Call me old fashioned but I remember when Harry Reasoner and David Brinkley reported the news. They wore suits, spoke in clear plain English, and told us facts! Unbiased facts they or their staff had checked. No glamor, just the real unbiased news. You could believe the news. If information was being reported, it was real. It may not have been up to the minute but it was correct, every time, not just when it was in anyone’s favor to be a certain way.
We had a tiny black and white television set in the 60s. My dad would sit in his favorite chair and listen to what was going on in the country and in the world. No opinions, just facts. No one would listen to that now. They would call it boring.
Today we have 80-inch widescreen televisions and split second reporting capabilities. But what many call news today is appalling. People yelling and screaming at each other, reporting opinions as if they were facts, and even telling outright lies for entertainment. To me, the news isn’t entertainment. It is supposed to be what rational people use to stay informed. But that would mean rational people would be running the news outlets and that simply isn’t always true. The rest of the world looks at us and calls us idiots because of the way our news is reported.
No one takes it seriously because so many do not tell the unbiased truth anymore. The truth doesn’t get channel ratings, and the truth doesn’t sell newspapers. Listening to shouting matches where no one allows the other to finish a sentence is what people call news today. Propaganda, disrespect, lies, and panic sell newspapers and the public eats it up. Our American public!
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press do not mean freedom to make up lies or state opinions and report them as facts. It isn’t the freedom to disrespect the office of the president, whether you voted for the person holding that office or not. It isn’t the freedom to make our country sound like a horrible place where nothing is honest anymore. If that is your opinion, stating it as an opinion is the freedom of speech part, but reporting of opinions as truth is abusing that freedom.
So many have simply lost respect. So many have lost reasonable ethics. As it turns out Obama wasn’t the Anti-Christ after all. He didn’t lead us into oblivion as panic mongers predicted. He is a man that was elected to do a job. I didn’t agree with his decisions all the time, but he made them and we’ve survived. For Pete’s sake, he is the same age as I am, and I can barely balance my checkbook. The expectations we place on one person in an onslaught of negative press is daunting, to say the least.
So what if you don’t like Donald Trump as a person, he is the elected president of this country. The office of the president deserves respect. The people have the freedom to disagree in the press when they have facts to report. But making up lies, slanting truth to a personal bias and dirt throwing are ruining this country. Attacking an elected official at the personal level or attacking a person’s family is the highest form of disrespect. It simply means that if there is no real news, we will just throw a little dirt and expect no one will care enough to notice.
I’ve never been especially political, but I have my beliefs. I have a heart. I have respect. I have a country I love. And I despise seeing it dragged through the mud in every media outlet by panic mongers.
If Brinkley or Reasoner were alive today, they would be crying because the news isn’t news anymore.
writingforme1961 
Thanks. I should have said grieving though. Crying doesn’t sound much like big tough men which Reasoner and Brinkley were.
Great Post!
Thanks. It breaks my heart to see what people call entertainment these days.
yes, that is why I really don’t like the news anymore so depressing and sad
My husband and I talk about this daily.
Like or don’t like our president that is up to you but he is our nation’s leader and we need to stand behind him.
Other countries look at the way we treat him in the press and late night talk shows and certainly won’t take our country seriously if we don’t.
And what’s all this we hear in the news about bullying? Has nobody realize that the media is full of bullies. They certainly don’t practice what the preach.They are so disrespectful to our ELECTED leader.
He didn’t get there because the nation didn’t want him there…an election was held as these were the results.
What is weird is that the late night shows and other comedic shows such as Saturday Night Live have always poked fun at the presidents. They even get actors that look similar to play them. And that is sort of in fun…but the way things have been since Obama was elected and now with Trump is horrible. It is a given that 50% of the people are going to gripe because they didn’t vote for whoever got in, but this is different than it has ever been.
You are right about bullies!!! They are teaching people that whoever screams the loudest and is the rudest interupter is the winner.
So sad.
So many people have died for the rights and freedoms we take for granted in this country. Too many people in the media spotlights are all to willing to piss it away for ratings.
Thank you for sharing
It is a sad part of our country. Hopefully, people will wake up and demand honesty again instead of grandstanders.
Realistic post
Thanks. All things go in phases. I hope this phase of disrespect passes and people in the spotlight of the world will come to their senses.
Very nice.
Thanks.
Good post. What news do you believe anymore? What I do know is I love and respect my country.
I couldn’t agree with you more. It is a shame. People in other countries (I come originally from Europe, Latvia) really re-publish, re-report and assume as truth the assumptions and guesses which are presented as news in the US. That should stop, but I believe there is somebody behind these rumors, dirt and other fake news in whose best interest is to take away public opinion from genuinely serious matters and turn them to stuff like that. It does not do good for any country.
It breaks my heart. I just wish the world would be honest and factual when it comes to reporting news. If they want to do anything else, they just need to call their show something else besides a newscast. Thanks for your comment.