I recently dreamt I buried myself in the ground like a Cicada for the next four years, resurfaced alive and well in 2028, comfortably past this election cycle and the wars that rage in Gaza and Ukraine. I am not alone and believe this version of burying your head in the sand is a shared desire triggered by our ugly politics.

If Cicadas could send a scout, they might have buzzed by 2024. According to experts, Cicadas, which have survived for 1.8 million years, are buried underground and only surface en masse for a few weeks every 13 or 17 years. Being underground for the next four years sounds about right.

In my dream, I start my journey into the soil today, so I miss the remaining five months of the 2024 presidential election cycle featuring two aging dinosaurs, which appeals to me. I will miss the spectacle of bizarre and cringeworthy presidential debates, constant fund-raising emails and texts, news coverage designed to generate clicks, views, and advertising revenue, and the partisan network’s screeching. I will also miss the escalating hateful rhetoric, threats of a civil war, and, of course, a stressful election night and its aftermath.

My brood will also miss seeing how the country is governed for the next four years, led by either an unhinged, indited, revenge-oriented lunatic or a steadier lifetime politician, both of diminishing capacity heading for the eventual lame duck status. Trump will be 81 and Biden 85 at the end of the next presidential term. As an aside, the ages of the Founding Fathers on July 4, 1776, were James Monroe (18), Aaron Burr (20), Alexander Hamilton (21), James Madison 25, Thomas Jefferson (33), John Adams (40), Paul Revere (41) and George Washington (44). Just saying.

I would happily miss a few years of nonstop coverage of Trump’s many trials and those of his henchmen, as well as the endless babbling legal talking heads and cable anchors’ breakdowns of every mind-numbing legal twist and turn. I could do without the trial coverage altogether. Just tell me the verdicts when the trials and appeals are over.

For four years, I would also relish not hearing another word from or about the sleaziest cast of B-movie mob characters from Trumpworld who became household names thanks to cable news and social media—Stormy, Michael “The Fixer” Cohen, Rudy “Bankrupt’ Guiliani, and of course, the Don, the married bible salesman, who likes pornstars and former Playboy Playmates. We are all just worn down.

Lounging under moist dirt, I’ll miss seeing the frantic race to become the 2028 Presidential frontrunner, which will begin moments after the 2024 election is decided. Get used to hearing the term “Presidential Exploratory Committee” and being repulsed by an obscene amount of ass-kissing on Trump’s derriere by those entering the Republican field, less so on Biden’s butt from a gaggle of 2028 Democratic contenders.

I also dreamt that during my slumber, the current crop of nut jobs vaporized into political oblivion like former Congressman George Santos. They include representatives Majorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Bobert, and Matt Gaetz. I will also not miss seeing clips of Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) walking around the Senate looking like a physical education teacher in baggie shorts and a hooded sweatshirt about to teach gym class. I am all for supporting mental health issues, but please put on a pair of long pants. I could do with less extreme wokeness and more energy focused on practical solutions to important things like immigration reform.

I would also miss the grinding end to the War in Gaza and Netanyahu’s time as Prime Minister. The Prime Minister’s main job is to protect Israel. He failed miserably, allowing a Hamas sneak attack, resulting in 2000 dead and 200 hostages taken. His brutal response, killing 38,000+ Palestinians, flipped Israel from victim to villain for a generation of young people worldwide. Netanyahu’s self-interest is to keep the war going, delay a Commission to review his performance that will end his political career, and expose him to other domestic legal troubles. Someone has to negotiate a cease-fire, get the hostages back, and figure out how Gaza will be governed. It’s not easy.

Even while dreaming, I had no clear vision of how the war in Ukraine would play out. Putin would rather sacrifice another one hundred thousand soldiers than have his legacy include being defeated by the former comedian President Zelensky and his allies. I would not be surprised if the war raged on four years from now.

At the end of my dream, I rose from my underground habitat with millions of friends, forming a choir, and emitted a deafening high-pitched noise so everyone knew we had surfaced. However, unlike real Cicadas, there was not a lot of mating and mass dying a few weeks later. No one stepped on me, causing a loud crunching sound and I wasn’t swept up and put in the trash.

According to Psychology Today, psychologists either believe “dreams are nothing more than random brain activity that occurs while we sleep or, like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, believe that dreams reveal a person’s deepest unconscious wishes, fears, and desires.” I believe dreams are Cathartic. Catharsis is defined as providing psychological relief through an open expression of strong emotions. The word is derived from the Latin, Greek word kathartikos or “cleansing.” Boy, I need cleansing after four years of President Trump, several years of a defendant Trump, and almost four years of Biden, who while the right choice has never been an inspirational leader.

When I finally woke up, I was happy to find myself, not a dead Cicada, and less cranky. I felt cleansed and ready to help “Make America Kind Again” and power through the next four years until we can all experience a fresh start in 2028.

Postscript: We are all looking for good news that makes us smile. Above is a video of my son Liam’s unique, sweet wedding proposal to his girlfriend Jess on Saturday. Liam is an MMA fighter and an athletic performance trainer for elite high school athletes. His girlfriend Jess was a D1 collegiate wrestler who now coaches wrestling at Marymount University. She comes from an accomplished wrestling family. The surprise proposal happened at the end of a wrestling clinic taught by her parents held at Liam’s MMA gym, where he trains and teaches Jiu Jitsu. Watch it until the end.

Also, in my April 28, 2024, opinion piece, “Let’s Retire the Word Retire,” I asked readers to suggest a better word to describe retirement. The winner was Inspirement.

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media and other stuff for the Spy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We need a new word to better describe being “retired.” While there are multiple ways to talk about gender, there is only one measly, grossly inadequate word to represent what happens when you leave your job for good, irrevocably altering your life. Thirty-eight million retired people in the US likely agree with me.

In the past, I had no problem using signifiers like Student, Single, Married, and Parent, and my Occupation as a starter shorthand to help people understand what I was about. However, “retired” fails miserably as a descriptive term. It feels more suited to a bold, all-caps red stamp on an expired milk carton. 

