NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Friday April 18

[Scroll down for full week’s compendia]
 

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY — IN BRIEF
 
A Voice of Baltimore compendium, local and beyond.   Your weekday morning look  (with links)  at late-breaking news, current events, and what will be talked about wherever you may go on Friday:

Former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton is expecting a baby ‘later this year.’

•  FORMER FIRST DAUGHTER EXPECTING BABY

Chelsea Clinton — who will reprise her role as First Daughter if her mom gets elected president — announced Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she’s pregnant and expecting her first child “later this year.” She also told Vogue magazine last August she would consider a run for office at some point in the future.

Read More at:  ABC News

•  GUBERNATORIAL DEMOCRATS APPEAR SEPARATELY AT 2 FORUMS

Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Attorney General Douglas Gansler, and Montgomery County Del. Heather Mizeur answered questions separately — and secretly — from education and business leaders at a forum at Towson University’s SECU Arena, where they were not permitted to hear their opponents’ responses.

Earlier Thursday evening, they were scheduled to appear separately at a Baltimore senior center forum sponsored by Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and the local NAACP.

Read More at:  WBFF Fox45-TV

•  ‘SHERLOCK’ FRANCHOT SETS SEARCH FOR OWNERS OF $1B OF MARYLAND MONEY

State Comptroller Peter Franchot is looking for state residents to apply for more than $980 million in unclaimed funds. Watch his entertaining video at http://www.marylandtaxes.com — click on “Search for Unclaimed Property” or go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwnvHARcVj8&feature=youtu.be.

Read More at:  WJZ-TV (Channel 13)

•  FOX45-TV PARENT HIRES FINANCIAL ADVISER

Hunt Valley-based Sinclair Broadcast Group has engaged a New York investment banking firm as its exclusive financial adviser in connection with the sale of certain assets tied to its proposed acquisition of eight television stations owned by Allbritton Communications.

Read More at:  Maryland Daily Record

•  PANTELIDES STRUGGLES IN ANNAPOLIS

The new mayor, 30-year-old Mike Pantelides, has been having a rough time since taking office following his upset election victory last November.

Read more »

Major cable-news networks, a disgrace to journalism.

Arguments & character assassination rule airwaves;
panelists’ dialogue is juvenile, abrasive and absurd

LOW-GRADE CONTENT KILLS OFF CIVILIZED DEBATE
 
By David Maril
 
Tune in much of the “discussion” programming on right-wing Fox News and left-wing MSNBC and you wonder how this type of low-grade content can generate an audience. The dialogue between the panelists, on the left  and right, often becomes juvenile, petty, abrasive and absurd.

Although these programs, which have become the rage of cable networks,  are masqueraded as news analysis and perspective shows, they deal more in entertainment than information.

People don’t watch these programs for news. The ratings are generated by the intensity of the arguments.

MSNBC and Fox News don’t inform their audiences. The goal is to inflame the viewers, making people more intolerant of hearing opposing points of view while fattening up the networks’ ratings.

The thinking is, the more outspoken the hosts are and the more they disagree and interrupt their guests, the more viewers are drawn to the chaos on camera.

The success of this type of screaming format has forced cable networks to turn up the volume and put etiquette on the back-burner. As this trend becomes even more entrenched, one has to wonder if an interviewer like Charlie Rose, the master of diplomacy, can survive. Will CNN find a way to generate decent ratings if it focuses on strictly covering the news?

Read more »

Gov. Martin O’Malley and Balto. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake got into a heated debate last year over zero-tolerance policing in Md.’s largest city.

Collecting progressive cred like casino markers

A VOICE OF BALTIMORE EDITORIAL
 
By R.P.M. Kolchak
 
Make no mistake about it, Martin O’Malley likes putting people in prison.

He locked up hundreds of thousands of people as Mayor of Baltimore, and has advocated for even more arrests since taking up residence in Annapolis.

But his penchant for punishment has put the lock-’em-up gov in a dicey dilemma:  What to do about a pesky little pot decriminalization bill that won’t go away and will soon show up on his desk for signing?

In an unusually bold maneuver last week the city’s black caucus forced the Maryland House of Delegates to bypass Judiciary Committee Chairman/strongman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. and pass a bill that would make possession of small amounts of pot the equivalent of a harsh parking ticket.

The maneuver was lauded as a much-needed reining-in in the war against drugs, a battle that has disproportionately taken a toll on African-Americans in the form of minor criminal records.

But the legislative victory has put O’Malley’s tough-on-crime cred into an uncomfortable crucible. In a sense, he’s being asked to tamp down on the very tactic he has long espoused.

