Chopping Up Truth In Media Since 2009
Thanks Shakespeare, you gave the proper weight to what President Trump has done to his country.
High treason is not a joke!
Not something to be ignored because some will get tax cuts.
We sugar coat it.
Who cares if someone running for office undermines our democracy?
Who cares – as long as he secures our borders and keeps Mexicans out?
No.
Please watch:
2019 is going to be my “Year of Blogging Dangerously” – because America is in a bad place right now.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Salacious title, yes. But it’s really important.
A journalist from the Washington Post was trying to get a fucking piece of paper needed for his wedding and what did he get instead? He was tortured, murdered and chopped into pieces.
The Saudi government did not lie when they said he left the Turkish Embassy moments after arriving. He did leave moments later.
But he left in several suitcases – an arm here, a leg there – totally dismembered and without the wedding paper he was hoping to get.
The pieces of his body are now in Saudi Arabia and President Trump’s threat of “severe punishment” is a complete joke.
Much like the Brett Kavanaugh “investigation,” this Saudi murder “investigation” will not be carried out. The statement is already written that says “no conclusive proof” and “business will go on as usual.”
Case closed.
Sad fucking times.
God bless Jamal Khashoggi!
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
This video is absolutely the reason Donald Trump used every dirty trick (including conspiring with a foreign government) to win the 2016 Election.
Those three minutes from the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner is the real reason Donald Trump leveraged his relationship with Russia to bring down his opponent, is destroying Democracy as we know it and is trying to undo EVERYTHING Barack Obama accomplished as President.
That is the face of someone who will do anything to get back at another person. This man, with the temperament of a five year old, is ruining our country because of a grudge.
Sad.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
I’m back. Thank God.
I didn’t blog most of the past year because I was writing a book that I got actual money for (just so you know, blogs don’t really pay) and because I just didn’t have an angle. Not sure I do now but I have to get back at it. It’s a discipline and I need to retrain those muscles.
So… I’m back.
But I’m back in a time when the American media is stuck. Absolutely stuck in the mud with no mule or Ford F-150 to pull us out.
To paraphrase the great film “All The President’s Men” – We haven’t got it.
Just not enough to bring President Trump down.
Don’t get me wrong – of course there is overwhelming evidence to bring down President Trump. Just not enough that sixty percent of Americas will get behind.
We are living in a country that elected a President ONLY because he said he would keep Mexicans out. REPEAT – ONLY BECAUSE HE WOULD KEEP MEXICANS OUT.
It wasn’t about jobs. It was about tax cuts. It wasn’t about NATO or the war on terror.
It was because he said he would build a wall to keep people out of America.
Even the Pope knows this is the only reason he is President. Look at that face.
Many of these same Americans that voted for him will lose their health insurance, will not get any tax break, will not get jobs… they will just get the Mexicans out. And that STILL seems to be okay with them.
We are living in a country that tolerated their ancestors when they came in the country – but have no tolerance for anything else.
But the journalists still need to be smarter.
We all want to have THE SCOOP – THE SMOKING GUN that finally brings him down – but we have to be careful.
Our challenge is – we have to be completely honest. There is no wiggle room for speculation. No wiggle room for unnamed sources.
The Trump White House is using every vague reference as leverage.
But it won’t work forever.
We must only be honest and, based on the absolute truthful facts, this President will be brought to his knees and he will resign.
Not impeached because there are no real “give me liberty or give me death” Americans on the Republican side – but he will be forced to resign because… there will be no other choice.
But right now, in a world where a candidate for congress can assault a reporter and still win, when most in the media are so horrified by this President’s lack of ability or respect for the job and only wants to get one of these overwhelmingly impeachable charges to stick… we haven’t got it.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
There is absolute proof that Donald Trump said he was FOR the Iraq War in 2002:
“Are you for invading Iraq?” Howard Stern asked him, and Trump answered, “Yeah, I guess so.”
No matter how you interpret “Yeah, I guess is so…” – it definitely doesn’t mean “NO.”
But in the first Clinton/Trump debate September 26, 2016, (and many times before that) he categorically denied it.
He Tweeted climate change was “created” by and the Chinese in this tweet:
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
But he categorically denied it.
It went on and on like that in the debate and has gone on and on like that throughout his campaign.
And he gets more and more popular.
How is that even possible?
This clip from “Lenny” starring Dustin Hoffman (directed by Bob Fosse – and one of the great movies of the 1970s) perfectly encapsulates Trump’s strategy of denying no matter the proof and his followers acceptance of the denial as fact – because they WANT to believe him:
I haven’t been blogging regularly for a while as I’ve working on a book and upcoming podcast about the history of Manka Bros. Studios.
I hope starting in the next couple of weeks I can balance both projects and get back to writing about the business of media.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Even when it’s good news!
Even when it’s a “liberal” pro-Hillary-slanting site – photo editors cannot resist putting up the “crazy Hillary Clinton” photos (e.g. CNN below).
She freakin’ clinched the nomination – THE FIRST WOMAN EVER IN A MAJOR PARTY – and CNN made her look crazy.
You can imagine just what Fox News did:
I mean, for Christ’s sake, this is New York Magazine’s pic:
And another NY Magazine:
All crazy. Nothing Presidential.
Mother Jones at least had the decency not to put up a picture at all.
I admit, a good, natural, happy picture of Hillary Clinton is very hard to find.
This is the best I could do:
But, damn, that was a long time ago. She hasn’t been happy in a long time.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
GO PRIVATE.
