Tag: Twitter

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Survey Says … We Don’t Agree. About Anything.

Some of the “news” I was exposed to before 9 a.m. today:

An “urgent alert” post on Nextdoor.com that read, “I love my penis.”

A tweet that led me to a video link showing President Trump praising Kim Jong-un as one the “great leaders” of the world, and saying that he “loves his people.” (These would be the people he imprisons and murders, keeps impoverished, and denies basic human rights to, I suppose.)

A story in the print-version of The Commercial Appeal about the “grandma” who put her kids in a dog kennel in her car.

A link on Facebook to a story about the facilities in Texas where the separated children of (brown) asylum seekers are being kept in cages until they can be sent off to foster homes. America!

A CNN video of Dennis Rodman in Singapore wearing a MAGA hat and pitching a crypto-currency called PotCoin.

A Commercial Appeal email that sent me to a video of state Representive Reginald Tate talking to a Republican on a “hot mic” and saying his fellow Democrats were “full of shit.”

An NPR story about U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ latest ruling, one that categorically denies asylum to any (brown) woman who claims to be a victim of domestic violence.

Drake Hall playing “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones.

I also made two moves in Words With Friends on my iPhone.

I don’t think I’m particularly atypical. We are bombarded with “news content” from multiple sources these days. It seems unimaginable that just a decade ago, most of us woke up, made coffee, read the paper, and went to work, assuming we were reasonably well-informed.

Information now comes at us nonstop, a pupu platter of news, opinion, tragedy, nonsense, pathos, and propaganda. None of us get the same serving. All of us filter our information stream differently, picking and choosing what catches our fancy.

Is it any wonder we can’t agree about anything?

A survey conducted last week by the the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute found, unsurprisingly, that most Americans are unsatisfied with the current state of journalism and the news. Perhaps, surprisingly, three out of four journalists who were surveyed agreed with them. News creators and news consumers both want the news to be better, but for different reasons.

Journalists are feeling beleagured and threatened by the continued down-sizing of the newspaper industry, the dumbing down and politicizing of television news, and by the constant attacks on the media from the president, who denigrates any reporting he doesn’t like as “fake news.” The survey found that most journalists believe the public’s level of trust in news media has decreased in the past year. Forty-four percent of news consumers said it had.

Interestingly, the survey found that the public wants what most journalists say they want to deliver — stories that are factual and offer context and analysis — but 42 percent of those consumers who were surveyed said journalists too often strayed into non-objective commentary.

Here’s where it gets sticky. When newspapers ruled the Earth, readers pretty much knew what was news reporting and what was opinion. Newspapers had (and still have, for the most part) a clearly delineated “op-ed” section, where pundits unleash points of view about various subjects. It was easy to differentiate news reporting from opinion.

Now, not so much. Is that clip of Dennis Rodman news? Entertainment? A reality show gone rogue? Hell if I know. When that video of Trump and Kim gets posted to Facebook with a snarky comment from a friend, the video itself is ostensibly news, but the comment is opinion. The lines are blurred and getting blurrier. Most of the news we get via social media comes with an opinion attached. Too often, we react to the opinion rather than to the news itself.

Where do we go from here? I don’t know. But it’s worrisome that in a time when accurate, serious reporting has never been more important, most Americans can’t even agree on what it is.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1398

Fun with Scanners

Be sure to check out @ScannerMemphis, a Twitter account devoted to sharing the “highlights and lowlights from the Memphis and Shelby County police and fire scanners.” Some sample tweets: “Intoxicated woman taking pictures of Taco Bell on Elvis Presley. Says she works for the corporate office, but she has a beer,” “Man is threatening to stab his television,” and your Pesky Fly’s personal favorite: “Car is on top of a fire hydrant and is on fire at this time.”

In the Street

Fly on the Wall would like to thank The Commercial Appeal for all of its St. Jude marathon coverage. Especially this handy little map of everybody’s favorite street, Popular Avenue.

