, these stories were immediately retracted; but it was too little too late. The damage to journalism had already been done. And while major media outlets were not The Yes Men’s primary targets here, it’s is clear that they are the ones who should feel the most humiliated by the experience.

The misspelling of Chamber president Thomas J. Donohue’s name on the press release not withstanding, the announcement of this press conference’s intentions should have been a red enough flag to raise a healthy dose of suspicion amongst seasoned reporters, many of whom had been covering the Chamber for several years prior to the morning’s proceedings. And had these journalists been doing their jobs properly, a single confirmation phone call to the Chamber could have prevented the entire mess from unfolding. But phone calls take time—sometimes several minutes—and well, reporters really can’t be bothered with such prosaic tasks these days. After all, who would manage their Twitter accounts in the meantime?

To be sure, an episode like the Yes Men hoax debacle is not the only harbinger of journalism’s waning pulse, but it is certainly a significant part of the problem. Cable news networks and print publications have become so obsessed with the flash and pizzazz (“Look mom, no sources!”) of Internet and 24-hour insta-reporting that they are apparently willing to throw out the most basic tenants of responsible journalism in exchange for breaking news on a second-by-second basis. Had these journalists been doing their jobs properly a single confirmation call to the Chamber could have prevented the entire mess from unfolding. But phone calls take time, and reporters really can’t be burdened with such prosaic tasks these days. After all, who would manage their Twitter accounts in the meantime?

Today’s reporters and media consumers have neglected to stop and consider whether faster news equals better news, and this episode should serve as a warning that not every task is improved upon with a speedier delivery. There is a reason so-called “traditional” media once took so long to deliver: Some news is supposed to be slow. There is virtue and necessity in its meditative, cautious progression; but when immediacy—not accuracy—becomes the primary motivation in the dissemination of information, we all suffer.

Sure, when it comes to getting a pizza at your doorstep, the sooner the better. But with journalism, speed kills.

For further study, check out this brilliant indictment of CNN from John Stewart late last year. As always, it’s hilarious and poignant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFdU0JC5NEg

A Miniature City Ablaze (or The Summer Of My Meaning)

I suppose if I am to swim in the North American cultural current of the week and subscribe to the notion that seasons end—and I don’t know that they really do, any more than the color green or red or yellow “ends” on a color wheel—then I must say the conclusion of my summer this weekend could not have been more fitting. After driving nearly four hours northward from our Friday night revelry spot in Asbury Park, NJ, the lovely Ms. Cydnee and I spent three carefree days in Simsbury, Connecticut with friends (old to her, new to me), campfires, and hikes through waterfall glens of the most mossy persuasion. It was life-affirming and blithe in all the ways a weekend away should be.

But this post is not about the long weekend or the close of seasons or the fact that I learned how to light a Zippo off my thigh in one (very cool) singular motion. It’s about the meaning of life. Kinda.

Late in the evening during my last night in Connecticut, I found myself in the middle of a conversation concerning a topic that has perpetually served as one of “Nick DiUlio’s Great Life Themes” throughout the years. With the embers of the dwindling camp fire glowing and hissing like a miniature Tim Burton city aflame, myself and two others began musing on the need for meaning in human existence. Heavy, I know, but bear with me.

I think it all began—as most great conversations do—with the topic of falling in love. The beautiful and frightening surrender to another person and all of the emotional vagaries that ensue. This, of course, led to the nature of empathy and wavelengths and wether or not it is ever possible to truly understand another individual’s precise emotions at any given moment. One of my friends said she believed this was certainly possible. That every so often we find ourselves impossibly locked into the emotional (or, perhaps, spiritual) core of another’s experience and that in that moment we can see quite clearly everything moving through that person’s heart and mind. My other friend said she did not believe this was possible, that what we take for empathy or emotional oneness (please forgive the esoteric verbiage here) is really nothing more than a biological synthesis of neurons firing together at a precise moment in time. An accident of emotional coincidence. An illusion of meaning.

To be sure, this post is not designed to make a case for one world view over another. Entire books have been written on the topic, so I petition you to seek out the further wisdom of such tomes. But I was struck by a particular moment in the conversation when my “biological” friend said she believed human beings were, for lack of a more eloquent and precise term, a stain on the Earth, and that existence—whatever that is—would be better off without us.

I do believe I can say with more than a modicum of conviction that this is not true (even though the word truth seems to be smacking me in the face right now with its puckish subjectivity). Even on a purely biological level, human beings—as a species—are in no way separate from the broader order of the universe’s chemical makeup, no matter how accidental or intentional one sees that assembly. So to say that we are any more or less important to the greater “purpose” (WAH-WAH! subjectivity alert!) of existence doesn’t seem terribly logical, no more than it would be logical to claim that bees are an anathema because they sting, or elephants are a bane because they trample.

But again, I am not here to light the flames of this particular piece of philosophical tinder. I leave that up to you and your own fireside chats. I’m here because that conversation (which was wonderfully stimulating and endlessly enjoyable) brought into an even clearer perspective the impossible beauty and privilege I feel almost every day in being alive. Corny as it may be, I really dig this life, and as this summer (one of the most enriching and lovely I can recall) “ends”, I am filled with thoughts such as these.

To cap it off I’d like to share a short film Cydnee brought to my attention last week. La Maison en Petits Cubes by Kunio Kato won last year’s animated short film prize at the Academy Awards, and it left an indelible mark on my heart. Here’s hoping it may do the same for you.

