Weekend Digest: The ‘Godspeed, John Glenn,’ startup ideas that fail, and ‘Godfather’ of fake news edition

TV PREVIEW
On this week’s TV edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9:30 a.m. on KATV Channel 7 in Central Arkansas and in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.:

The President-elect
Sen. Tom Cotton. He’s a new dad, he’s gearing up for a new Congress, and he’s passed a new law. We’ll focus on those issues and his take on President-elect Donald Trump.

Education effort
Pre-Kindergarten. The governor has promised new money for the education effort, but is it enough? Ginny Blakenship with Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families is our guest.

Leader of the Pack
And a regular session preview. Sen. Jonathan Dismang, the leader of the Arkansas State Senate, offers his thoughts on medical marijuana, tax cuts, and Arkansas Works.

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics in Central Arkansas on KATV Channel 7, Sundays at 9:30 a.m. and in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.

Coming in January 2017, Talk Business & Politics will air in Northwest Arkansas on KFSM Channel 5 at 10:30 a.m. following “Face the Nation.”

ONE OF AMERICA’S BIGGEST HEROES PASSES AWAY
The first American astronaut to orbit the earth, who then became a U.S. Senator from Ohio, John Glenn died Thursday. He was 95.

“John Glenn lived his dreams in bold thrusts: warrior, daredevil pilot, space traveler, millionaire businessman, senator, return-to-flight astronaut.”

“He just liked things that went fast, from cars and planes to campaigns and rocket ships – and he always knew where he was going.”

“Well into his eighth decade, Glenn flew his own twin-engine Beechcraft, drove a snappy Buick convertible in Washington’s brutal traffic and regularly fast-walked two miles around his suburban Maryland neighborhood.”

Heard around the world was the sentiment “Godspeed, John Glenn,” as his friend Scott Carpenter said at the launch of both of Glenn’s orbital flights.

The redhead from the Midwest, son of a small-town plumber, was the last authentic American hero of the 20th century – the personification of the American dream: Work hard, follow the rules, take a risk now and then, and you can achieve almost anything.

“Glenn – the last living member of America’s first space program, the Mercury 7 – has been honored across Ohio and the nation, with schools, ships, bridges, university programs.”

A brilliant and brave pilot in the Korean war, the former Marine Colonel has a major Little Rock east/west corridor that borders Southwest Little Rock named after him. For more on his life and accomplishments on earth and above, connect to this link from Cleveland.com.

WHAT 100 DIFFERENT JOBS TELL US ABOUT WHY WE WORK
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases what they call the “employment situation summary” on the first Friday of every month. In that summary is the most recent unemployment rate. The BLS’s most recent release announced that unemployment was down to 4.6% — the lowest it’s been in nine years,” reports Marketplace.

“But that number doesn’t tell us everything about what it’s like to have a job in this country and how work shapes our worldview. That’s the subject of a new series from The Atlantic called “Inside Jobs.”

Adrienne Green was an editor of the series, along with Bourree Lam. After talking to funeral directors and school lunch servers, investment bankers and python wranglers, Green says she’s learned that “we can make a life that has nothing to do with our jobs or it can be everything and it can be just as fulfilling.”

For her full interview, click here.

THE NEXT FACEBOOK, BARS, AND 4 OTHER STARTUP IDEAS THAT FAIL
Tech.Co says, “There are a lot of ideas that founders think are more unique than they actually are. And since these ideas aren’t that great, they tend to fail just in time for someone else to come up with something incredibly similar.”

As an aside: This is why nobody should care about how unique an idea is. Just being unique won’t help a startup, and the ones that think they’re the most unique are usually the ones that are the most likely to fail immediately.

“Last week, the community at /r/Entrepreneur settled in to figure out which startup ideas fail the most often. Here’s the cream of the terrible idea crop.”

WHY YOU’RE NOT GETTING VALUE FROM YOUR DATA SCIENCE
“Businesses today are constantly generating enormous amounts of data, but that doesn’t always translate to actionable information,” says Harvard Business Review.

Over the past several years, my research group at MIT and I have sought answers to a fundamental question: What would it take for businesses to realize the full potential of their data repositories with machine learning?

As we worked to design machine learning–based solutions with a variety of industry partners, we were surprised to find that the existing answers to this question often didn’t apply. Why?

Find out by following this link.

TRUMP TO CONTINUE TO BE PAID AS PRODUCER OF NEW “APPRENTICE”
A POLITICO post says, “President-elect Donald Trump will continue receiving payments and will continue to be credited as an executive producer of the NBC reality series “Celebrity Apprentice” when it starts its new season in January, Variety reports.”

“Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will host the 15th season of the show which helped propel Trump’s image and celebrity as a hard-charging businessman. Trump will be listed as an executive producer alongside MGM TV President Mark Burnett who created the show, and Schwarzenegger.”

Though its not clear how much Trump will earn from the show, Variety reports it will be somewhere in the low five figures. Asked about the report and whether Trump will collect the royalties or direct them elsewhere, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said “Mr. Trump has a big stake in the show and conceived of it with Mark Burnett,” and that “Additional details regarding his business interests will be shared December 15th.”

