Meanwhile, in the business world, autopsies of failed enterprises reveal that the cause of death in many cases was myopic management. The aforesaid myopia is often reflected in corporate leaders’ failure to respond to competition and/or to notice market trends caused by rapid advances in technology. The demise of companies behind iconic brands such as Kodak, Polaroid, and Circuit City, together with the recent bailouts in the U.S. auto industry, suggests that bad management, in the end, can be far more costly than paying top dollar for first-rate leadership.

Unfortunately, first-rate leadership is as much in high demand — and short supply — as franchise-quality quarterbacks in the National Football League. Short supply plus high demand equals top pay.

Which brings us to Matt Lauer, the co-host of NBC’s Today Show. The show — a long-running mishmash of news, entertainment, and plugs for other interests of the parent company, NBC-Universal – once had a chimp named J. Fred Muggs “co-hosting” (1953-57) with Today’s original host, Dave Garroway. For awhile after that embarrassment — and especially during the period encompassing the peak of the Cold War,Vietnam, and Watergate — the program featured more respected journalists such as Hugh Downs, Tom Brokaw, and Jane Pauley.

Under their influence, Today became a somewhat more serious purveyor of news – though always with an admixture of entertainment thrown in. In recent years, however, Today stresses entertainment, with an admixture of news thrown in. Critics even refer to Today and similar programs as “infotainment.” Nonetheless, it has remained a ratings leader in its time slot and an important generator of profits for long-suffering NBC. As a result, keeping Today ahead in the ratings is an important goal for NBC, which otherwise has been languishing in fourth place among the four major broadcast networks – and losing boatloads of money year after year on its failed prime-time programming.

NBC’s top executives obviously attribute a good bit of Today’s ratings success to Mr. Lauer, who has been paired with a variety of co-hosts since he came aboard in 1997. Lauer and NBC just signed a new contract extending his co-hosting duties at a reported (but denied) annual salary of $25 million. To earn this, he had to be willing to get up early, read a Teleprompter, interview guests ranging from world leaders to Hollywood starlets, occasionally travel to exotic places at the network’s expense, and – most important — keep Today’s ratings ahead of ABC’s Good Morning America.

If Mr. Lauer can persuade NBC to pay him the reported $25 million a year to do all of that, more power to him. Even so, there is a bit of irony in that this pay scale places Mr. Lauer squarely in the realm that the Occupy Wall Street protestors have labeled “the one percent.” What makes this doubly ironic is Mr. Lauer’s views on politics and economics, views that clearly align him with the thinking of the leftist protestors and also led him to be among the harshest critics of the tea party movement. The nonpartisan Media Research Centerhas documented numerous examples of Mr. Lauer’s pro-liberal, anti-conservative bias.

Granted, to note that there is liberal bias at NBC, the sister network of the relentlessly leftist MSNBC, is like reporting that grass is green and water is wet. Even so, it is worth noting that one of the TV personalities parroting the progressives’ populist rhetoric is a millionaire getting paid a lot of money to do so. I’ll leave it to others to judge whether this amounts to hypocrisy.

During peak move time–Friday, May 11 through Monday, May 14—Institute staff will have limited or no access to office email and phones. If you need immediate assistance during that time, please contact our Administrative Assistant Keri Gordon at 850-445-4627.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

VIEW MESSENGER:
2012 Spring Messenger (PDF)

In other societies, however, Maypole dancing was considered an anachronistic remnant of pagan fertility rites. That may have been why our Puritanical forefathers outlawed the practice in Massachusetts in 1644, a little more than two decades after the Mayflower had arrived with a boatload of pilgrims seeking religious freedom — for themselves, if not for others. In fact, the history of the Colonial period records incidents in which Puritan mobs attacked Mayday revelers.

In the 20^th Century, the First of May took another ugly turn. After the Bolshevik revolution produced a tyrannical Communist dictatorship to replace the tyrannical czarist dictatorship previously housed the Kremlin, the rulers in the Soviet bloc annually staged massive Mayday parades to display their military might – with row upon row of goose-stepping troops, tanks, even missiles.

During this period, the countries behind the Iron Curtain – and radical leftists boring from within the Western democracies — generally used the first day of May to hail the revolutions, invasions, and/or coups that had advanced the cause of “socialism” and “workers’ rights.”

In 1958, as a counterpoint to the Mayday celebrations in the authoritarian societies, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1 as “Law Day” in the United States. In doing so, he urged Americans to appreciate the system our nation’s Founders bequeathed to us: a system governed by the rule of law, not the whims of a monarch or a dictator.

A lot has changed since 1958 – not all of it for the better – in the relationship between America’s citizenry and the law. In the excesses of some government rule-makers and regulators, for instance, some libertarian-minded observers even perceive a worrisome erosion of the rule of law. Other “good government types” worry about the growing evidence of crony capitalism – and Capitol cronyism – in our increasingly dysfunctional federal government.  

Arguably, then, the rule of law deserves more recognition than can be packed into a single day. Therefore, let’s hope the rule of law, particularly the U.S. Constitution, once again becomes the guiding force for our nation’s public officials throughout the year – and let’s work to make it so.

Government Transparency in the Sunshine State
JMI policy brief details Florida’s progress in 2012 and the work ahead for 2013

TALLAHASSEE – Recent reports and news stories have focused on the need for more transparency in governmental entities and projects, such as Enterprise Florida and stimulus fund expenditures.  However, on balance, the level of government transparency in Florida has increased in the last year.

Last month The James Madison Institute released a policy brief on government transparency, “Proactive Disclosure in the Sunshine State: A 2012 Progress Report on Government Transparency,” written by William Mattox, JMI Resident Fellow. The report was based on the results from a “Ten Point Transparency Checklist” developed by open government experts and applied by the Sunshine Review to assess approximately 5,000 state and local government websites. Grading criteria include budgets, open meetings, elected officials, administrative officials, building permits and zoning, audits, contracts, lobbying, public records, and taxes.

Key findings of the brief included:

• The number of local government websites in Florida earning an A grade increased to 28 from 22 in 2011.
• Once again,Florida has more jurisdictions earning an A grade than any other state. Only Texas (21), Illinois (19), andVirginia (14) had at least half as many Sunny Award winners as Florida (28).
• Overall, the Sunshine State received a cumulative transparency grade of B. This grade was held down by the high number of “problem sites” (those earning a transparency grade of D or F), which declined only modestly to 42 from 46 in 2011.
• Failing to provide citizens good information about how to access government audits and about how to access public records were the most common transparency problems.

“Although the Sunshine State still has much room for improvement, Florida continues to be a national leader in government transparency, and many citizens have reason to be pleased with the priority that their public officials are giving to proactive disclosure of government information.” –-William Mattox, JMI Resident Fellow

All JMI publications are available on-line at www.jamesmadison.org.  To comment or request a copy, contact Tanja Clendinen at 850.383.4633 (toll free 1.866.340.3131) or Tanja@jamesmadison.org.