Michael Sigman: For many old-media types I talked to, there was more resignation than outrage this time around, as though a cherished institution were already gone.
About Michael Sigman
Michael Sigman is a writer/ editor, media consultant and the president of Major Songs, a music publishing company.
Prior to his current activities, Sigman was the president and publisher of LA Weekly, the nation’s largest alternative newsweekly, from 1990-2002. He joined LA Weekly in 1983 as general manager and was named publisher the following year.
Sigman was also the founding publisher of OC Weekly, sister paper to LA Weekly, when it was launched in 1995.
Prior to joining LA Weekly, Sigman was a music journalist, and served as a reporter, then managing editor, then editor-in-chief of Record World Magazine, a leading music industry weekly, from 1971 to 1982.
Michael Sigman graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude, with a BA in Philosophy, from Bucknell University in 1971. He currently serves on several Boards, including InsightLA and Society for Singers, and is Chairman of the Board of the Wright Institute, a non-profit psychoanalytic institute which provides inexpensive long-term psychotherapy to the poor.
License To Philosophize, Sinatra-Style
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Michael Sigman: We’ll never know the Chairman of the Board’s innermost insights about doing/being, if indeed he had any. What cannot be denied is that his choice of material covers a rich spectrum of emotional leaps and existential twists and turns.
The State of the State (Song) of the Golden State
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Michael Sigman: My next-door neighbor flagged me down recently to enthuse that the California State Song brought back memories of childhood hikes in the Alps. I wondered what in the world she was talking about.
Barry Goldberg: Fifty Years Of ‘Chicago Blues’
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Michael Sigman: The story of American music is often the story of race — and particularly of white boys and girls learning about music from black men and women. The tale of Elvis Presley hanging out in Mississippi juke joints is something like a gospel story in the history of American culture.
NRA Enemies List: With Enemies Like These, Who Needs Guns?
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he NRA enemies list posted here has become a hot media topic as the organization and its executive director Wayne LaPierre leap from self-parody into the realm of the truly demented. The right-wing Murdoch-owned New York Post called LaPierre a “loon” on its front page after one of his rants; the centrist Daily News went with “The Craziest Man On Earth”; and [...]
This New Year’s, Resolve to Give Yourself a Break
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Michael Sigman: For post-postmodern nourishment, I’m keeping David Foster Wallace’s mighty novel Infinite Jest on my night table with the intention of reading at least 10 pages a week. It’s a long haul, but if I keep my resolve, I’ll be done by New Year’s 2015!
What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Kumbaya?
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Michael Sigman: In the heat of the 2008 presidential race, the popular conservative blog Red State lambasted candidate Barack Obama’s remarks during a Berlin appearance as a “Kumbaya speech” filled with “nothing but platitudes and leftist, and multicultural, rah-rah.”
10 Pundits Who Picked Romney — and Knew Better
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Michael Sigman: Karl Rove led a parade of “experts” masquerading as fair-minded analysts whose real agenda was to line their own pockets by feeding the public’s craving for information that confirms their biases.
Who Wants a Bully in the Oval Office?
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Michael Sigman: Mitt was so amped-up during certain segments of the Hofstra debate, it made me wonder whether the Mormon teetotaler had somehow ingested way too much caffeine.
Polls, Sham Polls, and Linguistics
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Michael Sigman: Though scores of Republicans are looking at poll numbers and moving to the sidelines or outright jumping ship, at least two imaginative Romney cheerleader/pundits — Hugh Hewitt and Dick Morris — maintain a different view. They say Romney already is ahead.
Romney Hood vs. Obamaloney: A Bare-Knuckled Brawl for the Ages
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Michael Sigman: Romney quadrupled down when he told Fox News that “(Obama’s) serving a dish that’s in contradiction to the truth.” Them’s fightin’ words!
Mitt-steps Abroad Stir Nixon Nostalgia (Almost)
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Michael Sigman: Romney’s recent foreign foray showed an evasive, jingoistic panderer with a tin ear for diplomacy and, worse, a lack of interest in foreign affairs.
Retirement Golden for the Rich, Ominous for the Rest
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Michael Sigman: Most Americans — for whom the phrase “retirement package” is a cruel joke — have watched their net worth collapse while CEO payouts have reached heights far beyond the reach of mortal men.