There will never – ever – be enough growth and margin improvement to satisfy Wall Street.
Maybe short-term the studios will get a bump by telling investors they are going to make 100 comic book movies over the next 5 years – but after that flattens out – there’s nothing left to grow on top of that.
And it’s all Wall Street’s fault. You can’t blame studio executives. They have to appease Wall Street or they’re out.
I mean, my company, Manka Bros. just announced a trilogy of films based on the board game CHECKERS!
Wall Street’s insistence for high margin growth in such a mature business is destroying creativity (again, note all the sequels and re-makes and re-hashes and re-dos) and in it, ruining any realist opportunity for growth.
To grow the way Wall Street would like, 21st Century Fox (for instance) would need to have an “Avatar” one year (and double the amount of TV production); two “Avatars” the next year (and double again the doubled amount of TV shows); four “Avatars” the following year – and so on and so on. And they would all have to preform as good or better than the first!
And the market is saturated already.
There are too many choices and studios don’t have the monopoly on content creation that they once did.
And the moguls long for those days.
Sorry, fellas, they are not coming back.
It won’t be cheap to go private – billions and billions – but there is plenty of private equity out there that would love an asset that consistently pumps out up to $1 billion in pure profit.
Without the need to top profits year after year, the content produced can be more experimental, and thus, much more interesting and exciting for the consumer.
It would even allow for the occasional down year when things just didn’t work out. Hollywood IS a cyclical business, after all.
Hollywood Studios are sacred treasures in this country (and around the world) and should not be allowed to just fade away because Wall Street wasn’t happy with the growth prospects.
We must do what we can to save these institutions and going private is the best way.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Even though Sarah Palin probably doesn’t know what “verisimilitude” means – she knows exactly what it is because she is the living embodiment of the word.
Sarah Palin is living (and profiting) from the character of Sarah Palin that has been created for her by the various puppet masters in her life even though, deep down, the actual Sarah Palin could give a shit what the character Sarah Palin actually says.
The real Sarah Palin just wants to look good and have nice stuff.
And there is nothing wrong with that – unless, of course, because you are faking this hate-filled persona to get nice stuff you actually hurt real people.
Everyone knows Sarah Palin isn’t bright enough to be a force on the Right.
As much as I dislike the Tea Party and hard core Conservatives, they are not stupid people.
Sarah Palin is a stupid person. Full stop.
And I don’t say that to be mean. No female, outside of models and actresses, has done so much with so little brains as Sarah Palin.
She is living the American Dream for those with low IQs.
If you are an attractive, photogenic person and choose a polarizing political view, you can go far in this country – and she has proven that thesis correct.
The idiots at CPAC even gave her a standing ovation for her inane 3rd grade quality rewrite of “Green Eggs And Ham” slamming the Affordable Care Act.
If only that were the real Sarah Palin.
Deep down, I believe the real Sarah Palin doesn’t care much about anything.
I don’t believe she gives a rat’s ass about gay marriage. She would never admit it because that would destroy the fake Sarah Palin, but I can tell she doesn’t care if a man marries a man or a woman marries a woman.
She doesn’t live in a world where she has to give it much thought.
The same goes for immigration reform, Obamacare – she just doesn’t care about these things because she doesn’t have deep thoughts.
She wants to be famous. That’s it. And it has been working for over 10 years.
People love Sarah Palin and people hate Sarah Palin – but no one hates Sarah Palin as much as the real Sarah Palin – because she is living a lie.
Or maybe she’s not even smart enough to know that.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
5/12/14 UPDATE: AT&T to acquire DirecTV! Lock the doors – it’s scary out there.
2/12/14 UPDATE: Holy Crap, 2014 just got a whole lot uglier (and it was already hideous) with the announcement of Comcast acquiring Time Warner Cable!
ORIGINAL POST:
It’s coming.
Holy shit is it coming.
Millions are getting pummeled with a horrible winter but brace yourselves further, because you are in for a shitstorm of job cuts in 2014.
It will not be pretty.
It seems that media company CEOs are hell bent on proving to Wall Street that their companies can be growth companies.
Unless they fire every employee and start a new company by themselves in a garage, they cannot be growth companies the way Wall Street would like.
20% margins just will never happen again in the movie, TV, print, or music industries – so deal with it.
But these CEOs are guys (all guys) who think they can do anything.
But they will fail.
And then they’ll CUT.
And… it will not be pretty.
Tribune got things started.
My company’s CEO has called 2014 “The Year of the Hammer.”
No one will make it through unscathed.
First to go will be the packaged media folks. Those who support the production and distribution of DVDs and CDs and magazines, etc.
Gone.
Next will be the slow growth businesses – like movies and Broadcast TV production (serious like a heart attack).
Slates will be slashed, storytelling risk-taking will cease to exist.
Since no one can seem to do comedy anymore on Broadcast, they will be relegated to the epic mini-series format like “Under The Dome” and live Sports to stay afloat.
Then, finally, the low margin businesses will be hit – like console games. With the exception of a few huge titles, it’s a tough business and it certainly doesn’t help these overly-ambitious / delusional CEOs hit their targets.
So what’s going to be left? TV production for cable and Over-The-Top (OTT).
Why TV gets ownership of Internet content production is baffling to me. But they do.
By the end of 2014, giant media companies with their film studios, broadcast networks and massive real estate leases will be much MUCH leaner and the quality of the product will be much MUCH worse.
Hey, but a point of margin here and a point of margin there adds up to… 2 points.
But lighten up, Spring is coming.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