I also dislike official forms that ask, “What is your occupation (RETIRED)?” or responding to the question, “What do you do for a living? ” Responding I am “retired” does not cut it. And all I see is the syllable “tired,” which also bothers me. 

It is not surprising because retirement used to be a simple equation. You worked a long time, retired, and soon after entered the pearly gates. However, on average in the US, people now live until they are almost 80, well beyond the average retirement age of 62.

Worst of all, “retired” doesn’t come close to describing the full and rich lives led by many retirees who use their expanded time on the planet to enrich their own lives and those of their families, friends, and communities. 

The word “retire” comes from the mid-century French “Re” (back) and “Tirer” (draw). When used as a verb, it can mean “to retreat,” like troops withdrawing from danger. It can also mean “taking one’s leave,” such as going to bed. As an adjective, it can describe a separation from society or withdrawal into seclusion—nothing you’d want to include in your LinkedIn bio.

To “retire” is defined as “to leave one’s job and cease to work upon reaching a certain age.” It represents the end, or withdrawal, from a career and its corresponding remuneration. However, the word does not fully describe the stage of life that my friends and I now find ourselves in, when people live longer and are physically and mentally healthier, hopefully with twenty years or more of runway left.

Retired became relevant as a life status in the late 1800s when pensions were invented in Germany. Offering a worker retirement plan was a political tool to help fend off socialism. The German government created a retirement benefits system targeting government workers like police, firefighters, and soldiers who deserved to be cared for after years of public service.

This concept sounded great, but the pension retirement age was set at seventy. Unfortunately, most of the population then only lived until their mid-40s and died before reaping the rewards. 

The word “retire” hit the big time in the 1920s, when private sector pension plans arrived to attract and keep employees. It got a jolt in 1921 after the IRS exempted taxes on corporate contributions to employee pension plans. The deal was you work for twenty years, and when you hit 65, you would receive an annual pension payment based on a percentage of your salary. In 1935, as part of FDR’s “New Deal,” the Social Security Act was created as a safety net for the elderly, unemployed, and disadvantaged. 

By the 1950s, about fifty percent of private-sector companies offered pensions, and retirement became a goal for many. Corporations eventually figured out that pensions could also be used to entice aging, higher-paid employees to retire through early buyouts that lowered costs and made room for lower-paid workers. Pensions also became a central point of contention during labor negotiations between management and powerful unions like the United Auto Workers. A pension was and remains an essential benefit for public service and blue-collar unionized workers.

If you worked 40-plus years ago, you likely had a pension. Not so anymore. In the 1980s, companies began replacing traditional pension plans with 401(k) plans, which shifted the cost of managing retirement plans from the company to employees. This move was motivated by corporate fear of millions of baby boomer employees hitting retirement age and the accompanying financial burden. Today, 85 percent of private sector plans are 401(k) plans, and unions are at the top of the shortlist of the remaining providers of traditional pension plans.

While funding for one’s retirement has changed, the definition of “retirement” has remained stagnant. AI noticed the insufficiencies associated with the definition.” I asked ChatGPT for one word that comprehensively best described being retired. According to the AI:

“…If you want a word encapsulating the broader idea of someone who has retired and is now engaged in other pursuits or enjoying life in their own way,  there’s not a single word in English that conveys that fully.”

People lucky enough to have a pension, a healthy 401(k), or who did an excellent job saving for retirement are re-reinventing themselves and indulging their passions. They are traveling, biking, starting new careers, working part-time, taking art classes, gardening, running for office, reading, writing, learning a new language, being active grandparents, volunteering, and yes, playing pickleball.

Some people who like working will do so until they’re booted out the door. Sadly, many people do not have the option to retire because they have debilitating debt, health issues, messy divorces, family to care for, and other financial pressures that force them to keep working and wait for Medicare, Social Security, and a little magic to kick in. 

My retired friends are not withdrawing at all. Kevin Beverly, the former President & CEO of Social and Scientific System, serves on four non-profit boards across Maryland, working as many hours “retired” as he did when running his company. My retired neighbors Susan & Barry Koh play leadership roles in the non-profit Chesapeake Music, Marty & Al Sikes produced a local jazz festival for a decade, and my buddy Scott Cohen, a self-made chef, travels to war zones and other dangerous places to feed people in need. The big difference compared to when they were employed is that these retired dynamos aren’t paid. 

Help me do justice to my retired comrades and find a new term that fully captures life after decades of hard work when we can finally do what we want to do with our time rather than what we have to do.

A recent WSJ article tried coining the phrase “post-achievement years” to describe retirement. However, as one might expect from the WSJ, “achievement years” were defined as the years you made lots of money and had a fancy job—as if being retired and giving back to the community, helping friends, and enriching your own life were not “achievements.”

Please feel free to suggest a replacement for the word “retired.” Until then, when I am asked, “What do you do for a living?” I will quote the poet William Ernest Henley and say, “I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul.” 

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media and other stuff for the Spy. And please do not call him retired.

 

 

15. You refuse to upgrade your Mac operating system because you are terrified it will have bugs and screw up your computer. You only do it when you find out important apps cannot run without the upgrade.

14. Your most sophisticated and used tech questions are: “Honey! Please call my phone” and “Is your internet down.”

13. You freak out when turning the power “Off” and “On” does not immediately solve your tech problem, and when your printer is not working, you hit it with your fist.

12. You can’t remember the new “easy-to-remember” password you were forced to create because you cannot remember your other 20 passwords.

11. When a ticket purchase website includes an obnoxious countdown timer, it feels like you’re in a tense action movie, and a bomb will go off if you do not complete the transaction before the timer hits 0000.

10. You long too much for your first Blackberry, a flip phone, or a landline.

9. You fear a ransomware attack more than an actual home invasion and are waiting for Netflix’s and other services password-sharing police to find you.

8. You spend too much time on social media, talking to Alexa and Siri, and when you go to dinner with friends, you have a rule to limit Google searches to fill in memory blanks in your conversation.

7. It is a horrible and expensive day when Apple announces it is changing all its power cord connector standards (i.e., USBC), making all the chargers and older connectors obsolete.

6. Speaking of obsolete equipment, you have boxes of old chargers, and you don’t know what they are for. Back in medieval times, I used to have this problem with keys.

