Mark Riley Media » America

Christopher Columbus, friend or foe?

Mark Riley — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:56:00 +0000

Hey friends, I have two big meetings in New York City today so I give you my page to express YOUR thoughts on Columbus Day.

Christopher Columbus is a controversial figure for some who question his ‘discovery’ of the Americas. For Native Americans, it is a day of mourning, for Italians it’s a chance to celebrate culture. For many it’s a day off, and for others it’s just another working day with less traffic.

What are you doing? Celebrating? Relaxing? Going to work as usual? The one thing we can probably all agree on is that Columbus had a pioneering spirit. What about you? Would you sail the world in search of a new frontier for your country?

Post your thoughts here, and when I get back tonight I will post my comment to YOUR opinions.

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Is Working a Labor of Love? It is for My New Radio Show!

Mark Riley — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:13:49 +0000

On Saturday, I return to radio with a new weekly talk show titled “Working New York”.

Mark Riley in studio

The program will allow me to give full voice to something that’s been articulated before, but needs to be shouted from the rooftops now. That is, working people, those folks who keep this great nation alive, deserve the respect of all of us.

And these days, working America is under siege.

The program airs on WWRL 1600AM radio in the New York area, and is on the Web at http://www.wwrl1600.com.

The concept for the show goes back deep into the earliest stages of my own life. My father was one of the hardest working Americans I’ve ever known. When I was small, I’d watch him leave for his job at the post office, and I would marvel at the ritual of his latching his keys to his belt, putting on his suit jacket on top of his shirt and tie, and telling us, “I’m off.” I didn’t know at the time that he’d been doing this same routine for nearly 40 years.

He retired from the post office when I was eight years old. I remember him taking me on the train as he went in to sign the final papers that signaled his retirement. I didn’t understand how sad it was for him, at least, not then. My dad then went on to work for an additional 15 years at a hospital in Connecticut, where we moved after he retired. It was a different place, different circumstances, but the same steady, everyday work ethic.

You see, my father never had to sit me down and tell me to respect working people. He was one, and he led by his example. It didn’t matter to him what a person did for a living, or how much they got paid. What mattered was that they worked, and if they were good at what they did, they were deserving of respect. And all this he taught us without really ever saying it.

Elwood Riley and Mark Riley

There are a lot of people in media and politics today who purport to speak for working people. In too many cases, these same blowhards wouldn’t spend five minutes with sanitation workers, having a conversation with people working in a hospital, or listening to the problems farmers are facing in the 21st century. I like to think I’m different.

My dad belonged to a union all his life. I have an abiding respect for unions, though I know they, like us, aren’t perfect. Whether someone changes a bedpan or is a Starbucks barista, an electrical worker or an IT specialist, whether you pump gas, flip burgers, whatever, you’re an American worker.

You deserve affordable healthcare, a good education for your kids, and an affordable, safe place to live. The program “Working New York” is for you, if you’re working now, looking for work, or have worked all your life. It’s centered in New York City – well isn’t everything – but it speaks to workers everywhere. So if you can’t tune in via radio, tune in via your computer from wherever you are in the world. I’ll be posting a phone in number, and if you shout loud enough the station may set up texting capabilities. before you ask, podcasting is in the pipeline too!

My father is part of all of you. Help me kick it off with a bang, in his in honor and for the late Studs Turkel!

Studs Terkel

“Working New York” airs Saturdays from 2-5PM on WWRL, 1600AM in New York City, and on the Web at http://www.wwrl1600.com.

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Will There Ever Be Another "Uncle Walter"?

Mark Riley — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:44:02 +0000

On Walter Cronkite’s passing last Friday at the age of 92, the nation quickly divided into two groups. There are those who are old enough to remember the period between 1962 and 1981 when he was the public face of American television news, and those who are too young to have had that experience. As one of the former, my mind flashed back to a junior high school in Connecticut on November 22nd, 1963.

It was Walter Cronkite’s voice over the school loudspeaker that brought the news that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.

Even though I didn’t see his face at that moment (we were in class), there was no one else I expected to be delivering such sad, earth shattering news. Sure there were other network news anchors (Huntley-Brinkley), but Walter Cronkite WAS the news to me as a 12 year old.

And so it went, through the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, to his questioning of US objectives during the Vietnam War, to his coverage of the counterculture and so many other signposts in the lives of those of us of a “certain age”. There was a gravitas to Walter Cronkite such that, as I started down my own career path in the early ’70s, I aspired to be just like him. When he signed off each night with “And that’s the way it is”, no one doubted that he was right.

I was one of those who wondered what CBS was thinking when they put him out to pasture in 1981.

Sure, Dan Rather was young and vigorous, but Walter Cronkite was timeless, ageless, and had so much more to report to us. And so he did. Freed of the constraints of “objective” reporting, Walter Cronkite in his later years was one of the first to decry the rise of monopolistic, corporate media.

What he warned us about through the 80s and 90s has come to pass, sadly. That we didn’t pay closer attention is to our collective shame. Walter Cronkite warned us about journalism as a shoddy, celebrity/profit driven profession that has lost the ability to make huge swaths of America believe what it says. And look what’s happened .

The short answer to the question at the top of this post is, “of course not”. There will never be another “Uncle Walter”, because media can’t make as much money having one man or woman possess the kind of credibility we took for granted in Walter Cronkite. After all, Rush Limbaugh calls himself an anchorman, and he does so with a straight face.

So, goodbye, Walter Cronkite. Those who saw your face every night will miss you terribly.

And we’ll miss what you represented even more.

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