I start most days early. The very first thing I do is open The New York Times.
The puzzle section, that is. I may glance at the headlines, but I can’t start reading. There’s work to do.
I have high expectations of myself. I must accomplish three things before coffee. They are:
1) Play Connections. Solve in reverse order (hardest connections to easiest.)
2) Play Wordle.
3) Play The Mini Crossword. Solve in under sixty seconds, because the directions say,
Solve in seconds.
I almost never have perfect outcomes with all three puzzles. But if I screw up Connections, it’s easy for me to believe I’m doomed. It’s not even 5:00 am, and I’ve already disappointed myself.
I’m so obsessed with the game it’s become a litmus test for my self-esteem. This is, of course, crazy.
If you’re not familiar with Connections, it’s both simple and utterly maddening. You get a grid of 16 words. You must sort them into four unknown categories. They range in difficulty from easiest (yellow) to hardest (purple.) Reverse order is purple, blue, green, with yellow last.
I don’t understand what’s happened to me. I have no idea how I turned into this ridiculous version of myself. Puzzles were never my thing. Why am I so driven by them?
I love Connections because it teaches me not to take information and ideas for granted. Not to decide before I can see the whole picture. And it’s important to find connections which aren’t obvious. There are a lot of lines to read between.
It’s a great game, as games go. But because I’m so obsessive, I began to wonder if there was some other mysterious payoff I was missing.
A few days ago, I arrived at an answer.
I’ve started doing video segments recently for paid subscribers called “Liz Reads the News.” Twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, I go over the headlines from four or five news companies: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, FOX, and occasionally a British publication.
I’ve been surprised at how well it’s going. People email or message me to say how happy the segments make them. It occurs to me I might be providing something to my subscribers which we’ve lost in the past decade.
Context.
Back in olden times, there was the evening news.
My brother and I had to be quiet while my dad watched because he was a serious man, the news was serious business, and it was delivered by the serious Walter Cronkite.
Cronkite was known as “the most trusted man in America.” Imagine that.
I recall my father sitting in front of the TV having a cigarette while my mom was in the kitchen. She would listen, and occasionally she’d ask him a question if she missed something due to kitchen noise. They’d talk for a few seconds.
Although news was boring to me as a small child, I recall these memories fondly. Here’s what they taught me:
1) World events affect us all.
2) It’s my responsibility to be an informed citizen.
3) A marriage isn’t just a romantic relationship. It’s a meeting of the minds.
Pretty good, right? I learned all that from watching those two watch the news.
I’m not even getting into the piles of New York Times, New Yorkers, and Village Voices in our house. The stacks of them were epic. When I envision the interior of our childhood home, it’s with piles of newspapers.
My parents weren’t my only teachers. Walter Cronkite taught me something as well. I learned he could be trusted to sort the world for my parents, to put it in some order. Cronkite gave them some context on what was going on, and his reports oriented them to their nation and world.
But to report the news, be it print or broadcast, someone must prioritize the lead story and ones which follow.
Now. Stay with me here. What do you need to prioritize anything?
Standards.
There must be an agreement and consensus about what’s important. Otherwise we just have chaos.
News standards certainly were not completely just and noble in 1969. For instance, a lot of stories about what was happening to Black Americans were underreported. I’m not claiming perfection here. The perspective was almost exclusively through the eyes of white men.
But I’m not aware of any newscasters pretending the March on Washington didn’t happen. And you could not be considered a serious person by claiming the earth was flat or vaccines were bad. Everyone agreed it was a round planet and nobody wanted the measles.
Then came the 45th president.
I remember the day Richard Nixon got on a helicopter and waved goodbye to the presidency. I watched it live.
Donald Trump is on trial right now in Manhattan for reasons which would send at least a dozen Richard Nixons home. But the felonies over which he is accused are not his most serious crime. The worst thing he did was rob our nation of any standards.
I mean, can you imagine Al Gore selling gold sneakers? A John Kerry flag: Kerry Nation?
Ever since the Access Hollywood tape, we have less and less consensus about what’s important to us. We’re now a nation of feral humans with no idea how to prioritize a damned thing, because in 45’s White House, it was anything goes.
And because he’s a resentful child who cannot abide the slightest injury to his psyche, he’s filled the past four years with baseless claims the election was stolen.
Today, 34 charges be damned, Trump’s running for president.
Why not? Hell, maybe I’ll run for president. I used to think my past was too sordid to run for city council. But if he’s proved anything, it’s you can be the worst person in the nation and still lead it.
Well. Lead is a stretch, but you get my drift.
The news is wrecked for everyone. Trump supporters don’t trust mainstream media. People like me get furious when big media panders to him.
Members of the GOP actually voice their support for him out loud, while he continues to rob the United States of any pretense of decency.
My friend Mary Raffaele is an exceptional writer. One day we were chatting online, and she used a phrase for Trump’s cheerleaders in D.C. that took my breath away. I’ve never heard a more accurate description.
“A murder of cowards,” she wrote.
Yes. If crows were simpering, feckless, fawning men in suits hiding behind American flag lapel pins. The GOP members of Congress are the worst bunch of performance artists I’ve ever seen.
For reasons I’ll never completely understand, the Republican Party gave up any and all notion of principled behavior. Trump is ludicrous, dangerous, and without question, anti-American.
They don’t care. And Democrats haven’t exactly taken a knife to a knife fight.
Well, here we are. Newscasters can no longer sort the news, because in American newsrooms, all politics are equal, including outright falsehoods.
Uttering something doesn’t make it a fact. You need a fact first to have an opinion. The spouting of egomaniacal drivel—
“Nancy Pelosi caused the insurrection!” is not an opinion. And yet, someone reports on it, because he makes the papers money.
His relentless criticism of mainstream media has created a belief that major news organizations cannot be trusted. In a world of Trump-created chaos, his voice is often the one blaring loudest.
On the flip side, I often sense the media running after him, begging for his approval.
News organizations may be required to give fair time to different candidates. But letting him lie without consequence is unforgiveable.
I hit my bottom with it all after a week of being relentlessly fact-checked about my own rape by CNN for a piece I was writing. The night after the essay was published, the network let Trump lie with impunity to a hand-picked audience crafted for his pleasure.
For once in my life, I was rendered speechless.
Early on, he told us he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and he wouldn’t lose voters. I didn’t expect media outlets to humor this belief, and maybe even encourage him.
Chaos.
Why bother reading newspapers, then? Why open The New York Times every morning when it’s guaranteed to make me furious?
We read the news because we still crave order. We still want Walter Cronkite to sort the world for us, or Woodward and Bernstein to break a story and a presidency.
Instead, we read the news out of muscle memory. It rarely delivers anymore. It makes us crazier.
But there is still one part giving us a little order in the world, and that is the Games section.
I open the Times app first because I want some order to my day. The news no longer fills the requirement. But if I’m able to solve Connections first thing, I’ve set a tiny piece of the world straight.
It’s very satisfying.
I’ll never know another Walter Cronkite. I’ll take order anywhere I can get it.
Amen sister!
If I get Purple first it sets the tone for a great day! And, humble brag, I did the mini in 28 seconds today. Look out world!!!!