News Ignorance Must Go
Will Rogers said, “All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.” I wonder what he'd have to say now, nearly 75 years after his death? Certainly, a person can't expect anything remotely like simple, factual information in today's media, print or broadcast. What passes for news is heavily slanted opinion in most venues. Anything like objectivity is long gone. Forty-plus years ago, my school sent me to a summer workshop in journalism to prepare me to edit my small-town high school newspaper. I remember vividly the basic tenets of news writing. They taught us the 5 W's of reporting—who, where, what, when, and why. Then, the reporters job was only to present the facts. Opinions didn't belong in news but in features, editorials, and columns with a by-line to identify the person presenting an opinion. Teachers drilled objectivity and impartiality into us, again and again. Little did we realize that the day of such unbi...