I’ve had limited but both positive and negative media experiences over my career, but have enjoyed a 100% record of having never been misquoted or taken out of context. Still, I never lost sight of the nature of “the beast” as you call it, and the potential to be “eaten alive” by reporters and editors who need to feed the beast. Ones with experience, like you, David, perhaps can’t help but have at least some resonance with the tag “enemy of the people” when metaphors like ‘beast’ and ‘eaten alive’ are seen as appropriate, even by media experts. Reporters themselves are devoured by their own mother press when they become the story instead of the storyteller. It’s ironic that the “enemy” media itself is split down the middle, one side saying “Oh no we’re not!” And the other side saying, “Well, yeah, we are.” In any case, we shouldn’t make the mistake of believing that only the people who are in the news are the targets of the news. The real targets are the minds and hearts of the consumers of news whose ratings pay for the ad revenues raked in by big media. I try to keep in mind that when I point the red light on my remote toward the Cable TV News, the Cable TV news is projecting a big red bullseye on my forehead in return. Though I’ve not mastered it yet, “Off” is and has always been the best setting for the television. If I haven’t learned anything else in my life, having both my mind and the television news on at the same time is nearly impossible.