Type the word “context” into the search box at Google News today and you get 30,952 results.

This will be the baseline; let’s see how it rises or falls and what might be the drivers.   This week the key driver seems to be the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

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No, I am not humming the sound track of “West Side Story,” I am savoring the faux pas committed by Mike Huckabee when he, in his first post (now corrected) opposing the nomination of Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, called her “Maria.”

The story got air tonight on the “Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC.  Setting aside the snark, it was Gene Robinson of the Washington Post who helped guide the viewers — and Rachel — through the nuts-and-bolts of her career and credentials.  In fact, when asked about comments made at a conference in Berkeley which have led Rush Limbaugh and others to call Ms. Sotomayor a “racist,” it was Robinson who said the judge’s comments had not been put in “adequate context.”

It is a small point, but powerful in its implication.  Labels stick more readily in the absence of context.

Here is a link to the Robinson/Maddow exchange.

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In recent days I have been engaged in three conversations about the death of the media.

First came a chat with a former magazine editor and a discussion about magazines and their declining ad pages and circulation.  Check this out in the NY Times.  Next came a conversation with a television producer who had just filed an analysis of the public’s appetite for news — cherry flavor is best.  Last came coffee with a public relations executive who is trying to redraft his agency’s mission in the face of a fractious, self-publishing landscape.

Whew.

An answer for all, in particular the media, may come wrapped in the cynical adage of an earlier day:  “It ain’t what you know, it’s who you know.”

Reporters are paid to pay attention.  A beat reporter knows more about his or her beat than anyone.  But reporters cling to an artificial construction of objectivity.  For every point of view expressed, a counter-balance is found; even if the reporter knows the point of view being expressed is bone-headed.

Reporters will have to break this silence and let us know what they know if the profession is to regain credibility in the current day. I was reminded of how far reporters go not to tell us what they know when I saw this story today about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “numbers” on her handling of the CIA criticism.

It leads with this: “More Americans disapprove than approve of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s handling of the matter concerning the government’s use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects. Majorities approve of President Barack Obama’s and the CIA’s handling of the matter.”  It could have led with:  “Whatever the criticism, more people support Pelosi than support either the Democrats or the Republicans as a group.”

My argument is not with the lead, but in the unwillingness to let readers know what the reporter knows.  That nearly everyone who is raising a ruckus about this story has also accused the CIA of lying, that Congress was tightly managed in the previous Administration and that Pelosi, as were the others who were “briefed”, had her hands tied by laws governing national security.

As long as reporters cling to antique notions, death will come; and at their own hand.

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Word comes today that GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors, is changing its name to Ally Bank.  The reason, as stated by the company’s CEO, is “…a new brand with a new approach of treating customers with total transparency.”  How had they been treating customers?

This is a common, almost reflexive response from companies who think their present situation can benefit with a break from the past, despite the weight of evidence that a name change has little effect on market perception.  New York’s Sixth Avenue’s name was changed to Avenue of the Americas in 1945, yet Radio City Music Hall is today still found on “6th Avenue between 50th street and 51st street.”

GMAC has a lot of misguided company, too.  Blackwater, the private security contracting company that was kicked out of Iraq, now operates in Afghanistan as Xe and AIG, the poster company of the excesses of unregulated financial shenanigans, changed its name first to AIU and is now likely to change it again.

These companies are doing a lot of running, but not very much hiding.

The best recent example of the genre came when Philip Morris, the tobacco-centric food conglomerate, changed its name to Altria.  Not only did the market devalue the move — “This name change is entirely cosmetic in nature” — but the new name accentuated the problem Philip Morris executives had with their brand in the first place.

Altria already was the name of an Alabama-based health care company.

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It is hard to keep track of the political skirmishes in Washington, D.C. when the battlefield lies in the shadow of a sour economy, but when the two converge, people stop and take notice. It seems such is the case with President Obama’s current tax proposal.

As expected, U.S.-based businesses with overseas operations are rallying to oppose the plan.  Success will likely hinge on who does a better job of linking their point-of-view to a credible — in the eye of the public — context.

“(President Obama) doesn’t have to explain anything,” Bruce Josten, chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a major opponent to Obama’s tax proposa, told Politico.com.  “We have to explain.”

They will have to do more than explain.  They will have to prove the case to Members of Congress that opposing the tax proposal is better for Americans than supporting it.  The difficulty is that many of the off-shore operations look just like off-shore operations; designed to avoid taxes at a time when every dime counts on the home front.

At a time when we aren’t willing to trust too many people about too much, why will we believe it is good for companies to pay lower taxes than we do?

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As reported in the May 2009 issue of the digital marketing magazine, OMMA, another brand has discovered that it is not about them, but about us. The story is about Scotts Miracle-Gro, a company of many brands and, until recently, many web destinations.

In seeking to quiet the confusion and drive greater customer loyalty, the decision was made to put the customer out front, not the companied. This created a more cohesive and useful presentation. Instead of each brand making its own promise, the company presented its brands in the context of the customer.

The insight is not new, but the discipline required deserves applause. It is more proof that the debate between “the customer is always right” and “the customer can have any color car as long as it is black” is settled.

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