Media – The Solomon Scandals

Charles Smith , Future scandals , GSA , Media , Politicians , Sen. Ribicoff , The Solomon Scandals

Could a robot reporter have investigated D.C. sleaze better than I did in the 1970s?

David Rothman May 19, 2024 0 comment

Could a reporter bot have been me in real life in the 1970s—or Jonathan Stone, the far more dashing investigative journalist in my novel The Solomon Scandals? And who would have made a better sleuth, humans or AI? With the above in mind, let me share a cautionary story about a CIA-occupied building and an […]

Buying info , Media , The Solomon Scandals

Solomon Scandals Chatbot: Ask it anything

The ScandalsBot below can summarize The Solomon Scandals and compare its strengths and weaknesses to many classics such as The Great Gatsby or The Jungle. It can also opine on ethics questions and others in journalism, politics, business, healthcare, education, law, and other areas—and do plenty else. But it is an imperfect bot, nothing more. […]

Media , Politicians , Washington area life

De-Trumping America: A few lessons from my ride with Muhammad

David Rothman December 12, 2018December 12, 2018 0 comment

The Uber driver—let’s call him Muhammad—was from Afghanistan. “So,” I asked, “how do you feel about Donald Trump?” I wasn’t going to take anything for granted. The Aryan in the White House might not like Muhammad’s skin color and his probable Muslim faith. But earlier I’d run across a religious African immigrant who cherished Trump […]

Media , Politicians

Ten ways Trump jeopardizes even his fellow billionaires’ wealth

David Rothman March 25, 2018March 31, 2018 0 comment

Ouch. If you own stocks, how did you feel when Wall Street suffered its worst week in two years? The S&P dropped six percent. Donald Trump had been pestering the media to report more on the stock market, up since his election. Now at least one TV financial pundit was joking about Trump’s crazy trade […]

Media , Politicians , Washington area life

A Fake Newser in King Donald’s Court

David Rothman April 30, 2017April 30, 2017 0 comment

Late last night I fell asleep reading the Failing New York Times on my iPad here in Alexandria, Virginia. To my surprise, though a time warp and other inexplicable phenomena, I awoke in a spare bedroom in the former Trump White House. I say “former” for a reason. The time was the mid-2020s. And the […]

Media , Politicians , Washington area life

A Trump-era etiquette guide: How progressives can get along with Trumpists and respect themselves in the morning

David Rothman February 21, 2017February 21, 2017 0 comment

George Roper, my good friend from high school, is dead now. When alive, he was often as right-wing as they come—complete with a passionate anti-Obama blog. And yet George and I avoided hand-to-hand combat. Up to his death several years ago, we followed each other on Facebook. He even talked up my novel. Similarly my […]

Media , Politicians

Accountability: Why the press needs to ask ALL 538 electors about Donald Trump

David Rothman November 29, 2016November 30, 2016 0 comment

A century from now, historians may well turn to the Trump Time Capsule series. The Atlantic’s James Fallows has told “what we knew, when we knew it, about the man who was trying to become president.” The series holds Republican politicians and others accountable to future generations. Donald Trump’s detractors regard him as a potential tyrant […]

Media , Politicians

Want Kent State II? Then pander to Donald Trump. A few thoughts for the media.

David Rothman May 4, 2016May 4, 2016 0 comment

Ohio National Guardmen killed Bill Schroeder, an ex-Eagle Scout, 46 years ago today, at Kent State University. As a reporter for The Lorain Journal, his hometown daily, I covered the death of this ROTC cadet. Do you realize what America was like back then? People actually phoned up our factory-town newspaper and praised the guardsmen […]

Media

Zelig and the art of winning a Pulitzer: Q&A with J. Ross Baughman, photojournalist

David Rothman November 16, 2014November 28, 2014 0 comment

Imagine you’re with the Secret Service. A young Ohioan calls up and says he’ll be joining the Nazi Party. “I wanted you to know.” Wait—the story gets even better. The Ohio man already has been within shooting range of presidential candidates. J. Ross Baughman isn’t a real Nazi, however. Instead he is a photojournalist for […]

Media , Politicians

In search of ’Wooden Watermelons’ and true Net neutrality

David Rothman January 15, 2014November 17, 2014 0 comment

Searching for Wooden Watermelons is a sweet indie flick about a bright 20-something in Beaumont, Texas, who is puzzling out her future. Hundreds of Watermelons-style films exist. Call ‘em Small Town Smart and Unhappy. And yet I couldn’t take my eyes off Watermelons when I watched it on the Vanguard channel by way of the […]

Media

Smart move: The Grahams’ spin-off of The Washington Post

David Rothman August 5, 2013June 21, 2014 0 comment

Jack Shafer, the Reuters columnist, wrote last year that Graham family should spin off the Washington Post newspaper from the company of the same name. As the buyer he suggested Michael Bloomberg. “Not so crazy an idea,” I said on the Solomon Scandals site and in the Georgetown Dish. Now the spin-off will become a […]

Lorain, Ohio , Media

The life and death of the chain-smoking editor

David Rothman September 29, 2012April 5, 2024 2 comment

How could I have written a newspaper novel like The Solomon Scandals without a chain-smoking editor? Kamikaze levels of tobacco and booze use helped certify newsroom denizens as manly risk-takers several decades ago, the time period of Scandals. Women were part of the scene by the 1970s, but they tended not to partake with such […]

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