5. Your home tech equipment has achieved special closet space status. It’s the home for your router, switch, and possibly a sound system and alarm equipment. I label the equipment due to my fading memory and have a yellow ribbon around the plug I must pull frequently when my Breezeline broadband service goes down.

4. When you call your adult children for help fixing a computer problem, they ghost you.

3. Finding excellent and reliable tech support is as essential to you as finding and keeping good childcare is for young parents. Remote tech support is excellent but I am always a little creeped out when they take control of my screen and fix problems in seconds I have labored over for hours.

2. You constantly fail the “I am not a Robot” test when asked to identify all the photos with a traffic light in the picture. You feel like an idiot.

1. When you were younger, you got excited about the introduction of new or upgraded tech devices (e.g., Walkman, iPod, iPhone, etc.) and raced to get one. Now, you just want everything to stay the same.

The indicators selected above were based on extensive research and do not depict me in any way. Yeah, Right! Please email me or comment with your indicator suggestions.

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.

Last week, I stepped into a movie theater for the first time in over three years. My son Liam lured me out of Easton with an invitation to see Dune Part 2 at an IMAX theater in Silver Springs, MD, with his girlfriend Jess. Since COVID, I have shunned big crowds and happily stream Hollywood movies, watching them on my big-screen TV with my dog, Ella. But it was impossible to turn down an invite from my son. 

We bond with our children in different ways. Liam and I bonded over superheroes and sci-fi movies. I was a big comic book kid. I constantly drew my favorite superheroes and got pretty good. As a parent, I learned that being able to draw Batman, Superman, or Thor, along with a few spaceships, was a sure way to impress a little boy. 

One of our first father-son traditions was going to a comic book store in Bethesda weekly. In 5th grade, we discovered Liam had dyslexia and had trouble reading. He was not a fan of the special tutoring we arranged. However, he loved comics, which helped get him to read. It was basic bribery. We would only go to the comic book store if he did his homework. It was an expensive trip since the cheap comic book of my day had inflated into the $20 graphic novel—it was a small price to pay.

Our next father-son tradition began when comic book characters moved to the big screen. The first Marvel movie (Iron Man, 2008) hit theaters when Liam was 11. Whenever a new superhero or sci-fi film hit the theaters, I would pick him up at the school bus stop and head to the nearest theater. This increased as theaters were overwhelmed with superhero films and reboots of the Star Wars and Star Trek movie franchises.

I always encouraged Liam to read Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965). It’s a foundational sci-fi book.  Star Wars creator George Lucus, Games of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin, and many others borrowed generously from Dune. Liam never got around to it. Then girls, sports, college, work, and COVID got in the way, and our movie-viewing tradition ended—until last week.  

My return to the movie theater was worth it. Dune Part 2 is a well-crafted sci-fi epic with a balance of action and humanity. It’s visually stunning and features excellent acting from the next generation of Hollywood movie stars, including Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, and Florence Pugh, as well as accomplished older stars like Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Stellan Skarsgard, and Christopher Walken. The Director, Denis Villeneuve, is an accomplished filmmaker and screenwriter with a vision. He is known for films including Blade Runner 2049, Sicario, and Arrival, which earned him a Best Director Oscar nomination in 2016. 

Villeneuve enticed us with Dune 1 (2021), a slower-moving set-up film designed to introduce the audience to the Dune universe. He delivered the goods in Dune Part 2. It’s Game of Thrones meets Lawrence of Arabia. The movie made $82M in its opening weekend, garnering a glowing 93% Rotten Tomato Review score and a 95% Audience Rating.

The movie is not a simple good versus evil story. Its so-called heroes are complex, and the villains are excellent. The film touches on adult and religious themes, including how outside forces can influence the masses, the need to be cautious of charismatic messiah figures, and the cult of personality that grows around them.

These are all relevant themes, considering the current political and personality landscape. And who doesn’t like a film featuring giant Sandworms? It’s also hard not to root for the Fremen, the indigenous, underdog desert people of Arrakis (aka Dune) in search of a savior. You know you have a hit movie when the audience applauds as the credits roll, and you see people dressed up as one of the characters. As I left the theater, I spotted a Bene Gesserit witch, a significant Dune character, walking behind me. Prepare yourself for Dune Part 3 and more after that.

The first Dune movie cost $165M. The pandemic and a dumb distribution strategy by Warner Bros hurt the theatrical box office. The studio released the film in theaters on the same day as its MAX streaming platform to juice subscription sign-ups. Why go to movies if people with MAX could watch it at home? It still earned a $434M.

Under new management, Warner Bros reinstituted an exclusive theatrical release window for Dune Part 2, followed by PPV streaming. The Dune Part 2 budget was $190M. It must earn $475M to make a profit. No problem. The film will eventually generate $2B+ worldwide and join the elite club. The marketing campaign for the film was massive, targeting the younger 18-24 demo, representing half the moviegoers. The movie’s young, attractive stars were sent everywhere to hype the film in TV ads, talk shows, industry events, and social media. Warner Bros. is counting on it to help turn around its sagging stock price.

These spectacle movies get a bad rap despite generating billions of dollars, employing thousands, and helping make movies our largest US export. Critics complain that the obsession with expensive franchises causes studios to abandon supporting smaller independent projects and limit the number of theaters available to show such films. 

Even Disney CEO Bob Iger said that increased film output designed to feed more content to its streaming platform Disney+ was a mistake, resulting in too much supply and the release of inferior-quality films and red ink. Disney’s Marvel and Warner Bros DCEU studios released 2023 films that bombed. Warner Bros lost $200M on The Flash, and Marvel lost $70M on The Marvels, projected to make $600M, rare for this genre. Dune’s success is a shot in the arm for the genre. The debate about these big-budget franchise films’ artistic and economic value will rage on.

What I love about them is that my son and I have enjoyed experiencing them together for a long time. When he was very young, we tried to move objects with our minds like a Jedi and debated the best superpower to have. Today, we discuss script construction, casting, and the business of Hollywood and pick out the best lines from the latest movie. For Dune, it was “All Hail the Fighters!”