Review: “Topography of a Bird”

“Three things are necessary,” wrote Thomas Aquinas, “for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.” It could be said that Topography of a Bird, the charming full-length debut from singer-songwriter Mark Rice, is an exploration of that path to enlightenment. Full of transcendental petitions for love, comfort, and understanding, Topography is a record that explores some complicated queries through some improbably uncomplicated folk melodies and introspective lyrics; the meditations of a journeyman concerned less with the answers than he is with the questions at hand.

Topography of a Bird is the stuff of Sunday night introspection; of those solitary moments that descend after the church lights have dimmed, the monks have retired for the evening, and the rest of the congregants have gone home. In those instances, alone and unhinged against the backdrop of forever, one rarely thinks in nuanced poetry or grand declarations. Instead, he thinks (prays, meditates) on the perpetually dawning sweep of his life in the broader scope, and Rice seems to understand this quite well, whittling his search down to its most primary parts. How have I failed? How have I succeeded? What do I desire? What do I despise? Who am I now and what do I eventually wish to become? That his music appeals to these (quote-unquote) big life questions without proselytization or solipsistic trifling is a laudable feat, and it’s what males Topography at once so enjoyable and also so severe.

Belief, desire, and action. Rice raises the curtain on these concerns from the outset with the album’s whispered opening track, “Show Me How To Love,” a lyrically and sonically understated entree that begins with the chirping rhythm of nighttime crickets before the first strum of guitars. As the song builds Rice returns to one simple refrain over and over again: “Show me how to love/ Show me how to love/ When the stars are so bright…so bright.” It’s a soft meditation that sets the table for the album’s ensuing 13 tracks.

To be sure, Rice’s brush strokes are broad, even at times a little vague, as he peppers Topography with supplicant titles like “Hold Me Now,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” and “Save Me Tonight.” But this strain of indeterminate invocation—to a woman? to a friend? to God?—is the record’s greatest strength. It’s what binds the album as an honest and accessible work. And even when he sometimes dances on the edge of sentimentality Rice never gives in, always managing to avoid preciousness with an easy turn of phrase. His songs—along with all of their potential vagaries—are both intensely personal (see the wonderfully haunting “Ohio”) and yet universally appealing to a hunger for understanding what it means to be frail and broken and human.

In “Hold Me Now,” Rice is “at the crossroads/ Looking for the ancient way, the good way.” In “Don’t Let Me Down”—a road-ready, drive-time ditty—he beckons, “Don’t let the day get away/ Until I make amends.” And in “Maybe This Time,” one of Topography’s standout tracks: “I’m messed up and broken/ And I can’t see past my pride.” The cynics may confuse these for the lamentations of an old-world Pollyanna, the cries a man who still believes that perhaps salvation is simpler than we think. But where Rice’s silence and simplicity leave off, the vibrancy of the album’s musicality picks up.

Topography’s edge of enlightenment owes much to the production of David Young, a vintage stylist with some serious pop-rock predilections that harken back less to Dylanesque balladeers than to The Beach Boys or Weezer. Pulling from that tradition, Young allows Rice’s otherwise simple, coffee-shop melodies to blossom and grow into their fuller organic potential. Consider “Tuscan Sun,” a bittersweet number that, in the hands of a lesser reggisseur, might suffer under the weight of its own importance. But Young—who sings backup and also plays several studio instruments on the record, including some impressive lead guitar and harmonica—transforms the track into something wholly anthemic. You can almost see the lighters being raised in unison as a grand, harmonic chorus swells in the final minute, begging “Don’t let the sun go down now/ All my life I’ve waited now I/ Know your eyes, your life, your smile with mine.” It’s a sublime moment.

The same could be said of “Be With you Tonight.” What begins as an unadorned bedroom ballad—a little bit Elliot Smith, a little bit Ray Lamontagne—slowly builds into another one of Topography’s unexpected anthems, swelling with pianos, thudding percussion, and electric guitars. Just when it seems Rice’s spirit is beyond saving, his music finds redemption yet again. Torture, death, rebirth. Let the rain fall down.

Rice also gets a lot of help from a respectable swath of studio musicians here, including the venerable Verien Brotzman on percussion, Tom Swope on bass, and Sissy Clemens on violin and vocals (more about her in a moment). But Topography’s background players do more than add layers to the music; they lend the album a casual air of good nature and inviting humor. Despite their gravity, Rice’s tunes are not depressive. In fact they are remarkably optimistic, and this chorus of musicians at his back only serve to drive home that point.

Only once on the album does Rice take a backseat to his fellow musicians, and the moment is one of Topography’s greatest triumphs. On “Starting Ground” Clemens takes the reigns and delivers a beautiful slice of smoky sensuality and sadness that thoroughly bely her mere 20 years. “Starting Ground” is a Clemens original and the only non-Rice tune on the record. Delivered at the album’s half-way mark, this late-night, bar-room piano ballad (I am painfully resisting the all-to-obvious Billie Holiday comparison here), which concerns itself with the simple sorrow of deception, takes the pathos to an entirely new level while never feeling out of place within the context of Topography’s greater aesthetic.

Rice has said the Topography’s title is derived from a quote he once heard about the ways in which thoughts are like birds. “We can’t stop them from flying over our heads,” it goes. “But we can keep them from making a nest in our hair.” What Rice has done is craft an album that is rich with flight and absent of any nests. It’s a patient album for a throughly impatient time, and at every turn it feels as though silent salvation is at hand.

BONUS TRACK: Check out the following clip of Rice performing “Ohio” last month in Pittsburgh during his record release concert.