For more on this story, go to this link.

ONE OF TRUMP’S FAVORITE REPORTERS WON’T BE IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Huffington Post says, “The Wall Street Journal’s Monica Langley will continue covering “billionaires and CEOs,” though she enjoys nearly unmatched access to the new administration.”

“While most reporters camp out in the Trump Tower lobby and pepper visitors with questions, The Wall Street Journal’s Monica Langley heads straight upstairs.”

Trump spoke to Langley from his “speeding SUV” during the “last hours of his presidential campaign,” and again four days later for his first post-election interview, conducted in his office on the tower’s 26th floor. Langley returned to Trump Tower on Nov. 28 and relayed insights gleaned from her discussions with the transition team that night on CNN.

“CNN host Anderson Cooper introduced Langley on Monday night as the network’s newest political analyst and someone who has spent “a lot of time at Trump Tower.” She then proceeded to run through some likely scenarios for Trump’s family in the coming months. An internal CNN announcement sent two days later noted Langley “will continue to cover Trump as he moves into the White House.” ”

So how has she mastered the president elect’s good side? Read the complete profile here.

WOMEN JOURNALISTS WHO COVERED THE “ACCESS HOLLYWOOD” TAPE
“For some women journalists covering the 2016 presidential election, the now-infamous “Access Hollywood” tape — in which President-elect Donald Trump was recorded bragging about groping and kissing women without their consent — was a moment in which women shone in the newsroom, leading the charge on coverage decisions and how to frame the story,” reports POLITICO.

“I would say that covering the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape was the moment where it was different covering it as a woman,” CNN anchor and correspondent Brianna Keilar said at a panel at POLITICO’s “Women Rule” conference on Wednesday, alongside MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt and Vice News’ Shawna Thomas.

“Female reporters identified Trump’s apparent bragging about being able to sexually assault women “quicker than men did,” Keilar said, adding that many men covering the story then looked for cues from the women in their life to report on the story and what it meant for women.”

“The initial thing I noticed from men – and this is not a knock on men – but they thought, ‘my goodness, the language, the lewdness of it!’” she said at the panel, which was moderated by POLITICO’s Hadas Gold. “And for women – especially younger women, where I think there’s also just a lot more awareness – it just felt very different to us.”

Go to this link to read more.

RUMBLE AND SWAY
GW posts, “After 30 years in the Senate – and at least as many tussles and tangos – the chamber’s highest-ranking Democrat, Harry Reid, JD ’64, prepares to make an exit.”

“One of the happier days in U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s political life was when his security guards said they wanted him to stop appearing in parades. Great, replied Mr. Reid. He never liked them anyway.”

“Perhaps other politicians also see home-state parades as a chore. But few gladly forego the campaign staples that Mr. Reid has ignored throughout his three-decade congressional career, which ends with his retirement in early January. He almost never goes to the dinners and receptions that many lawmakers see as essential, and maybe even enjoyable. He doesn’t go on Sunday talk shows. He doesn’t kiss babies, slap backs or make even cursory efforts at warmth or conversation.”

“It’s amazing what I have not done,” the Nevada Democrat and 1964 GW Law graduate says in a recent interview in his Capitol office. “I don’t go home every week. I never have, even when I was in the House. I don’t like banquets, parades.”

But he sure loved politics. Go inside this delightful story of the 77-year-old retiring Democratic leader at this link.

THE “GODFATHER” OF FAKE NEWS QUIZZED ON SAMANTHA BEE’S SHOW
“This year, fake news stories marred the election and continue to propagate dangerous conspiracy theories. The man behind many of them? A 40-year-old Hillary Clinton voter who lives in a Los Angeles suburb with his family,” posts Mashable.

On Monday’s Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Jestin Coler, who has created dozens of fake-news sites, sat down for an interview about the inflammatory stories. When called out for the information he’s making up, he said “my point from the beginning was to educate consumers on content. How to identify these fake versus real (stories).”

Uh, OK. Think it gets any clearer? Think again. At this link.

THE LEGACY OF EARLY FEMALE ASTRONOMERS
“More than 100 years ago, a group of women started recording constellations using magnifying glasses and glass photographic plates. Half a million plates later, the images captured continue to provide a reference for how space has evolved over time,” reports Marketplace.

“Some of those plates have as many as 50,000 stars on them,” said Dava Sobel, the author of “Glass Universe,” a new book about these early female astronomers. “The detail, the tedium of it — but the excitement of it because they were making bonafide discoveries.”

“Sobel, a former New York Times science reporter and the author of several books about astronomy, joined us to talk about how the project began.”

Check out the early stars of astronomy at this link.

JOHN GLENN’S LIFE AND CAREER IN PHOTOS
He was one-of-kind. A war hero and pilot, an adventurer and original astronaut, who circled the globe in a tiny Mercury capsule, an admired businessman, and a successful politician.

Business Insider has chronicled the life of John Glenn in remarkable photos. Take a ride, and take a look at this American hero’s life, at this link.