Liam turns 27 on Sunday. He reads a lot now, trains elite athletes to improve their performance, and is a mixed martial arts coach and fighter. He is my favorite superhero, although he drives me crazy.

It’s unclear when I will return to the movie theater. I am just getting over parking in an elevated garage and being mocked for taking a picture of a sign showing the floor we parked on, the large crowds, and a thunderous sound system. But there is hope.

My brother Rick told me he watched Dune Part 2 in a high-tech Manhattan movie theatre with the 4DX movie experience technology. It’s a multi-sensory environment with specialized rumble motion seats that swivel, shake, tilt, and slide, plus environmental effects synchronized to engage all your senses. Marketing copy describes the experience as, “Imagine feeling like you’re flying alongside Iron Man or getting splashed in the face by Aquaman.” That might get me out of Easton.

If Liam can’t go, my 8-month-old grandson, Zev, will begin his Jedi movie-watching tradition in a few years. I have several boxes of comic books for him, but I might need to wait until he walks before taking him to the movies. 

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media and other stuff for the Spy.

Wes Moore took office in January 2023 and has been riding an extended honeymoon. He has basked in gushing national press coverage, including cover stories in the New Yorker, Time, and Vogue that have propelled his political brand and turned him into a national figure and fundraiser. He is on a short list of young Democrats described as the party’s future and even mentioned as a 2028 presidential candidate. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.   

In 2022, Moore proved a formidable political talent, coming from behind to beat better-known Democratic opponents in the primary (Tom Perez, Peter Franchot). He then soundly trounced his Republican opponent, Dan Cox, with 64.5 percent of the votes. It did not hurt that the former, popular, two-term Republican Governor Larry Hogan called Cox a “Q-anon Wack Job.” Moore became the first black Governor in Maryland and only the third in US history.

However, Moore is about to have a significant political moment as his honeymoon ends. Real governing and tough decision-making began with the 2025 budget process, which has moved front and center in a state requiring a balanced budget. The sausage-making for the fiscal year 2025 budget (July 1, 2024-June 30, 2025) is underway, and Moore must submit a balanced budget to the General Assembly this week. 

When Moore took office and submitted his 2024 budget only a year ago, things looked pretty good. In his first budget cover letter, he painted a rosy financial picture. Working from budget projections his new team was provided, he wrote, “We are in a fortunate financial position to craft a budget with significant positive General Fund cash balances” but warned of economic uncertainty. Analysts projected 2024 budget surpluses of $232 million in 2025 and $263 million in 2026. 

However, in July 2023, there was a sudden swing from the rosy budget surplus projection to a deficit now estimated to be $761 million, growing to over $2.7 Billion in four years. This new financial reality will test Moore’s slogan, “Leave No One Behind,” and his ability to implement the key initiatives he touted as a candidate and during his first year in office.

The dark financial clouds appeared last summer when the Department of Legislative Services issued a report detailing so-called “structural budget deficits” that appeared after the 2023 General Assembly session. During this session, Moore’s first initiatives that he talked about on the campaign trail passed, among other Democratic initiatives, by Democratic majorities in Annapolis, according to Maryland Matters. 

Moore’s initiatives included extending the tax credit for military retirees, the Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program, permanent extension of the State Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and increasing the State’s minimum wage to $15 per hour that took effect in October 2023. The cost of these programs was not surprising to anyone and was part of Moore’s legislative agenda that helped propel him to such a large election victory.

The explanations for how the State’s finances so dramatically swung from surpluses to deficits have been weak from the various people and departments that report on the State’s financial health. Some have deflected, saying that dealing with deficits is the ordinary course of business when balancing the budget or resulting from a blurry sugar high coming out of COVID, which funneled lots of Federal money into the state.

A Washington Post article addressing the deficit noted that, according to Moore, “A similar dynamic has played out ahead of 17 of the past 20 budget cycles, Moore noted, with politicians pushing for policy wins passing legislation without putting money behind their plans. As Moore said Thursday, “We put everything inside of budgets without a plan on how to pay for it, and the budget gap is the result.” He added, “The hard thing means actually fixing a system that’s broken, so that we can lead and not simply sustain.”

Whatever the reason, it is what it is. 

The bigger issue is how our first-term governor will handle this budget challenge. The State’s budget in 2024 was $63 billion. Moore has to find cuts or more revenue to offset the projected $761 million shortfall in the 2025 budget cycle. Moore moved quickly to prepare everyone to make tough decisions in the 2025 budget at the August Maryland Association of Counties summer conference in Ocean City. 

He told the crowd this was the season of discipline and added that everyone had to “put on their big boy pants.” He could have done without the patronizing football coach tone, and I expect many Republican and Democratic legislators, who have been through numerous budget cycles, winced at the comment. Not to mention female legislators and maybe his Lieutenant Governor Aruna Miller, who don’t own big-boy pants. I expect next year, he will stick to “We have a job to do.”   

It would appear Moore’s wardrobe suggestion also applies to himself. He has already laid out some austerity measures, both large and small, to prepare for the budget submission. As a candidate in political sales mode, he promised as Governor to end child poverty, add 5000 state employees, create a transformational national service program, rebuild our schools, and implement various expensive education, infrastructure, and transportation projects. 

The Baltimore Sun wrote, “The administration has detailed $3.3 billion in cuts to the state’s six-year transportation agenda while maintaining support for the multibillion-dollar Blueprint educational reform plan and announcing climate goals that would cost $1 billion more each year.”  Moore also has backed away from his pledge to hire 5000 state employees, and his Service Program is modest compared to the press hype used when it was announced.  

A big budget challenge will be finding creative ways to deal with The Blueprint for Maryland Future, a multi-billion dollar educational reform program based on the Kirwin Commission. Passed in 2021, the plan was designed to revamp the State’s public schools and early childhood programs funded by a combination of the State and Counties. The plan calls for increasing teacher salaries to $60,000 annually, among other big-ticket expense items.   

The Counties are nervous regarding their ability to absorb their share of the cost of the program and want flexibility on its implementation, and the State is concerned about what happens when a combination of Special Funds and revenue currently earmarked for education reportedly runs out in 2027, shifting the budget responsibility to the General Fund, becoming part of the general operating budget of the state. 

