Crowdsourcing the news
About the time we were to take off, Southwest Airlines made the announcement that the TSA had ordered the evacuation of our terminal at Orlando International Airport. What happened next was surprisingly orderly. There was no panic or press of the crowd. Everyone simply grabbed their stuff and headed to the tram that returned us to the main terminal. We made new friends, exchanged cynical wisecracks and did as we were told without much fuss. It took about an hour before we – thousands of us – were back in line to go through security again.
Naturally, the bureaucracy did what it always does: give orders without telling us what happened or what to expect next. Also, naturally, the crowd turned to their smartphones. Rumors abounded. There were gunshots. There was a fire. As it turned out, neither of those were true. How do I know? Well, first the Miami Herald posted a story with lots of gaps describing the possible suicide of a TSA employee who jumped from the balcony of the airport hotel. He hit the floor so hard that it sounded like a gun shot and everyone started running, including the TSA employees who were scanning passengers and luggage.
A more complete report was posted on the website Heavy.com. Being careful to cite the source of each quote, they simply compiled a story from social media posts. The first of them was used by both the Herald and Heavy. It included a Tweet from Kindy Segovia who posted a picture of the mob including yours truly (that’s me in the black sweater below the N in Hudson News). Everything worked out okay and we were on our way after a rescreening and a three- and-half-hour delay.
I was struck by how a complete picture emerged whereby every social media post constituted pieces of a puzzle. The Herald’s caution in quoting unknown sources yielded a less complete picture than Heavy.com who was careful to use quotation marks around what people had posted, misspellings included. I was reminded of a scene from the movie “Absence of Malice,” in which Paul Newman’s character tells off a reporter played by Sally Field. “You don’t print the truth,” he says. “You print what people say. There’s a difference. The truth’s not that easy to come by.”
Trump vs. Republicans
I recall a wise quote from Cokie Roberts, daughter of two members of Congress and veteran pundit. “The only way to do business in Washington is ‘as usual’,” she averred. In other words, disrupters beware. You won’t know what happened to you until it’s already happened.
Was Donald Trump done before he started? The common wisdom is that veteran Republicans rolled over and played along with the current resident of the White House. They voted with him over 90% of the time. Matthew Glassman, a Senior Fellow at the Government Affairs Institute, takes a different view. “In reality,” he says. “Republican legislators have hidden their influence, purposefully disguising a weak president with little clout on Capitol Hill while also preserving party unity.”
His essay in the New York Times outlines the strategy: they have simply declined to take up his agenda. During the last Congress, there were no votes on the border wall, immigration policy or protectionist trade policies. Wary of publicly stating their opposition and incurring the wrath of both him and his stooges at FOX News, they simply work against him by not acting.
On those matters requiring action, they have quietly dismissed his ideas. Hence, he proposes cuts to non-defense spending and Congress delivers a budget that does the opposite. It will be interesting to see how the dynamics change with Democrats in control of the House.
How you like it
Regular readers will have noticed that I switched formats around the first of the year. Previously, I wrote long essays exploring ideas that interest me. Lately, I’ve been writing shorter pieces that summarize my thoughts with less in-depth research. So, I’d like to know which format you prefer. Please take a moment to answer this one-question survey: Click HERE.
WHO WILL LEAD?
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