Spinning 122417

Back in the day, a major newspaper’s masthead read “All the news that’s fit to print.”  That was when people believed something was true just because it was in the black and white of newspapers.  There were metro broad sheets and half-sized tabloids.  Metros were gray ladies packed with news, while Tabs had lots of sensation, pictures and features.  Both hit the streets as either morning or afternoon papers with multiple editions adding depth to the culture as extras and five star finals enshrined in early movies.

Newsrooms were filled with low paid reporters who crammed as many of the five “Ws” and “H” into the lead graph as possible. (Who, what, when, where, why and how). Central to newsrooms were editors checking facts and developing coverage for expanding stories.  When papers hit the streets a public hungry for the latest news seized them.  Those papers smelled fresh and left readers’ fingers smudged from still wet ink.  Dedicated news hounds read both morning and evening papers and quickly grabbing up “Extras.”   Out of newsroom chaos came great authors and early screenwriters educated by old cigar chomping editors.  When radio and later TV news began to develop in mid 20th century former newspaper reporters staffed them.  The discipline they had absorbed in city rooms trained them to boil down lead graphs for five minute 'rip and read" newscast.

When aging print-trained radio and TV reporters were forced off the air they were replaced by college educated, ego driven TV journalists.  These were more interested in on air face time than in accurate reporting.  Electronic news grew from five-minute spots to half-hour moneymakers leading to around the clock shows, TV magazine shows and infomercials posing as news.  These rehashed real news with speculation that confused and distracted. A prominent TV news face probably makes more in one year than all the old time print reporters in a lifetime.  This has contributed to new graduates seeking a fast track to fame and fortune as the next big face.    Spectacular stories lead to fame and fortune, not necessarily lead to fake news but rather to sloppy reporting.    Since TV stories are not black and white records to be re-read, but flashes of half heard commentaries, open to interpretation, which then vanishes. Journalists have lost not only their duty to inform but also their objectivity.  Reporters reported the news, TV journalist are the news. Add to this that news programs are broken by moneymaking advertising, news teasers and irrelevant chitchat between personalities. Researchers are discovering that people who rely solely on TV news are less well informed than those that have no direct access to news.

All this contributes to a news vulnerability to manipulation by politicians and special interests.  For years sloppy reporting has conditioned the public to accept sound bites as in depth factual reporting.  It’s a very short distance between misleading sound bites, to spin doctors, disinformation and ultimately open political lying.  Airtime is seized by the loudest and most frequent political lies. The population has become easy victims of political cons.    Research has also found that while fake news does exist, most of it is generated by official sources.

With a president that admittedly doesn't read and reportedly spends four to eight hours a day watching TV news it becomes apparent why the government has reached an all time high of dysfunction.  As bad as electronic news is a dedicated researcher can mine a few facts from multiple news outlets.  New social media computer applications have added even more mud for an informed public to sink into, (that's another story).  The president has embraced social media as his preferred distracting disinformation outlet.  In a circular reporting conundrum the president then watches only programming that recycles and glorifies the tweets from a twit.  It's not news!

In the next election voters should only elect candidates that have read and understand Gibbon's, "...Decline and fall of the Roman Empire," published in 1776.  This qualification insures that they can read complex material and see the potential for the fall the empire born in 1776.