Soap Box

When I was a kid in North Carolina, with the exception to the relatively small amount of time radio stations devoted to it, almost everybody got their news from newspapers.

It was the grand day of the print news media and even the smaller towns had at least a weekly newspaper with the larger cities printing daily issues and then there were the giants, the newspapers with massive circulation around the state, delivered to doorsteps every morning or hawked by newsboys on the street.

One such paper in our state was the Raleigh News and Observer, a daily paper with a thick
Sunday edition that blanketed the state, informative and influential, daily digests of world and local news, sports, comics, editorial opinion and social sections.

Although I'm sure the paper had a modicum of political bent involved, the name implied the intent and practice of the publication, to observe and report, as was the mission of most of the newspapers of the day.

The daily cover to cover reading of the newspaper was a ritual in many households and my preceding generation gleaned the lion�s share of their news from them.

I was not then, and I�m still not a voracious newspaper reader and by the time I got truly interested in what was really going on in the world, Walter Cronkite, Huntley-Brinkley and company were doing their daily half hour telecasts and the eyes and ears of the nation were turning to television for their information.

There was a time when newspaper and television editors meticulously checked and rechecked the stories they reported for voracity and accuracy and took great care to make sure that the news they reported to the public was valid.

It seems the intent and seemingly the mission of many of today�s news outlets, be they print or broadcast is not to observe and report, but to expose and influence, voracity, validity
accuracy and the reputations of anybody who happens to be on the opposite side of the political spectrum they espouse notwithstanding.

It seems that honest and neutral journalism has gone the way of the mule collar and button hook, just out of style for today's young guns and old lions who all seem to have an ax to grind in their reportage and I've noticed that the network news usually uses the first 8 or 9 minutes of their national newscast to bring up any negatives they can dig up about the current administration, the direct opposite attitude they collectively exhibited toward the last one.

And it's not just the content of what they report, it's the many things they do not report or bury like boiler print or afterthought, bringing as little attention as possible to these issues.

It�s a sad situation when the news industry has violated the standards of truth and neutrality to the point that their trust ratings have fallen even below that of the U.S. Congress, a long-time watermark for citizen distrust in public entities.

Especially when you remember that a few short decades ago Walter Cronkite was among the most trusted men in the nation.

I remember when men of honor, people like Edward R. Murrow, Gabriel Heatter and Ernie Pyle set the standard for hands on, candid and honest reporting, gaining the trust and the eyes and ears of the American public.

America is starved for unvarnished, un-politicized news coverage, without the conveniently edited sound bite, the snide remark and the obvious bias.

At least I know I am.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

� Charlie Daniels

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