Everyday Canvas

News: Timeliness and Accountability

Prompt: Which way is better: getting all of our news at a single point or two in the day, or the birth of the 24/7 news cycle, with news being reported all day long?

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I like getting the news as soon as possible, provided it is real news. Most of the time, what passes as news is conjecture, or worse, fake news. Journalism used to be an honorable profession. In the earlier days, newscasters and commentators were separate. At that time, even commentators tried to be fair. Not anymore. Gone are the ethics of reporting, together with the Walter Cronkites, Chet Huntleys, and David Brinkleys of yore. These honorable people have turned into legends, but they left their seats to incompetent, partisan narcissists.

Even during the nineteen sixties and seventies, getting the news from the newspapers felt too late to me. I always favored the TV or radio. Today, the TV news has gone haywire, and the radio is in the hands of the anarchists. The only radio I trust is NPR. On TV, I prefer the PBS channels, but they don’t really give the news.

If so, how do I get the news? In bits and pieces, from the trusted sites on the internet, even from those in Europe, and still from the TV, although not believing anything I hear fully. Our local NPR radio gives the news in a nutshell, as if in headlines, but it is much better than any other deceitful medium.

In the same vein, NPR has an ethics in reporting the news handbook. It is well worth reading for journalists and news lovers alike. Here is the link:
http://ethics.npr.org/category/b-fairness