Neverending Elvis

The Belfast Telegraph, a daily newspaper published in Northern Ireland, tells a strange story about an awkward bathroom encounter between “What’s Up Pussycat” crooner Tom Jones, who was fully naked, and Elvis Presley, who was naked from the waist down. According to the Telegraph, Jones was in the shower when Elvis dropped by to pitch a song. As it happens, the King needed to take care of a little business himself, so he joined Jones in the bathroom, where he proceeded to perform his song while sitting on the toilet. “I’m trying to towel down, and Elvis is singing,” Jones was quoted as saying. “So I’m naked, and he’s half-naked; his pants are down by his ankles.” The report notes that Elvis called his bodyguard and assistant Red West into the bathroom to help him back into a pair of leather pants.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Perils of Social Media

CREDIT: Inox269 | Dreamstime.com

I shouldn’t do this, because it’s already scary enough. Not being a morning person, by any stretch of the imagination, and having a brain that has a lot of trouble shutting down, I wasn’t really all that surprised the other morning when I — after having been up for a good while, mind you — walked into my kitchen, peered around to make sure it was raccoon-free, bumped my head on the cabinet door, placed my coffee into the microwave to reheat it, and typed my debit-card PIN code into the timer.

And then just stood there, wondering what had gone wrong.

Obviously, I am suffering from some kind of disturbance of the brain (we won’t even go there), but I am chalking it up to information overload due to social media, print media, broadcast media, email, Gmail, snail mail, instant messaging, Google alerts, Facebook and Twitter notifications, push notifications, LinkedIn requests, LinkedIn endorsements, Facebook messages and friend requests, and … well, the list goes on and on. AND ON.

Inox269 | Dreamstime.com

I’m not sure if this onslaught is my fault for becoming involved in some of these things. I got something called a “pingback” for the first time the other day, and I just walked out of my office and smoked half a pack of cigarettes.

It’s mind-boggling to me. I rarely use my personal Facebook page but checked it recently for something, and there were over 500 friend requests. So sorry if you sent one to me, and I never responded — if, that is, I actually know you. For the most part, the requests are from people I have no recollection of ever meeting. Same with LinkedIn. Who are you people? I mean, thanks for the requests and endorsements, but who in the hell are you? Same with Facebook and all the other channels. I don’t want any more friends than I have now, so shoo!

But back to why I mentioned I shouldn’t do this stuff: Mainly, it’s because I don’t really have anything to say or write — except Happy Birthday to my little baby friend Tereus of Ballinger’s Gas Station fame, who weighed approximately a pound and a half when he was born almost a year ago and is now wearing clothes for 24-month-olds and turns 1 next week. It was a long story about a city coming together, and if I know you, I’ll happily explain it to you in person.

I don’t have anything to say or write, but I do have a lot of questions this week, and I ask anyone reading this to feel free to contact me via any means you like to help me understand some things.

First off, why is everyone crapping broken bottles about Hillary Clinton’s emails? Who cares? I’d say her emails are her business. Yes, even as secretary of state. We are dealing with a country that is ignorant enough to consider letting Donald Trump take office as president, so why should anyone need to know what’s in her emails? They don’t deserve to know and they probably wouldn’t understand them anyway. If the GOP wants to go through some emails, let them go through mine. Let them read about women who want to meet me, cures for erectile dysfunction, what J.C. Penney Home has on sale in its “designer” department, which animals are being slaughtered, which petitions need signing immediately or the world will end, why I should join a dating service, and how many times a day the Jenner family takes a dump. They can have full access.

Speaking of which, and I have asked this many times, would someone please tell me who the Jenner family is? I applaud Caitlyn for her sense of humor and her incredible self-marketing strategy in the midst of having a sex change, but who is she? Was she some kind of athlete? I still have no idea.

What exactly are we going to do if the aforementioned Trump should actually, miraculously, and bizarrely be elected as president? I haven’t really given that any serious thought because it seems so absurd, but he ain’t slippin’ in the polls, and it looks like everyone else is. Tea Party freaks: How do you think this is actually going to work if he is elected? Do you honestly think this reality show host can successfully run the country? I’m serious. Get on the comment field online at the end of this column and explain this to me.

