• Search for:
    20Feb, 2019
    Virginia and the ERA

    Here in Virginia, we are at a crossroads. We have the potential to impact the entire nation—we will either protect innocent human life or we will turn the tide and destroy generations to come. It all comes down to a handful of votes.

    Despite the fact that it failed in committee, there will be an attempt to bring the Equal Rights Amendment to the floor for a vote. This requires a rules change and Delegate Hala Ayala (D-Woodbridge) announced that an effort for that rules change will come tomorrow.

    You may ask, “What’s wrong with the Equal Rights Amendment?” For the vast majority of women, it seems like a no-brainer but the danger is that passing ERA amendments in several states immediately led for abortion groups to demand that the states provide funding for abortion.

    According to Virginia Society for Human Life, “The ERA, as currently written, would eliminate virtually every single regulation on abortion including over turning partial-birth abortion ban, mandate funding for abortion-on-demand, etc.”

    Delegate Scott Garrett (R-Lynchburg) rose to challenge the upcoming attempts to pass the ERA, “The next few days will give us the opportunity to answer that question by saying out loud what this has been about all along: a proxy fight on unrestricted access to abortion. I think we’re all well aware of the shock and outrage that emerged not only across the Commonwealth but across the country, after the details of House bill 2491 became widely known. That legislation, Mr. Speaker, erased all meaningful restrictions on late term abortion, allowing abortion up to the moment of birth for the most tenuous of reasons.”

    The bill Del. Garrett was referring to was introduced by Del. Kathy Tran (D-Springfield) would have allowed abortions up until the very moment of birth and would have stripped all protective laws that exist in Virginia—e.g. reflection periods, parent consent, ultrasound requirements, etc. The legislation failed but as Del. Garrett pointed out the attempts to pass the ERA are a proxy fight.

    If the ERA passes in Virginia, Virginia would be the last state needed to “ratify” the amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I put ratify in quotes because, by law, the ratification process was closed years ago and the process should be restarted from the beginning. (In fact, 5 states reversed their votes for ratification.)

    If Virginia passes the ERA, whether or not the state ratification votes from 40 year ago would count would be up to the courts to decide.

    And we all know that court decisions can be all over the map.

    3Feb, 2019
    Governor Northam, the Right to Life, and Northam’s Yearbook Photo

    The focus in the news has been Governor Northam this week. Just a few days ago, the governor of our great commonwealth, interviewed on WTOP’s “Ask the Governor,” defended the Repeal Act which would reverse protective legislation in the state of Virginia. The protective laws in place, for example, include a parental notification/consent law and a law that requires an ultrasound before an abortion

    In his comments, the governor also defended abortions up to birth and the idea of a third-trimester abortion where, if the infant is born alive, he or she could be left to die. As egregiously pro-abortion as this is, he was being defended by supporters.

    The pro-life movement in Virginia mobilized and some voters were beginning to express their shock.

    Move forward about 48 hours and it’s revealed that the governor’s profile page from his medical school yearbook includes a photo of two people: one in blackface and one in a KKK costume. The governor issued an apology for appearing in the photo but then backtracked and said he was not in the photo BUT that he did appear in blackface at a different event where he portrayed Michael Jackson.

    I don’t know if Virginia has a provision for impeachment but quite a number of state and federal representatives on both sides of the aisle are calling for Governor Northam to resign. So far, he refuses.

    As an aside, I think his crisis communications team is doing a poor job of dealing with this. It may be that they are having a hard time because he wants to do things his way but it’s the job of the communications team to vet responses and address the issue consistently. If you were at fault, apologize. Apologize first to those you have offended then apologize to everyone else. And then, don’t back track. Don’t apologize then defend. That’s not an apology.

    But the KKK costume? It was bad in 1984 and it’s bad today. Some might argue that blackface in 1984 could be a “youthful indiscretion” but the KKK costume cannot be defended.

    Can he survive? I’ll be shocked if he can.

    22Jan, 2019
    Media Madness

    Having served as the media director for a national citizen’s lobby group several years ago, I know that the media can have their own agenda. I experienced it first hand.

    Years ago, after I did a live interview on a major national network, the producer used the footage to put together a package on the same topic to air later that night. The edited version was cut to make it sound like I said something I really didn’t. While the edits were consistent with our organization’s overall purpose, strategically it was not something we were saying at the time. I was really angry with the producer and left her a message to that effect.

    When I spoke with the producer the next day, she admitted that she cut the interview deliberately to create a brand-new-with-a-different-meaning quote for me because, as she put it, it was something that she “thought” I would say. It was the first time I had had that happen to me and when I spoke with another spokesperson–who had years more experience– he just laughed and said that it had happened to him several times and it was just the way reporters and producers could be. The edited quote, while not ideal, wasn’t the end of the world. His advice: never trust them.

    But I was angry. A journalist is supposed to report the news without bias and they’re not supposed to go “quote shopping”– i.e., trying to set up an interview to get a quote that fits a preconceived narrative. They’re not supposed to cut interview footage to reflect what they think a spokesperson should say.

    And, before you say it, I know they’re human–they make mistakes just like everyone else– but a single producer doesn’t produce a news package in a vacuum. She has supervising producers and executive producers who are supposed to act as stop-gaps to prevent such things from happening.

    So, yeah, I was angry.

    But I was a trained spokesperson. I knew what to expect and how to react and how to respond, yet I was still upset by how I was treated. I was still shocked by how easily it was–and is–in this day and age to have the words I said edited so that they sounded like a completely different quote.

    And the worst part is that those particular edits were a sham–a set up–designed to give “legs” to a story, make the news cycle, and put a particular network at the front. All in the name of ratings–which leads to advertisers and more money for the network.

    Newspapers around since the 1800s have had to compete against 24-hour news cycles since the 1990s and, today, they have to compete against the Twitterverse with posts from Joey875555 or Sebastian254486 (I’m making these up so don’t look for them on Twitter). And often the things posted on Twitter can become viral in moments.

    Pictures can be cropped and airbrushed, video footage edited, and yet, everyone still believes that what they see is the truth.

    And they take sides. Often viciously–because the basest, most feral parts of mankind feel freed in the anonymity of the internet.

    A lie can lede and a retraction doesn’t have the same power as the original story.

    There is a saying–modified from something Jonathan Swift once wrote–that says, “A lie can travel around the world before the truth has a chance to put on its pants.”

    Sadly, a few centuries later, it’s still true.