I assume during his breaks from helping fire the furnaces, the 37th President of the United States puts down his shovel, wipes his brow, looks up and says “damn, why didn’t this happen when I was in office, I might have made it.”
People who I assumed were bright folks have been filling my social pages about how “It’s horrible they’re doing this with unnamed sources for no other reason than to bring people down…” and prefacing these remarks by saying “I’M NOT BEING POLITICAL….”
C’mon—the very nature of these posts are political—because the only person who right now has to deal with “unnamed sources” on a national level is the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
I usually let these comments pass, but in responding to one that even FOX NEWS has confirmed the story, the reply back was: “WE KNOW HOW TRUSTWORTHY FOX IS…”
SMGDH…
Do you sincerely believe that after what happened to Dan Rather in 2004, that any professional (and my definition of professional is one who has been trained in the vocation) reporter would go to air, print or online with a story that they’ve haven’t been able to verify AFTER getting the information from the unnamed source. Do you think any editor would allow a reporter to air, print or go online with a story that they haven’t seen the VERIFICATION of?
I get it—ever since the acts of the 37th President of the United States (and the actions of his first VP, who coined the phrase “nattering nabobs of negativism” when speaking about the media) ended his term prematurely, there has been a concerted effort from BOTH PARTIES to denigrate the work of reporters. And as I mentioned with Rather, there have been some reporters who have helped electeds in the effort to make people distrust the press by taking shortcuts and shading the truth
And thanks to that, we’re at the point where people believe NOTHING—unless what they read or hear confirms and/or conforms to their world view. And in today’s world, where every theory—no matter how outlandish or asinine—is just a mouse click away, it’s easy to find a point of view that matches yours.
More’s the pity…
In today’s current atmosphere, Richard Nixon, who until the current officeholder, had perpetrated the greatest example of malfeasance while occupying the White House, would have said Woodward and Bernstein can’t be believed because the bulk of their reporting was from “unnamed sources.”
The fact that they then went out and VERIFIED the statements they received from these unnamed sources is superfluous.
<<and I suspect some of the parents of these people posting now DID feel about Nixon and the way “he was treated” in the same way their children are feeling about the current occupant of the White House…but I digress…>>
I suspect that for far too many people, if a media organization they didn’t agree with told them “water was wet,” they would accuse that outlet of a liberal (or conservative) conspiracy…
Understand, newspapers grew out of the partisan world of politics—there were newspapers that were essentially house organs of the political parties they supported. So in that aspect, Fox News and MSNBC are just a throwback to the “glorious” days of Hearst and Pulitzer. But for the most part (and there are those who would argue—like the people posting about “unfair treatment”) these are professionals who are trying to do a job that everybody now believes they are capable of doing, you know like the beer-bellied individuals who believe they could fake out Bobby Wagner, hit a Marco Gonzales curveball, or drive past Kawhi Leonard….
As a person who spent a decade in the profession, the majority of the people working on and reporting these stories, whether if it’s with a community paper, the shrinking number of independent local dailies, the even smaller number of local TV and radio outlets, or those who are trying to scratch out a living writing newsblogs, are focused on providing those who are looking at their articles with the unvarnished truth.
Now that “truth” may be from their point of view—as we have seen from outlets like Fox, OAN and MSNBC—but it’s truth that is the result of the work they put into it.
You may not agree with it—and it appears that at least one-third of members of my grade school and high school graduating classes that I’m in contact with—at least for now—doesn’t (but hey, they also don’t agree that the subject of these “unnamed sources” is a racist and a misogynist…because you know all of those times its been reported is “fake news”).
Remember, just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean that it’s not true.
It was true back in Nixon’s day—and since other sources (even if you throw out Fox and CNN) have confirmed portions on the article that has set off this firestorm—it’s true today….
Until next time…
Thoughts From A Short Round Black Man 