Why are Memphis drivers even worse now than they have ever been, and why is there so much more traffic in the city than usual? Memphis has always been so famous for its horrible drivers that it’s almost boring to talk about at this point, but why is it worse than ever? Is it the bike lanes, interstate construction, younger drivers, more drivers, the new flyovers (and who designed those)? Am I the only one who is noticing this? Does anyone else not see people driving 60 until they come to some train tracks and then come to a complete stop to ramble inch-by-inch over them and then floor the accelerator back to Autobahn speed on Southern, where the speed limit is 35?

Whatever. Just text me several hundred times with your answers. Or send me a notice on LinkedIn. Or via Facebook Messenger. Just don’t do it early in the morning.

Categories
Calling the Bluff Music

Juicy J May Retire After Upcoming Album

Juicy J has had a lot to celebrate since the new year arrived. He snagged a Grammy nomination for his collaboration with Katy Perry, recently dropped his Blue Dream & Lean 2 mixtape, and is prepping the release of his fourth solo album.  

But judging from Juicy’s Twitter timeline, his music career may be coming to an end.

Sunday afternoon, the North Memphis-bred rap veteran sent out several tweets reflecting on the fruitful career he’s enjoyed. However, the tweets changed pace when Juicy revealed that he’s been considering retirement. He alluded to calling it quits after his forthcoming album, Pure THC: The Hustle Continues, drops.

Juicy has had an amazing career. He’s sold millions of records, won an Academy Award, and managed to adapt to current trends effortlessly. If he does decide to trade in his mic for an executive position, his legacy will unquestionably live on. 

Check out his tweets below. 

Juicy J May Retire After Upcoming Album

Juicy J May Retire After Upcoming Album (2)

Juicy J May Retire After Upcoming Album (3)

Juicy J May Retire After Upcoming Album (4)

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant (January 22, 2015)

CREDIT: Carrienelson1 | Dreamstime.com

I’m not 100 percent sure, but I think I may be trending. I’m not 100 percent sure what trending really is, but I feel fairly certain that it’s a real word and that I’m doing it. Well, I’m not 100 percent sure if trending is something you actually do or if it’s something that happens to you and you are just lucky to be the recipient of it, but, by damn, I better be trending.

See, in my new role at work of being a social media poster, I’ve taken it upon myself to learn how to do it for myself first before I totally screw up the social media posting for my job. I figure if I screw up my own personal social media posts, it won’t really matter because who the hell cares? Right? Oh, I guess I could probably offend someone by accident or post something that comes across in a way that I didn’t mean for it to come across or I could just appear to be really stupid and inept, but, as it relates to me personally, I really couldn’t care less because I so rarely do anything in my personal life that requires me to leave the sanctity of my own home and interact with others, with the exception of traveling, and even then I try to keep to myself and mind my own business.

But even that can prove to be difficult when you’re packed into a small aircraft and forced to sit so close to someone that you can’t avoid physical contact with them. I was recently on a flight from Charlotte to Florida, and the woman packed into the seat beside me was breaking up with her apparently longtime significant other in a conversation on her cell phone. And she was the one who made the call. It would have been one thing if she had answered her phone and the conversation ended up being that kind of a phone call, but no, she initiated the argument herself, seated so close to me that our elbows were unavoidably rubbing against each other.

And she was not holding anything back, from what I could tell. It was along the lines of, “You are such a f–king piece of s–t! And you’re not getting custody of the f–king dog! I used to really love you, but you f–king ruined all that! Your cooking tastes like s–t! I’m hanging up now!”

But she wouldn’t hang up. She kept railing on and reaming the person out and every third or fourth sentence was, “I’m hanging up now!” Finally, the flight attendant said that all cell phones must be turned off for takeoff. But she still didn’t hang up and kept repeating, “You’re not getting custody of the f–king dog!”

But I digress. The thing about trending is that I could have secretly videotaped this woman’s conversation and put it on YouTube and gotten, say, 4 million hits and could have been invited to the “Orange Room” on the Today Show as someone who was trending. I’m not 100 percent sure how many hits one has to have to be trending, but I’m pretty sure it would have trended.

A few weeks back, when I decided to embrace Facebook on my own personal page that has been dormant since 2009, I posted a question. I’d received a menacing message from someone I didn’t really recall and with whom I was certainly not Facebook friends, harassing me about something that happened TWO DECADES AGO when I was the first editor of this newspaper. He was still mad because I wouldn’t publish some piece of crap he had written that he thought was very clever. So I asked people on Facebook if I should be worried about this guy and his inability to let go of this grudge.