Governor Moore must now work with the General Assembly to craft a balanced budget, avoid raising taxes and fees as much as possible, or lay out compelling reasons for their need. Moore’s private sector experience was running the Robin Hood Foundation, a non-profit that raised lots of money and gave it to worthy non-profit organizations. Balancing a budget is much harder since you can’t avoid making someone unhappy.    

Moore is lucky to have a Democratic supermajority in the House and Senate to help him get what he wants and be able to sign off on the 2025 budget. This contrasts with another rising star in the Democratic party, Governor Andy Beshear. He governs in conservative Kentucky and must have a balanced budget, but must work with a State House as red as Maryland is blue.

Governor Moore continued discussing the state’s fiscal health at the Maryland Association of Counties’ winter meeting. He told the crowd, “Our administration did not create the budget gap. But let me be very clear: We refuse to ignore it, and we refuse to push policies that will only make it worse. We might not have caused this problem, but we will address this problem”.  

Moore is a telegenic political talent and now must prove himself as a skilled chief executive for the state, balancing complex financial realities with lofty legislative goals while maintaining his pledge to “Leave No One Behind.” No one said this was going to be an easy gig. 

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media and other stuff for the Spy.

 

# 15 The injectable drug Ozempic, designed to help people with type 2 diabetes regulate insulin levels, became the hottest dietary drug in 2023, generating big bucks for drug company Novo Nordisk, now valued at $354 billion. It is not FDA-approved for weight loss, but millions use it to shed pounds. The drug mimics a naturally occurring hormone that tells your brain you are full. It sounds too good to be true. Check with your doctor before using, or just join a gym. 

#14 Taylor Swift’s U.S. concert tour generated almost $5 billion in total consumer spending, contributing to US GDP, which was larger than the GDP of 35 countries, according to the Common Sense Institute. Forbes also named Swift the 5th most powerful woman in the world. Who thought there was so much money in sad songs about breaking up?  

#13 The top-grossing 2023 movies included blockbusters Barbie ($1.4 billion) and Oppenheimer ($952 million). One was about dolls, the other about the creator of the atomic bomb. Not your traditional blockbuster holiday themes. The films were released simultaneously and their box office impact was called the “Barbenheimer” effect. 

#12 Many say Artificial Intelligence will eliminate millions of jobs. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the leading AI software company, was fired by his board, rehired, and then the Board was fired. AI is certainly causing people to lose their jobs.  

#11 On October 7th, the terrorist group Hamas slaughtered 1200 Israelis, girls were raped, babies decapitated, and over 240 people, including Americans, were taken hostage. However, on US college campuses, students ripped down posters of Israeli hostages, including children, and harassed Jewish students. They held rallies more anti-Semitic than pro-Palestinian and supported Hamas, which uses Palestinians as human shields.

#10 University presidents from Penn, MIT, and Harvard got an F grade for their testimony before Congress for failing to answer a simple question: “Is calling for the genocide of Jews appropriate speech on a college campus?” proving that intelligent people can be very stupid.

# 9 The Supreme Court, which hears cases involving ethics, has its own ethics problem. It was uncovered that Justice Clarence Thomas got a loan from a wealthy “friend” for his luxury RV ($267,000) that he never paid back in full or reported gifts, including 38 destination vacations, 26 private jet flights, VIP sports passes, helicopter flights, private resort stays, among other things. There’s nothing like a lifetime gig with perks.   

# 8 Eric Adams, the embattled Democratic NYC Mayor, responding to the radio interview question, “Why is NYC the greatest city on the globe?” said, “This is a place where every day you wake up, you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our Trade Center to a person who’s celebrating a new business that’s open.” Not the best tourism pitch. 

# 7 A majority of Americans support allowing legal abortions in cases of rape, incest, and when a woman’s health is in danger. However, the 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and many 2023 state abortion laws include no such exemptions. Even where there are such exceptions, many doctors and hospitals are fearful of performing the abortion and being sued, resulting in significant legal exposure. I expect these exemptions would be swiftly added if men were the ones forced to give birth under these circumstances.

# 6 In 2018, Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi regime, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and was brutally murdered. U.S. intelligence believes the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the hit. One way to cleanse the Saudi brand is to buy popular sports properties called “Sportswashing.” There’s nothing like an exciting  Saudi-sponsored hole-in-one to offset the image of a Saudi hit team dismembering a journalist. In 2023, the Saudi Public Investment Fund spent $2 billion to create LIV Golf, luring away top PGA players with huge contracts and forcing a merger with the PGA. Play on.

# 5 Rudy Giuliani and his fall from America’s Mayor to nut job to now bankrupt. 

# 4 The GOP House continues to go after Hunter Biden, the broken, former drug-using son of the President who is currently under indictment by the Justice Dept. But what about Jared Kushner, the former President’s son-in-law? He secured a $2 billion investment into his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, from an investment fund led by the Saudi Crown Prince only six months after leaving the White House. While at the White House, Kushner helped broker a $110 billion weapons sale with the Saudis and defended the regime after the assassination of Khashoggi. Kushner’s White House tenure was pretty lucrative. How about a hearing on that?

# 3 The GOP House clown show was on full display in 2023: George Santos (R-NY), the indicted pathological serial liar, was finally expelled from Congress; a small group of GOP House members effectively shut down the government after firing their Speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) without having a Plan B; and Rep Lauren Boebert (R-CO), a guardian of family values, engaged in groping with a male companion, captured on security video, during a packed family-friendly Beetlejuice musical performance. I wish we could just say “Beetlejuice” three times, like in the movie, and make the clown show disappear. 

# 2 Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), considered a leading conservative idealogue from a powerful hawkish political family, was not MAGA-enough for today’s GOP. She voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 and with him 93% of the time in Congress. However, the Jan 6 attack on the Capital turned Cheney into an anti-Trump leader. She sacrificed her party leadership position and House seat to stand up to Trump and defend the Constitution. 

