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News Unfiltered
July 12, 2017
During the first summer after my college graduation, I was the campaign advance man outside of the Milwaukee and Madison areas for a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Wisconsin. A great job.
Sometime during that summer, I met the head of the campaign in a café. He was reading a newspaper as I arrived; and as I sat down at the table, I asked him what he was reading. I’ll always remember his response. He said, “I’m looking for what could go wrong today?”
It was the campaign manager’s job to think about worst-case scenarios and consider how the campaign might get taken off message by the news of the day.
I was young and impressionable, and I soon began to consume the daily news through the same filter.
It was not difficult to do so in the 1970s. The daily newspaper was printed and delivered to my door every day. Television had just three networks, and each provided brief news reports two or three times a day.
Today, what passes as news comes from hundreds or thousands or millions of sources and it is changing constantly, 24/7/365. Only a small portion of those sources is professionally operated with accountability for the substance and/or style of the so-called reporting.
Today it drives me nuts to consume news – that is, to really think about what I’m reading or hearing the way I did in the 1970s. Today, meaningful matters often get buried in trivia while the most inane and inaccurate stories and comments can go viral overnight.
I’ve always said you can get too much of a good thing – too much food; too much free time; and certainly, too much sports. And clearly, we have too much “news” about sports.
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Opportunities Abound
February 2, 2018
This weekend – for the 23rd time – the Michigan High School Athletic Association will host its Women in Sports Leadership Conference. The event is Feb. 4 and 5 at Crowne Plaza Lansing West.
Featured speakers are USA National Volleyball Team member Alisha Glass, who starred at Leland High School; University of Michigan’s Carol Hutchins, the winningest coach in NCAA softball history; and Michigan State University Women’s Volleyball Coach Cathy George, who is just off a season when the Spartans reached the NCAA Elite Eight.
But the real juice for this inspiring event is the energy of 550 students and the investment of our schools’ coaches and administrators to facilitate the attendance of these students.
Students will learn leadership skills for today and be exposed to a variety of career opportunities in athletics. Sports in general and school sports in particular continue to have far fewer female contest officials, coaches, administrators and athletic trainers than we need. This weekend’s program is another effort to inspire change.