I got a lot of responses, including several from people I don’t even know, with suggestions ranging from call the cops to invite him to meet me in a dark alley and kick his ass to publish his name and warn others about him. It was awesome to read all the remarks, like them, comment on them, and share them. I’m 100 percent sure I was trending with that one.

Oh, and I finally figured out who the guy was. I won’t mention his name here, but I do sort of recall that he was a rather unattractive (not his fault, of course, and I’m no hottie) exhibitionist who made my skin crawl. I didn’t report him because I didn’t know who to report him to, but I blocked him and felt very empowered.

And speaking of which, am I the only person in the world who believes that the hacking of Sony Pictures in regard to the movie The Interview had nothing to do with North Korean hackers? To me, it all smacked of a publicity stunt, and it’s embarrassing that it was referred to as “an act of war.”

I have every intention of trending about this at some point in my life when I figure out what trending really is. Would someone please comment on that remark, share it, and cause it to trend? I’ll check it later to see if it performs 80 percent better than my other posts this week.

I’ve also been tweeting, and ask now of the first “t” in tweeting should be capitalized. Haven’t figured that out yet. I even used a hashtag and got on John Legend’s Twitter feed or RSS feed or whatever it is. I was so impressed with myself.

Carrienelson1 | Dreamstime.com

Bradley Cooper

The thing that got me thinking about all this is that I noticed earlier today that controversial filmmaker Michael Moore is on Twitter. It seems that he sent out a tweet, or Tweet, about Bradley Cooper’s new Clint Eastwood-directed film American Sniper being too “pro-war” or something like that. I haven’t seen the movie yet but my initial reaction is that Moore has sold out by being on Twitter and should make a spoof movie about the social media platform (did I just write the phrase “social media platform?”) and leave Cooper alone. I don’t like people messing with my Bradley. In fact, I’m going to tweet, or Tweet, Brad letting him know I think he’s the the best actor in the movie business right now. I wonder if that will make me trend.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Why Nobody Can Pay Attention Anymore

There’s a pile of books beside my bed, most of which I’ve started, few of which I’ve finished. The last book I finished was a short novel that was compelling enough that I actually went to bed early and finished it over the course of a week earlier this month. But that’s rare, these days.

I’m a fast reader, and I used to immerse myself in a book until I turned the last page. Lately, I’m more likely to start a book, set it aside, and never get back to it. My attention span isn’t long enough to get me across Lick Creek. I’m running out of bookmarks.

Distractions are the new, you know… whatever. Go see some live music, and half the audience is holding up their phone to put a video on Facebook instead of actually listening to the music. Go out to eat, and you’ll often see two people at a table staring at their phones or taking Instagrams of their food, instead of talking and eating. Walking in the woods, communing with nature? Hey, look at that maple foliage! I need to get a picture of that to share. Watching the Grizzlies on TV? It’s a lot more fun if you’re on Twitter, too. It’s called double-screening, and the attendant GIFs, snarky tweets, and Vines just add to the experience. Did you know they’re now calling Jon Leuer “Tennessee Dirk”?

Information is served to us like a vast, weird, never-ending buffet where the Cheetos are next to the prime rib, which is next to the gummi bears. Here is a small sampling of Tuesday’s headlines on Huffington Post: “Missouri Declares State of Emergency Ahead of Grand Jury Decision”; “Adrian Peterson Suspended for Rest of Season”; “Japanese PM Calls Special Elections as Country Slides Into Recession”; “Hacker Group Goes to War with KKK”; “Why We Never Got Those 250 Emoji We Were Promised”; “You’re Buying Your Sheets All Wrong”; “The Three-Minute Skill That Will Totally Change Your Breakfast”; “Legendary Photog Snaps The World’s Most Beautiful Women (NSFW)”; “GOP Hires Constitutional Lawyer in Obama Lawsuit.”