# 1 And the most upside-down thing of 2023 was Donald Trump. After all the false claims of 2020 election fraud, which failed in 60 court cases, the refusal to allow a peaceful transition of power that led to the January 6th attack on the Capital, which he egged on, and the 91 indictments for various crimes, he is still the GOP Presidential front-runner. 

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.

The proposed $350 million Easton-based UM Shore Regional Medical Center has generated a lot of excitement. The new state-of-the-art facility will encompass 325,000 square feet on six floors featuring 147 beds,122 acute inpatient and 25 observation beds, emergency, surgery, labor and delivery, and support services. It will be located near the intersection of Rt 50 and Longwoods Road only four miles north of the existing hospital. The total projected cost is $550 million.

Before leaving office, former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan pledged a $100 million contribution from the state toward the project. A pledge is excellent but an empty gesture until it becomes part of the State budget. Hogan is gone, leaving that work to Governor Moore, a big supporter of rural healthcare and the Eastern Shore. He and the legislature approved only $10 million for fiscal year 2024 and promised $20 million in 2025. So, a lot of heavy political lifting is still needed to secure all $100 million, especially in light of looming state deficits projected to hit $1 billion by 2028 unless hard choices are made.      

The new Medical Center represents the most significant piece of the University of Maryland Medical Systems (UMMS) hub and spoke strategy to create an integrated Mid Shore regional rural healthcare delivery system encompassing Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s, and Talbot counties, representing about 175,000 people. The last hurdle is getting the “Certificate of Need” (CON) final regulatory approval from the Maryland Healthcare Commission, which is expected very soon. The hope is the new facility will open in 2028.

UMMS Eastern Shore expansion began over a decade ago. In 2006, UMMS merged with Shore Health Systems, which operated Memorial Hospital in Easton and Dorchester General in Cambridge. In 2008, UMMS merged with Chester River Health Systems, which operated Chestertown Hospital. In 2013, UMMS rolled it all up, forming UM Shore Regional Health. The rebranded UM Shore Regional Health includes UM Shore Medical Center in Easton, a 146-bed acute care facility providing in and outpatient service; UM Shore Medical Center in Cambridge, a free-standing medical facility that provides emergency services and various outpatient services; UM Shore Medical at Chestertown, a rural hospital facility that has flexible capacity for 25 inpatients plus outpatient services to Kent & Queen Anne counties; and UM Shore Emergency Center at Queenstown, a free-standing emergency center. UMMS also operates urgent care sites, acquired from Choice One and rebranded UM Urgent Care, in Denton, Kent Island, and Easton. 

As we await the final regulatory approval for a Medical Center that will not open until 2028, it is necessary to focus on the hospital’s current operating performance and significant challenges, which include long ER wait times and nursing shortages, which must be improved immediately. 

Emergency Room Wait Time. We are generally free to choose where we want to be treated and from what doctors, except when we have a medical emergency that requires immediate attention or when we call 911. Whether you cut yourself cooking, your child fell and broke his leg, or you are experiencing chest pains, an ER visit is a traumatic moment. If you live in Easton, the ambulance takes you to the UM Shore Medical Center ER. This makes people nervous, especially after Maryland Matters reported that Maryland has the longest emergency room “wait times” in the US, according to the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission. And UM Shore Medical Center had the longest emergency room wait time in the State! Clocking in with a median wait time of 1,400 minutes, just under 24 hours, from when patients arrived at the facility to when they were admitted.  

We all sensed a problem based on anecdotal reports and personal experience, but having it confirmed by empirical data was shocking. The New Facility with more beds and better equipment will help improve ER performance, but what do you do right now? Hospital management regularly meets with elected officials. However, they need better public outreach (i.e., forums, opinion piece, public meetings) explaining how they will improve out of control wait times and when they expect to approach national medians (under five hours, according to U.S. News). Our elected officials, from the Governor down to the Mayor of Easton, should be asking tough questions. 

Improve Nursing Staffing, Reduce Attrition & Improve the Nurse-to-Bed Ratio. Hospitals are struggling with a nursing shortage of 450,000 nurses nationwide and a shortage of doctors estimated to be 120,000. It’s a huge problem, especially for rural hospitals. How does Shore Regional Medical Center’s current performance regarding nurse staffing compare with other comparable hospitals? What is management doing to attract and retain talented nursing staff in this competitive market? Is the issue compensation, more flexible work hours, or both? Nursing shortages affect many aspects of care, including ER wait time. Earlier this year, an EMT told me during a midnight 911 visit to my home that if they took my wife to the ER, it would be many hours before she would get a bed, and even that was not guaranteed. Not because a bed was unavailable but because there were not enough nurses to cover the beds. Management has emphasized that the new UM Shore Medical Center will help attract and retain talent.

Improve Hospital Culture. Elizabeth H. Bradley, President of Vassar College, author, and former Faculty Director of Yale University’s Health Leadership Institute, speaking about organizational culture, once said, “It’s how people communicate, the level of support, and the organizational culture that trump any single intervention of any single strategy that hospitals frequently adopt.” I am curious how Shore employees rate their hospital as a workplace and management’s performance. Internal employee engagement (satisfaction) surveys are standard, as are 360-degree evaluations that ask employees to rate managers, including the President & CEO. Comments about what it is like to work at UM Shore Medical Center on job websites like Glassdoor and Indeed are not great. I know several experienced nurses who have worked at the hospital for decades. They say nurses are burnt out, some looking to retire, and many unhappy with management after several brutal and stressful years dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and long hours due to nursing shortages and other factors.

I hope members of the UMMS and UM Shore Health boards aggressively monitor and demand improvement in these areas long before the new hospital opens. More stringent patient satisfaction and operating metrics focused on these issues should be included in management’s annual performance review and bonus awards, including for President & Chief Executive Officer Ken Kozel.

Maryland is blessed with great hospitals. Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center appears on Newsweek’s 2024 list of best in-state hospitals at number (4), along with (1) John Hopkins Hospital, (2) John Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, (3) University of Maryland Medical Center, (5) Saint Joseph Medical Center, and (6) MedStar Union Memorial. Anne Arundel is currently the best hospital within 50 miles of Easton and a UMMS competitor located right over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Luminis Health is a non-profit health system formed in 2019 when Anne Arundel Medical Center acquired Doctors Community Medical Center. Luminis serves Anne Arundel, Prince George’s Counties, and parts of the Eastern Shore. I am hopeful UM Shore Medical Center will appear on this list soon. 