During his tenure as Mayor of Baltimore the city arrested more than 600,000 people, thanks to the concept known as “zero tolerance.” It was a strategy O’Malley touted as the answer to a stubbornly high homicide rate which led to a torrent of incarceration, courtesy of a crackdown on minor crimes like drinking beer in public, and spitting on the sidewalk.

But the crime-crushing effect it was supposed to engender never materialized. And in an historic settlement of a lawsuit with the NAACP and ACLU, the city actually admitted that many of the arrests were illegal.

BAD PRESS AND LEGAL WRANGLING

But all the bad press and ugly legal wrangling made little impression on the presidential aspirant.

Witness his recent public sparring with Mayor Stephanie-Rawlings-Blake about ratcheting up the arrest rates during a particularly violent stretch in Baltimore last summer.

Read more »

 
NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Friday April 11

[Scroll down for full week’s compendia]
 

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY — IN BRIEF
 
A Voice of Baltimore compendium, local and beyond.   Your weekday morning look  (with links)  at late-breaking news, current events, and what will be talked about wherever you may go on Friday:

Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-7th) was ac- cused Thurs. of obstructing a congressional investigation. (VoB File Photo/Bonnie J. Schupp)

•  REP. CUMMINGS ACCUSED OF OBSTRUCTION; EX-IRS OFFICIAL LERNER HELD IN CONTEMPT

House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) accused Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of obstructing an investigation and conspiring with the Internal Revenue Service to target a conservative voter-fraud prevention group.

In March, Cummings and Issa had a heated exchange following a committee hearing after Issa cut off committee microphones during questioning of retired IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner.

On Thursday afternoon Issa’s committee voted 21-12 to hold Lerner in contempt, stating that she waived her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when, during a hearing last May, she gave a voluntary statement declaring her innocence.

Read More at:  WBAL-TV (Channel 11) | Fox News

•  BALTIMORE HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL RESIGNS AFTER PLEADING GUILTY TO THEFT OF NEARLY
$2M INTENDED FOR NEEDY CHILDREN IN GEORGIA

The principal of Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School resigned Thursday after pleading guilty in Georgia to stealing nearly $2 million in federal children’s nutrition funds.

Read More at:  WJZ-TV (Channel 13)

•  GANSLER LAUNCHES ATTACK AD ON RADIO

The Attorney General’s 30-second radio spot attacking the O’Malley-Brown Administration for the failed launch of the state’s health care insurance exchange is the first critical broadcast ad of the 2014 Democratic gubernatorial campaign.

Without mentioning Brown by name the ad repeats press coverage labeling the exchange’s launch a “debacle” and “one of the worst-performing in the country.”

Brown was tasked by O’Malley with overseeing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (a/k/a “Obamacare”) in Maryland, making him a target for criticism over its failure, which the Governor has attempted to blame on the state’s contractor.

Read More at:  Baltimore Sun

•  WOMAN THROWS SHOE AT HILLARY CLINTON

Read more »

The Tigers’ and Reds’ Sparky Anderson, a legendary manager.

Perspective goes a long way in baseball

YOU CAN SEE A WHOLE LOT OF SPARKY
IN BALTIMORE’S BUCK SHOWALTER
 
By David Maril
 
Tiger Stadium is long gone, and the soothing, eloquent southern tones of the late Ernie Harwell, Detroit’s Hall of Fame play-by-play voice, have been missing from the city for years.

Still, every time I watch the Orioles play in Detroit, even at their new stadium, those simple, traditional baseball uniforms make me think of Sparky Anderson, the great manager who spent a good chunk of his journey on the road to enshrinement in Cooperstown, in the Motor City.

The start of every baseball season means optimism and a fresh slate.

Anderson, who died in 2010 at the age of 76, epitomized resiliency, looking on the bright side, and always positive about coming back the next day and trying to do things right, to win no matter what had happened the game before.

He was a tough competitor, had a temper and experienced more than his share of harsh arguments over the years.

He managed some great players, including Johnny Bench and the controversial Pete Rose, and had an impressive postseason record in the playoffs and World Series.

Anderson, in short, was one of the biggest celebrity managers, ranking up there with Earl Weaver, Tommy Lasorda, Tony La Russa, Billy Martin, Dick Williams, Casey Stengel, and Jim Leyland, instantly recognized whenever he’d walk down the street.

But the thing that always impressed me the most was the sense of perspective that he maintained throughout his professional life as a superstar manager.

En route to winning 2,194 games as a manager and capturing three World Championships, he never lost his appreciation for what is really important. Perhaps his struggle as a player in the minor leagues was a big reason he never took wealth and celebrity status for granted.

Read more »