Where to start? Sure, I need to know about what’s going on in Ferguson and in Washington, D.C., but I’m curious about that secret breakfast skill. And I certainly don’t want to continue buying my sheets all wrong. And I wonder just how NSFW those pictures are… Oh wait, I just got an email. Hey, someone wants to be my friend on Facebook. Oops, need to answer this text, first. BRB. Oooh, puppy video!

Whew! It’s an ADHD world, but I really want to reconnect with that pile of books. Maybe it would help if I started live-tweeting as I read them?

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Katie Nesling | Dreamstime.com

Katie Nesling | Dreamstime.com

Okay, so maybe I spent one too many Saturday nights riding around in a van airbrushed with a pot leaf motif to understand all this, but why do I keep seeing disturbing headlines about the FIFA World Cup. To tell you the truth, the real, honest truth, I wasn’t even sure what this was, so, yes, I did a quick Google search and learned that

FIFA stands for “Fédération Internationale de Football Association.” And all this time in the back of my mind, I thought this was a soccer championship. So is it football or soccer? Or is football in other countries what we consider to be soccer in the United States, further separating us from the rest of civilization?

Actually, it really doesn’t matter to me if it’s football or soccer. I don’t keep up with either. I used to watch New York Yankees baseball games sometimes but now that Derek Jeter is retiring, why bother? I also used to be a huge Grizzlies fan until they traded Shane Battier. Oh, I still love them and root for them and all that stuff but I’m still bitter. Very, very bitter about that trade. Plus, I have a really difficult time in FedExForum.

I have, oh, four or five hundred different neuroses when it comes to height and motion. I have nightmares about heights almost every single night. It usually involves being in a glass elevator that begins to horribly malfunction on its descent from the top floor to the lobby. It becomes detached from its main cable and swirls around the high-rise hotel in a circular motion while plummeting to the ground. Sometimes my nightmares involve driving. I don’t drive on the interstate — or anywhere else for that matter — more than 45 miles per hour. I have some kind of physical reaction to it that renders me almost to a state of vertigo. Bridges: Uh, no. No driving over even small bridges. When I go to Harbor Town, I have to drive all the way around Mud Island down Second Street into that weird sort of inner-city rural area and back around down the street along the river until I get to the entrance where the leasing office is, and then I get completely lost trying to find wherever I am going. It’s a beautiful place to be lost but it still throws off my equilibrium. But back to FedExForum and all that commotion that goes on in there. For me, there is way too much going on at one time, with all of the music and noise and lights and speakers and such. I used to do fairly well at The Pyramid but FedExForum, even with seats near the court, is sensory overload for me. And, yes, I know most people love it, as they should, and it’s just me. I went to see Elton John there a year or so ago and was in one of those private suites, but I still had to hold onto something while trying to get up to it. And, once seated, if I looked up at the very top seats in the arena, my legs turned to ice from the kneecaps down. I also recently went to a Memphis Redbirds game. A foul ball slammed into the section where I was sitting (yes, in a suite again, watching it through the glass), and I felt like a cat with one life less than the nine I was given. But it was fun. Other than almost being killed or living the rest of my life in a home for the sports-injured.

But I digress. I digress a lot. It doesn’t take a lot to make my attention span scatter all over the place. So back to the World Cup and God and murders. I keep seeing stories about places in the Middle East, where huge groups of people watching the World Cup are being attacked and killed by terrorists. I even saw one story about an Italian man who murdered his wife and two kids just before leaving to go watch the World Cup at a bar with his friends. There are tanks at the Rio de Janeiro main airport, in anticipation of angry scenes after airport workers announced a 24-hour wildcat strike. There are angry protests in Sao Paulo. And then, there is this news report from Iraq: “Shocking footage has emerged showing Sunni insurgents of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) beheading a police officer. In the clip, the militants knock on the door of the police officer’s home at night. After he answers, they blindfold him, cuff him, and behead him with a knife. After the decapitation, the militants took a picture of the officer’s head and posted it on Twitter with the comment: “This is our ball. It’s made of skin. #WorldCup.” The brutal act has sparked outrage on Twitter. 

And this is about soccer? Or is it about using soccer as an excuse to just be evil? I’m going back to ignorance is bliss on this one. Same with Twitter.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Ready for Generation Z?