Hospitals are sensitive to ratings from well-known hospital rating organizations and publicize good ratings and downplay bad ones. For 2022, The Leapfrog Group, a national non-profit healthcare rating organization, gave an “A” grade rating (A-F) for overall hospital safety to UM Shore Medical Center and Luminis Anne Arundel Medical Center. Medicare.gov also provides a “Star Rating,” representing overall “Hospital” and “Patient” performance. Shore did not do as well.  

Medicare.gov Overall Hospital Star Rating*

UM Shore Medical Center                                 3 out of 5 stars

Luminis Anne Arundel Medical Center          4 out of 5 stars

* Rating represents an overall performance across different areas of quality, such as treating heart attacks and pneumonia, readmissions, and rates of safety of care. 

Medicare.gov Patient Star Rating*

Um Shore Medical Center                                2 out of 5 Stars 

Luminis Anne Arundel Medical Center                 4 out of 5 Stars

*Recently discharged patients were asked about doctor and nurse communications, how responsive hospital staff was to their needs, and the cleanliness and quietness of the hospital environment.

Looking forward, UMMS must still raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the Medical Center. Potential donors will soon be asked to pay big bucks as part of an upcoming capital campaign. They will ask the same performance questions I have, and management must have the answers. Residents should not worry when taken to the ER or wait five years for the new Medical Center to have an impact.

Replacing our aging hospital with the new Medical Center will not magically solve every operating problem. Just like trading in your aging Honda Civic for an expensive Tesla does not magically make you a better driver. Transformational change is always challenging, and management must rise to the occasion. We all are rooting for them to succeed. 

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.

 

Over the last few years, as our judiciary system has pushed back against Trump’s disregard for the rule of law, we have been drinking from a legal educational firehose. Media content has always played a role in educating us about the law, miscarriages of justice, and the justice system in general, and it has never been more important in a digital world of misinformation. 

My favorite legal term learned during the Trump era is Willful Blindness. Best explained in a New York Times opinion piece by Burt Neuborne, a professor emeritus at New York University Law School. He believes that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith intends to show that Trump lied about election fraud to gain unlawful criminal benefits (a 2nd term in office after losing the election). Neuborne wrote, “When a defendant, like Mr. Trump, is on notice of the potential likelihood of an inconvenient fact (Mr. Biden’s legitimate victory) and closes his eyes to overwhelming evidence of that fact, the willfully blind defendant is just as guilty as if he actually knew the fact.” 

For many, great books and popular movies were the first exposure to big legal concepts. Famous films like To Kill a Mockingbird centered on injustice in our legal system based on race; 12 Angry Men focused on the legal concept of reasonable doubt; and Inherit the Wind pitted Darwin’s theory of evolution against creationism in court. More contemporary movies like Philadelphia dealt with homophobia when a young attorney sued his law firm for firing him because he had AIDS. Sometimes, legal concepts get their own movie, like Absence of Malice, the legal standard that protects news organizations from libel and defamation claims.

TV attorney dramas (The Practice, The Good Wife) and urban crime dramas with stories ripped from the headlines also added to our legal education. The leader of this popular genre is Law & Order, which takes you from the crime to the courtroom conclusion. Watching these shows, I learned about being Mirandized (“you have the right to remain silent…”), entering into a plea deal (i.e., Sidney Powel, Mark Meadows), and going after the big fish (i.e., Trump, Giuliani), plus fun acronyms like Perp (Perpetrator), Vic (victim), and BOLO (be on the lookout). All helpful in understanding today’s multitude of real-life legal dramas. The growth of 24-hour cable news, social media, and new digital content like crime podcasts (i.e., Serial) supercharged our legal education.

The tidal wave of Trump lawsuits has turned the legal spotlight away from urban crime and onto the boring world of white-collar crime. Terms like RICO (Racketeering & Corrupt Organizations Act), Defamation (the action of damaging the good reputation of someone), Business Fraud (the wrongful and criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain), and Gag Order (a legal order restricting a person from making certain information public or statements) have become part of regular dinner banter. 

Before the terrorist attack on Israel, MSNBC was a wall-to-wall legal analysis of Trump’s various lawsuits filed against him and those who came under his influence, which include former staffers, business colleagues, political operatives, and over 200 convicted January 6 rioters. Fox News paid a $787 million settlement to end a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion, the voting machine company, relating to defamatory and false claims Fox made about the 2020 election being stolen.

There are 91 felony counts filed against Trump in four criminal cases in Washington, New York, and Georgia. Charges included violating Georgia’s RICO anti-racketeering statute (four co-conspirators have flipped), hoarding classified documents and refusing to return them, and state charges relating to hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. A federal judge has already ruled that Trump is liable for defamatory statements he made about writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019 when she went public with claims he raped her decades earlier. She was awarded $5 million. Trump is also in a contentious $250 million business fraud case in NY. He is charged with inflating his business assets. In a partial summary judgment, the judge determined that Trump had submitted “fraudulent valuations” for his assets, leaving the judge to determine additional actions and the financial penalty. The verdict will be appealed. 

Adding to our crash course legal education are Senator Bob “Goldfinger” Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife, Nadin. It is alleged that Menendez used his influence to pocket bribes from a foreign government, which included gold bars, cash, and a luxury car. And there is Hunter Biden, who did not pay his taxes for several years and made false statements about purchasing a firearm and illegally obtaining a firearm while addicted to drugs. A Special Counsel is looking into these matters after a Federal judge rejected a prior plea agreement. 

My favorite new litigation is a shareholder lawsuit involving Fox News. Five NYC pension funds, joined by Oregon pension funds, filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit against the board of directors and key officers of Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, for breach of fiduciary duty. NYC pension funds invest for 800,000 current and retired teachers, cops, and firemen, manage over $253 billion in assets, and own about $30 million shares in the Fox Corporation (as of August 31, 2023). The complaint alleges that the Fox Board knew that Fox News promoted political narratives without regard for whether the underlying factual assertions were true, creating defamation risk, including crazy false claims that election technology companies Dominion and Smartmatics, among others, rigged the 2020 presidential election.

