Don’t trust this con man — or almost anybody else on ‘TV news’

By David McElroy · July 30, 2011

If you’re one of the millions of Americans who gets news and information from TV news, please read this and think about it every time you see someone on your screen shaping your opinions. Many of these people are simply performing.

Radley Balko has an amazing little nugget of information at his excellent Agitator blog today that you really need to see. Balko received an email from a TV producer with a promotional email from attorney Jeffrey Steinberger, who markets himself to stations as a “celebrity attorney” and legal analyst. Read the entire post, but here’s the key part:

“Attorney Steinberger is available to discuss all civil matters as well and any other legal matter not mentioned above.

“Attorney Steinberger is able to take a position on either side of any case– defense or prosecution.”

He brazenly admits that he’s willing to take either side — depending on which role the producers need him to fill. In other words, when you’re listening to him, you’re not listening to his opinion. Instead, you’re listening to him play a part assigned by a TV producer. He’s using his credibility as an attorney to gain your confidence and sell you a position. It’s dishonest.

When an attorney appears somewhere representing an actual client, he’s entitled to say or do whatever’s in the best interests of that client and is also consistent with his ethics. When he appears on TV as an “expert,” we’re entitled to assume he’s giving his honest opinion. What Steinberger does isn’t illegal, but it should be chilling to anyone who gets his news and information from TV.

Turn your televisions off. Quit listening to the screaming idiots on the tube. I’ve said for years that “TV news” is an oxymoron, and this is just one of the many reasons why it’s true. In the meantime, please read “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” by the late Neil Postman, who explains why television is destroying the ability of people to have an informed and civil discourse today. The situation was bad when he wrote the book in 1985, but it’s much worse today.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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