"And That's The Way It is"

"And that's the way it is." This was CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite's famous nightly news sign-off for years. When you heard it, even as a kid, it gave you sense of security and familiarity, like somehow Cronkite's reporting of the news would not only keep us informed but also keep us safe. You also had the belief that if Cronkite was reporting it, then it was as up to the minute as it could be back then and that it was the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We trusted Cronkite to come into our homes every night and tell us the good, the bad and the ugly of what was going on in the world, but mostly, we trusted that he was telling us the truth. It was definitely a simpler time.

I think it was a mixture of growing up with news journalists and anchors like Chet Huntly, David Brinkley and Cronkite, and my love of writing that set my once desired career path when I was pretty young. I wanted to be a news journalist. I liked trying to see the world through another's eyes and I wanted to give people the truth that they might not get from any other source but me. Yes, I had grand delusions about what journalism was like and what it was destined to become.

As a young and naive college student from a small town in the mid west, my freshmen and sophomore years of going after my journalism/mass media degree were far more of an education than I ever dreamed they would be. Yes, there were those pesky prerequisites that we all had to have, but a couple of pieces of my writing allowed me to get into a couple of upper journalism classes ahead of schedule. It was in one of these classes that my journalism dreams died. We had a professor that at the time I despised and blamed for killing my dream, but in retrospect, am glad he did. He drilled into us that journalism was not about us, telling our stories the way we saw them. No....it was about us telling the stories the way our bosses saw them. We were told to forget humanity, feelings and sometimes even the truth. We were told that we would be given stories to research and report on, but at the end of the day, the producer would have the final say on what we actually reported. It was made clear to us that we would have to check our emotions and even our ethics at the door in this career, because our careers would rely on how much we were a team player and how willing we were to tell the stories we were told to tell.

This particular class started out with 60 students. By the end more than half had dropped the class. I have no idea how many journalists eventually came from this class, but I do know that I was not one of them. This professor had quite proficiently and permanently killed in me the desire to ever be a journalist. Now please, let me preface this by saying, I know quite a few journalist. Most are really good people with ethics and integrity, but trust me when I say, it took some of them years to find a job where they could face themselves daily in the mirror and a couple simply took the name they made for themselves in journalism and became bona fide writers of stories. Their stories. I commend them highly.

Sadly, the days of Cronkite's comforting sign-off and ethical journalistic style have been replaced by 24 hour drive-thru news. No longer is the news about quality, but about quantity. Who can get it out the fastest, put the best spin on it and who can make it the most sensational. In essence....it has brought us to the birth of "fake news," which is now a thriving commodity.

If you are a person of any years, then you will remember when we had three major news sources. While in competition with each other, they all brought their own special journalist or type of reporting to the table and the country was pretty much divided in thirds as to where they got their news. And funny thing, if you watched your local news on ABC, then chances are....that is where you also watched your world and evening/nightly news too. We were also a country of loyal viewers to whichever outlet we chose. And while we were usually used to our anchors being stoic purveyors of the news, there were times when we got to see the humanity behind the professional facade, like when President Kennedy was assassinated or when President Reagan was shot. They were a breed we rarely see anymore made of ethics, talent and a desire to get the truth to the people.

I honestly believe journalism within the news media began to change when big money began controlling news outlets and thanks to cable tv, big money began buying and promoting 24 hour a day news. We suddenly went from world news approximately twice a day for 30 minutes each, to world news 24/7. Who knew there was that much going on in the world to support such a thing?

It has always been a belief that those with money and those in government hold the ear of the news media, meaning that they have always had some sway in how the media reported. Examples of this were back in the day of movie studios with big money, basically owning their stars. The media were often paid a pretty penny to look the other way when a married star was seen out with someone who was not their spouse, when an unmarried starlet became pregnant or when an openly gay star was kept tightly closeted. Another example was when Kennedy was president. It was well known by those in his circle and his office that he was carrying on at least one affair, but somehow this was a well kept secret by the media and not until after his death was his extra marital life made public. Unfortunately, these closely guarded media secrets are child's play compared to modern day media. Back then they weren't lying, they just weren't talking. Now a days though, they are lying, misleading and rushing to judgement without facts.