These pension funds read all the embarrassing Dominion depositions, emails, texts, etc., which showed Fox News knew that they were peddling false narratives, and the board did nothing to stop it. The pension funds concluded the board had not fulfilled their fiduciary duty of care to mitigate risk and protect shareholder value, resulting in the $787 million Dominion payout, other pending defamation cases, and a depressed stock price. And if Fox is handing out big settlement money, they want some. This will get settled. Fox does not want more of its dirty laundry exposed, and now retired Fox Chairman Ruppert Murdoch, at 92, wants this to go away.

The final phase of our legal education will be when a bunch of the Perps are found guilty. Then, we will learn about endless appeals, pardons, sentencing guidelines, and whether a former President’s Secret Service detail must accompany him to prison if convicted. Or if a sitting convicted President can pardon himself.     

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.

 

The recent media reporting by the New York Times and other news organizations regarding last week’s Al-Ahi Arab hospital bombing in Gaza highlights the perils of reporting in a war zone and the pressure on news organizations to get it right in an online world where misinformation travels worldwide at lightning speed. 

The Free Press, a non-profit that keeps a close eye on media, wrote on X (formerly Twitter):

 “Tuesday night, October 17, an explosion at the Al-Ahi Arab Hospital rocked Gaza City. Almost immediately, news organizations— Reuters, the AP, New York Times, & the Washington Post— blamed Israel, citing claims by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry. But Israel denied any role in the explosion, and in the coming hours, it became clear that the explosion was caused by a misfired Hamas rocket. News organizations issued half-hearted retractions, but the narrative had echoed the globe, leading to violent anti-US and anti-Israel protests.”

Many of us who received rapid-fire news alerts about the reported Israeli airstrike were shocked and confused. An attack of this nature served no purpose strategically for Israel and would be a disaster from a public relations perspective, with the world clearly on its side after the brutal, well-planned massacre of Jews. The news reporting led to angry protests across the Middle East and the cancellation of planned meetings between US and Arab diplomats. 

The media’s reckless need to report the news first or simultaneously with other news organizations highlighted the dangers when there is no proper vetting or more nuanced crafting of headlines and reporting, which came later in the day. Unfortunately, you can’t unsqueeze the toothpaste once misinformation makes it online. This is a particularly acute problem in a war zone where news organizations have a limited presence, and bomb site forensic analysis and a  review of satellite imagery and video footage are all needed to understand what happened.

People tend to believe news that supports their worldview, especially when enabled by a prestigious media outlet like the New York Times. The first Times news alert headline about the hospital bombing hit Tuesday evening, October 17: Breaking News: Israel Strike on Hospital Kills Hundreds, Palestinian Official Says. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF), already reeling from last week’s terrorist attack that left 2,000 dead and over 200 people taken hostage, now had to quickly engage in a media battle to refute misinformation blaming Israel for the hospital bombing. The IDF denied responsibility and circulated evidence showing it was misfired terrorist missiles fired within Gaza that struck the hospital. The US later corroborated the Israeli interpretation of events. The Times eventually changed their homepage headline to read, At Least 500 Dead in Blast Gaza Hospital, Palestinians Say, (deleting the reference to “Israeli Strike,”) but the misinformation damage was done.

According to Time Magazine, before the hospital bombing, misinformation on social media about the Israel-Hamas war had garnered over 22 million views on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram within three days of the Hamas attack, according to information shared with the Time by Newsguard, an organization which tracks misinformation. Imagine what that number of misinformation views was after the hospital bombing headlines. 

The Times has never been good about admitting fault in their international reporting – remember the Times’s flawed reporting supporting the White House claim that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.

On Wednesday, October 18, the Times media reporter Katie Robertson wrote a story titled “After Hospital Blast, Headlines Shift with Changing Claims.” The article covered how hard it is to report in a war zone, included tepid criticism of the Times’s performance, and mentioned the Times was not the only one to screw up. The article described the BBC’s initial breaking news headline, Hundreds Feared Dead or Injured in Israeli Airstrike on Hospital in Gaza, Palestinian Officials Say. Later modified to, Israel Denies Airstrike on Hospital in Gaza, Saying Failed Militant Rocket to Blame.”

Nowhere in the Times article did a senior Times Editor comment on the Times-generated misinformation that sent thousands into the street protesting what they believed was an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian hospital. The Times should have apologized for getting the story so wrong initially, admitted it should not have relied on a Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health spokesman, and that it should have corrected the headline much faster.

It was not until today, Monday, October 23, that the paper under the byline The New York Times finally had its mea culpa, admitting “it relied too heavily on claims from Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not be verified.” and later added, “Newsrooms leaders continue to examine procedures around the biggest breaking new events – including for the use of the largest headlines in the digital report – to determine what additional safeguards may be warranted.” Some common sense works for me. 

What makes the Times’s misinformation so egregious is that, as one of our premier Western news organizations, it sets the editorial agenda for the media in general. We also rely on the Times to offset less independent international news organizations like Al Jazeera, no friend of Israel, funded by the Qatari government, which as of the writing of this article, still claimed it was an Israeli airstrike rather than a misfired Hamas rocket. 

The misinformation about the bombing also fed into growing anti-semitism worldwide and hostility toward Israel among US progressives. The Hill has reported that members of the so-called “Squad” comprised of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Cori Bush (D-MO), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) in the House of Representatives voted against funding for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, even though its uses are solely defensive.

Some progressives, slow to condemn the atrocities committed by Hamas, jumped into action when news of the hospital bombing broke. Congresswoman Tlaib was particularly strident in her comments about Israel. Protests in cities and college campuses appeared more anti-Israel than pro-Palestinian. However, as the initial reports that Israel was not the villain of this story, progressives backpedaled rapidly. 

The media needs to do a better job. In the days and months to come, the fog of war will only make it more complicated for the media, and the fact that you can post a correction later in the day does not cut it. The people in charge of the news must report the story accurately and avoid becoming the story.

Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur, was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.