Last week the Editor cited several benefits of newspapers; e.g., a tangible product, (usually) carefully edited, and so on. He opined that newspapers are a unique medium and implied that they are not irrelevant in this modern era. But the fact is that most newspapers and old-line TV networks have become irrelevant to half our citizens whose views on issues of the day are either ignored or given short shrift. Inaccurate and/or selective reporting is not a new problem. For example, I read (on the internet) that New York Times reporter, Walter Duranty, won a Pulitzer Prize in the 1930s with his glowing reports of Soviet Communism at a time when millions of Russians were literally being starved to death.
This “managed news” problem continues today. Just last week the Washington Post failed to mention that support for ObamaCare has now dropped to only 43%, even though this key data came from its own poll! But surely, I thought, such media practices have little bearing on our local ICO. Then I turned the page and began to read an 800 word opinion column by Thomas D. Elias that could easily have been mistaken as a press release for Jerry Brown. Elias wrote approvingly about how Brown possesses an “English-language” vocabulary that included such words like “ephemeral”, “acrimonious”, and “coherent.” (He left out “whore.”) Then the writer gushed forth columns of praise about Brown’s virtues such as “he seems ready to accede to whatever the public wants” and he “does not sound eager to shove anything down anyone’s throat.”
Conservatives read tripe like this and shake our heads. We who see the world differently MUST go to the internet and elsewhere (Fox News!) for alternative points of view. We vote with our keyboard and our TV remote. Hooray for diversity!
Jim Littlejohn