Unnamed Sources: Clintons Green-Light Chelsea ’32 Presidential Bid
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ith nearly five months to go, coverage of the 2012 presidential race has devolved into the self-parody of dueling gaffes. Recently, “Obama lost his mojo” Can the return of “Mittster the master gaffester be far behind? In an effort to remain conscious, media analysts spent several days last week deconstructing the nuances of a 2016 presidential bid [...]
Loving or Leaving America: A Brief History
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Michael Sigman: The origin of “America Love It or Leave It” is murky. It was popularized by gossip guru and Joseph McCarthy sympathizer Walter Winchell, who, among other abuses of power, helped keep entertainer/activist/national treasure Josephine Baker out of the country we’re all free to love.
Newt’s Victim Card Is a Joker
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Michael Sigman: Howls from conservatives notwithstanding, the truth is that neither the left nor the media lifted a finger to hand Newt his comeuppance.
For Mitt, Firing People Is the Context
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Michael Sigman: “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me” may well become Mitt Romney’s most memorable line, if only because he actually meant it.
‘Tis the Season for GOP Exit Strategies
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Michael Sigman: Congressman Ron Paul will pull out of politics entirely. Since his son Rand is also a member of Congress, Ron will become the first politician ever to leave public life so he can spend less time with his family.
In Presidential Politics, Is Ignorance Really Bliss?
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Michael Sigman: When Willard Romney fibbed about his first name during last week’s Republican debate, chances are his target audience of Fox fans and Tea Partiers were as blissfully ignorant of his white lie as they are about his Big Lies.
Newt’s Nasty Narcissism
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Michael Sigman: When the Newt boomlet fades, there may yet be a role for Gingrich in public life. Given his obsession with such words as “fundamentally,” “profoundly,” “desperately” and “dramatically,” how about Ambassador of Adverb Abuse?
GOP’s Finest in Fierce Battle to Become 2012 Jester-in-Chief
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Michael Sigman: When Tea Partiers warned the Feds to stay away from their Medicare, little did we know they were foreshadowing the all-out battle now raging among Republicans for the role of Jester-In-Chief.
‘Tis the Season for Poor Political Prognostication
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Michael Sigman: Expert political prognostications may be devoid of useful information, but they can help us resist our own tendencies to act like big shots, prediction-wise.
Note to GOP: Sometimes an Opinion Isn’t Just an Opinion
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Michael Sigman: When it comes to bald-face lying, though, Republicans do it meaner and better. Their dissembling is exceeded only by their hypocrisy.
Repubs and the Art of Flip-Flopping
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Michael Sigman: The three so-called top-tier Republican presidential candidates — Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann — are, even as we speak, busy disavowing their inconvenient earlier statements by employing what an old boss of mine called the “Let’s do a 180″ strategy.
Read Our Lips: No New Texans
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Michael Sigman: With Bachmann having no chance to win the nomination, it’s shaping up as a race to the bottom between Romney and Perry, fantasies of a deus ex machina notwithstanding.
Corporations Are a Mitt’s Best Friend
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Michael Sigman: Picking up on the Supreme Court’s gargantuan gift to Republican candidates in the 2010 Citizens United decision, the Mittster went all Soylent Green on an Iowa heckler, opining, “Corporations are people, my friend… of course they are.”
Voice Labor Settlement: High Drama or Foregone Conclusion?
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Michael Sigman: When a news story you know a little about comes along, the coverage in the mass media makes you wonder about everything else emanating from the world of “objective” journalism.
A Hotel, A Phone Number, and a Song
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Michael Sigman: But while New York — and the nation — are obsessed about whether a certain cultural center should go up in lower Manhattan, few noticed that the Penn Plaza plan will bring down the legendary Hotel Pennsylvania.
GOP Candidates Boldly Oppose Shariah
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Michael Sigman: Inside the GOP funhouse, Islamophobia is common, of course. A Newsweek poll last summer indicated that a majority of Republicans believed President Obama wants to impose Islamic law across the globe.
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Cain Case Shines Light on Workplace Sexual Harassment
Michael Sigman: If the credible-sounding charges from Sharon Bialek — a conservative Republican — are to be believed, Herman Cain’s behavior was a bridge way, way too far.