With the beginning of big money media outlets and 24 hour news, no longer was it just three big names clamoring for viewers and ratings. Suddenly CNN came to play and eventually MSNBC and FOX. They were all big media backed by big bucks and everyone of them wanted a substantial share of viewers and the ratings. In my humble opinion, this was the beginning of the end for real news and real journalists. News was now a commodity and it was being sold to the highest bidder any way they could sell it.

Now jump ahead 40 years to 2020. Most things are supposed to get better with time and age, but the news media and news reporting simply have not. The news media has sold their soul over and over and allowed themselves to become a laughing stock with unprofessional journalists, stories that were rushed for headlines only to find out there was no truth in them and in the last decade, the news media has admittedly become politically partisan, leaving out bipartisan stories or twisting the stories giving them a partisan slant. We have had well known and once respected journalists such as Brian Williams, Jayson Blair and Dan Rather, falsifying information and concocting stories based in conjecture or sometimes based in nothing by lies.

Today though, the worst problem we seem to have with the news media is the partisanship of the media since 2012. You would have to be blind or completely delusional to not see that the news media has been squarely behind the Democratic party. While the Republicans are often chastised for their wealth, it largely seems to go unnoticed that much of the money behind these news corporations come from the pockets of multi-millionaire/billionaire Democrats. It only makes sense that a Democrat, or anyone for that matter, who puts millions into a "business" is going to expect that their agenda both political and otherwise be carried out. Those Democrat $$ also drift into the pockets of lobbyist, senators and not surprisingly if the truth be told, an ex-president or two.

Throughout history, money has talked and in today's Democrat owned and run news outlets, it speaks volumes. Examples of this are sensationalized stories of race riots, gun stories and a boy wearing a Make America Great Again hat at the United States Capital. Down played or completely left out in these stories where fair and equal facts of the other side of the story. These race riots were caused by people rushing to judgement and fanning the flames of unrest without having all the facts. While you will hear all day every day about the people who illegally get guns or steal guns from family members and try and shoot up a mall, school or church, you seldom hear about the law abiding gun owner who stopped a shooting or kept a shooting from escalating because they themselves were carrying. And CNN as well as others have hopefully learned a valuable lesson about jumping to conclusions and out and out making up stories to fit their political agenda as they are being made to pay Nick Sandmann for trying to ruin his name and character.....without fact one to substantiate the allegations.

I think a sad truth that many of us are starting to realize though, is that just like back in the days of Cronkite, there are those that trust CNN, MSNBC and the other major outlets. They believe what they are being told every minute of every day. Unlike the days of yesteryear though, where all three outlets basically reported the same stories with the same basic facts, today there are many outlets, some major and some maybe even more factual but much smaller, at the touch of our fingers. We also have a library of research sites from the government to local information with our phone and our computers. We are not just stuck with the word of one outlet, and yet many refuse to fact check or research. Some won't even read beyond the headline and you can bet these news sources are counting on that.  If CNN, FOX or quite sadly.....social media says it.....then of course......it must be true. This is how fake news grows and this is how it gets into the impressionable and sometimes stubborn recesses of our minds. It is a brainwashing of half truths, lies and agenda driven propaganda that we the people soak in like a sponge and repeat and share as if gospel.

While yes, this is all my opinion, it is also based in fact. Anything I have said here can be researched and quite honestly, I hope you take the time to just do that. In fact, I hope you take the time to start doing that with a lot of "news" stories that seem to have a one sided feel, because you can bet, there is always another side which might give you a more even, fair and factual view of the story. And aren't you kind of tired of letting big money, big news media and social media do your thinking for you?

So there it is. I guess I am rather glad that I took the path I did. I would never have been happy having to write what I was told and my career would have likely been over before it even started. I am kind of a rebel like that. Yes, I would much rather be here writing "my" truth and knowing at the end of the day, I have always been as honest as I could be and as ethical as I could be, with my soul still in tact. .And that's the way it is.