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New year, somber occasion

By S.K. Bardwell
Posted Tuesday, January 2, 2007

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That's the first time I've written the new year. It used to always happen at the grocery store, when I'd write a check, put the wrong year on it, and have to correct it or start again. Sometimes I did that two or three times before the new year became firmly etched in my memory. I rarely write checks anymore, so I thought I'd just get it out of the way.

It's Jan. 2, 2007. I'm watching Gerald Ford's casket make its way to the National Cathedral. As it's being loaded into the hearse, it's accompanied by a cadre of service members.

I notice that at that level of national spectacle, their uniforms are so fancy that I can't distinguish (on a TV screen, anyway) which branch of the service they're all from, except the ones with sailor collars.

That reminds me of a friend whose service in the U.S. Marine Corps put him in tanks in Vietnam. He told me none of the Marines he served with owned dress uniforms. They were expensive, and there wasn't much call for them on tanks in Vietnam. The place they went to have photographs made for their parents and sweethearts and wives before they left had a rack of dress uniforms they rented for the purpose. My friend told me that's as close as he ever got to a dress uniform. It struck me as sad, that he and so many others endured the rigors of boot camp and the dangers of service, and never got to enjoy the glories of a full dress uniform. At least my friend got to come home.

MSNBC's talking heads had the good grace to shut up while Ford's casket was being loaded into the hearse but now, during the procession to the National Cathedral, they're annoying me, as usual, by engaging in the inane chatter that accompanies every major televised event, from war to the World Series. My biggest beef is, they talk when they don't have anything to say. They're under pressure to prevent dead air, and that's why they can always be counted to point out the obvious. Maybe that's why they get things wrong a lot, too - one of MSNBC's crew has just informed me, "there's the flag, flying at half-mast over the Capitol Building."

Most of us know the difference between a mast and a staff. The guy who said that may know the difference, too. Maybe he said it wrong because he's in auto-talk mode. Or, he may think the Capitol will sail away someday.

There's a good chance he thinks mast and staff are interchangeable terms. There are probably plenty of people who don't know a flag flies at half-mast on a ship, and at half-staff on land. It's not that big a mistake.

Unless using the language is how you make your living. One reason people might think mast and staff are the same is, they hear the words used as if they're interchangeable. People who work in mass communication have an obligation to get it right.

That's the biggest problem I have with television news people. Television news has become more about how you look, how quickly you can get through a story, and who you can rope into talking to you, than about communicating facts and ideas to people.

I have a long love-hate relationship with television news people. I grew up on Walter Cronkite and The Huntley-Brinkley Report. The earliest crush I can remember was on Sander Vanocur. I trusted what they said, and I admired the way they said it.

There aren't many broadcasters of that caliber around anymore. And none of them are on MSNBC this morning. I think I'll watch the rest of Ford's services with the sound off.

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