While there is some disagreement on the time period, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce defines Generation Z as those born after 2000. In four years, the first batch of these Y2K babies will be early-onset adults, members of the freshman collegiate class of 2018, voters, and, in some cases, job-seekers. They are us the day after tomorrow.

So who are they? What are the influences that have shaped their worldviews and personal perceptions?

GenZ-ers’ lives began with the “hanging chad” and the contested 2000 election, in which a month-long political battle over who would be the 43rd president was decided by a controversial Supreme Court ruling in George W. Bush’s favor. Their innocence was lost by their first birthday, as the United States and the world were rocked by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. With the invasion of Afghanistan and the toppling of Iraq, Generation Z has known nothing but terror and a war on terror.

Z-ers have also witnessed the violence of nature. An outbreak of the respiratory disease SARS decimated hundreds in Asia and started to spread across the globe. A mega-tsunami killed hundreds of thousands living near the Indian Ocean. A Japanese tsunami destroyed a nuclear power plant and radiated the Pacific Ocean. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated New Orleans and many cities along the Gulf Coast. Heck, even Pluto lost its status as a planet.

As Generation Z was entering second grade, the “Great Recession” shook the foundation of the global economy, weakening fiscal systems and wrecking individual savings. As a result, many Z-ers experienced poverty or watched friends and family members struggle financially.

Gen. Z witnessed history as the first African-American president won the 2008 election. The brief Democratic super-majority in the Congress and Senate fought the recession with a stimulus package and passed the Affordable Care Act — thereby igniting a fury of political partisanship which gave birth to the Tea Party.

Generation Z’s middle-school years saw the congressional repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the military, as well as the Supreme Court ruling against the Defense of Marriage Act, which opened the door to same-sex marriages in many states. The tweet became mightier than the sword, as an “Arab Spring” of revolts and civil wars spread across the Middle East. Osama bin Laden was killed by American Special Forces.

Our hearts were broken by mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut. The Boston Marathon was bombed, and the country stood strong with the Red Sox Nation as they won the 2013 World Series.

Gen. Z’s first wave are now freshmen in high school, living with constant, swirling political vitriol. President Obama’s second term has been plagued by Republican investigations into the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, the alleged targeting of conservatives by the IRS, and the revelation that the NSA was mass-collecting American’s cell phone records. Unbridled political partisanship and uncompromising ideologies are the governmental models they are witnessing.

These natives of a digitalized world have primarily experienced these dramatic events through some form of technology. An analog existence seems like the dark ages. The concept of collecting music or movies in physical form seems medieval to them. The majority of Gen. Z-ers have never invited someone over to see their record, tape, or CD collections. Their lives have been immersed in social media.

Generation Z’s use of the open-source reference site Wikipedia, founded in 2001, contributed to the death of the printed version of the 244-year-old Encyclopedia Britannica. That same year, Steve Jobs handed the CD a death sentence with Apple’s personalized digital music player, the iPod. Professional and social networking started to bloom in 2003, with MySpace and LinkedIn. Facebook and the picture-sharing network Flickr entered the scene in 2004.

In 2005, YouTube began providing videos that could be instantly shared. In 2006, the first 140-character communications were transmitted on Twitter. The 2007 2G iPhone transformed the mobile phone market and was followed by the iPad tablet in 2010. Generation Z has not known a world without the internet. Their globalized networks, virtually unlimited connectivity, and ability to multi-task between devices, gives GenZ-ers a skill set unlike any generation before them.

Generation Z-ers follow us, but they will ultimately be leading us. In four short years, these digital natives will be invading our offices, ballot boxes, and universities. Are we ready for Generation Z? We’d better be — and for whatever letter of the alphabet or mutation in Outlook — comes next.

(Brandon Goldsmith, a frequent Flyer contributor, is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of Memphis. This piece is adapted from a portion of his dissertaton)

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: Dead-End Wages

Let me run some salaries by you: $6,791 a month; $6,213 a month; $5,969 a month. Not bad money, right? Seventy-thousand bucks a year would keep most Americans nicely fed and housed. Would it surprise you to learn those salaries are what interns make at, respectively, Twitter, Facebook, and Google. Can you imagine the level of applicants for those jobs? Can you say “cream of the crop?”

