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RE: Writing top tips 1
I think you're right! It's difficult to actually use the word "news" in most mainstream new's media today. I'm off facebook, obviously, but I followed Dan Rather who I used to love and he still continues to be spectacular there. His posts about the current administration and the media are always perfectly old school, except he can afford to be biased now :)
That's just it. The old school news anchors, reporters, journalists, may have been better only because the people kept them more in check, or because they did hold to some standard of journalistic integrity, but they also had their opinions and their agendas. Now it's so blatant that what the oldtime news folks might have done in their day seems quaint or mild in comparison, but it started with them, or even before that.
Rather's issue was essentially going after George W. Bush for some documents that allegedly spoke critically of his Air National Guard service, then doubling down with those documents for a period even though more and more experts were considering them to be faked.
It's not like I'm a fan of Bush 2—there were more than a few things I didn't like that happened during his administration—but seeking to paint someone as something they're not isn't right, regardless of what they may or may not be doing. Use their actual words and actions in context. Don't twist or invent things.
If you're only seeking the truth, then you have to make sure it's the truth before you air it or print it. That requires corroboration by more than one party, and authentication by more than one expert. CBS news apparently failed to do that and Rather was the public face of it.
He's apologized for it, which is fine. People still like him, obviously, and as you say, he's now free to speak his own mind.
It was a blunder for sure on their part, and at the time, I remember feeling so disappointed in them all at CBS. And I don't use that word disappointment lightly...just ask my kids. When I do use it, it's a biggie:)
Now that all seems peanuts and I am beyond disappointment with most mainstream "news" !
That's probably the biggest reason I don't miss the newspaper side of the business I owned. Most people don't trust reporters anymore, unless they're telling them what they believe or want to hear, even if it is a bold-faced lie. It's truly sad, and it's pointless. How do you ever get to the truth that way? You can't, not directly, not without a reality changing event, or a lot of wasted time getting lost and angry over nothing.
Sounds to me that getting out of it (your choice or not) was the best thing for you. It must have been especially difficult, for someone ethical like yourself, to watch the slow train wreck over the last several years.
I'd been wanting to get out of it for a couple of years, but I didn't. My wife likes having financial security, and that the time we had it, and more, and it didn't seem like it would ever come to an end. So, I didn't go shopping the papers to any buyers when things were at their height.
Who knows if someone would have wanted it, an entity big enough to pay cash for it. Most smaller weekly newspapers end up in the hands of another small operator, who will want to put some down and then pay a monthly amount over time. That's how I got in.
So, the bottom could have well fallen out before I got paid in full. Still would have ended up with more money than the zero. Actually, I ended up refunding subscriptions to everyone who wanted them (the majority) so it cost me money to get out. It wasn't a huge sum, but still.
I'm sorry it happened that way, but your story makes me like you even more ;)