The companies above — and many others, including oil companies, banks, and hospitals — are utilizing something called the “efficiency wage theory.” They believe that higher wages result in an increased quality of workers by increasing the overall quality and ability level of the pool of applicants, and helping them to win the most talented workers away from competitors. They know that higher-paid workers are able to better take care of themselves in terms of health, affordable housing, and transportation — benefits that accrue to the employers, since healthier employees are usually more productive. Other benefits include higher employee morale and employees who work harder to keep their jobs.

These companies know that under-paid employees scrambling to pay their bills are constantly looking for another job, and have poor morale and work habits. They know that paying lower-than-equilibrium wages actually costs companies money in employee turnover and lost production necessitated by having to constantly train new hires.

Now, let me run another salary by you: $22,400. No, it’s not what we pay interns at the Flyer. It’s the average starting salary for a pilot at America’s regional airlines, according to the American Pilots Association. That’s right. Many of the men and women charged with safely flying millions of people a year from city to city make less than the counter clerk at your dry cleaners — or your bartender. Or in a more apt comparison, they make about half of what most city bus drivers make.

How does this happen? Why are we paying people who are charged with our lives a wage that will ensure they live on Ramen noodles and cohabitate with roommates in cheap housing?

Is there a glut of pilots keeping wages low? Too much competition for entry-level flying jobs? Nope. Just the opposite. A report by the Government Accounting Office says: “Data indicate that a large pool of qualified pilots exists relative to the projected demand, but whether such pilots are willing or available to work at wages being offered is unknown.” Actually, the answer is known: Eleven out of 12 regional airlines did not meet their 2013 hiring goals.

In a 2009 crash of a Colgan Air regional plane that killed 49 people, the co-pilot was making $16,000 a year. Congress immediately passed laws requiring more flight hours for commercial pilots but did nothing about the abysmal wages being paid. The free hand of the market, and all that.

Smart companies pay their people good money. I leave it to you what that says about most of this country’s regional airlines, whose corporate slogan should be: “Take A Chance. Fly With Us.”

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From The Editor: The Twitter Double-Screen

CREDIT: Dreamstime

I don’t know how many of you out there are on Twitter, but for those of us who are, the 140-character social medium has transformed the way we view television.

Pre-Twitter, most of us sat in our living rooms and watched, say, a Grizzlies game or the Super Bowl or a presidential debate with our families or maybe a couple of friends. We’d bemoan a bad call or make snide remarks about a candidate’s gaffes, but no one heard us.

Now, those who tweet are engaged in a mass conversation via computer or smartphone while watching major televised events. On Monday night, for example, the Cardinals and Giants were playing Game 7 of the NLCS at the same time President Obama and Mitt Romney were engaged in the final presidential debate.

I was watching the debate, but I got a complete sense of what was going on in the baseball game from the steady stream of anguished tweets coming from Greg Gaston, Geoff Calkins, Frank Murtaugh, Gary Parrish, Chris Vernon, and many others, local and national, who were watching the Cardinals blow that game. Similarly, they were all being kept up to date on the debate by the comments of, to name a few, Wendi Thomas, Shea Flinn, Jackson Baker, myself, and others, well-known and not so well-known, not to mention Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, Wonkette, the Onion, and every other pundit in the country.

My Twitter “stream” of comments was moving so fast it was difficult to keep up and still watch the actual debate. Never has the phrase “everyone’s a comedian” been more apt. Critics say that social media interaction is a distraction that diminishes the weighty matters at hand. I would argue that Twitter gets more people to watch, even if it’s only to see what everyone’s chattering about. And it also serves as an instant fact-check. For instance, when Romney cited Syria as being Iran’s link to the sea, it took only seconds for someone to tweet-post a map of the Middle East, illustrating the geographic absurdity of that claim.

There won’t be another debate for four years. By then, Twitter may be history. If so, it will be only because something faster and more convenient has taken its place. The line between celebrity and non-celebrity is fading. A national — even international — conversation is taking place 24 hours a day around the globe. Social media is spreading like kudzu, helping foment change in the Middle East and, in less dramatic ways, here in the U.S. We’re all connected now, for better or for snark. Or both.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com