I have always loved the news. Television news, articles in the newspaper, weekly magazines, and now of course news on the Internet all continue to have a great pull on me.
In spite of all the competition, the daily newspaper has always held a special fascination. I have traveled much of my life, and as my wife will quickly tell anyone, I am a collector of newspapers. One of the first things I pick up when I am in a new town is the local paper. We lived in Canada for almost seventeen years, and I came close to being traumatized by the Canadian tradition of no Sunday newspaper.
I can remember many wonderful Sunday mornings in college with both the Boston Globe and the New York Times spread out to read. That was one of my favorite ways to spend a Sunday.
Today of course with little effort I can sit at my kitchen table with a wireless laptop and peruse my favorite national papers. I used to always read my local paper first. To me, the printed page remains the most important. Once it is printed changes are hard to make. Unfortunately, some local papers now have a hard time figuring out the difference between news and opinion.
Perhaps that is why I am so concerned when I see mistakes in the newspaper. I spent time in my teenage years with R.J. Berrier. R.J. started his career at the Mount Airy Times on June 14, 1948. He became the editor at the Times in days when you still did lines of lead type. He worked for fifty-two years in the local papers in Mount Airy, NC and died while still working as a beloved staff-writer at the Mount Airy News. His manual typewriter is in the Mount Airy Museum. He was never fond of computers but adjusted to them. I used to go visit him at the Times offices after he got back from his Mount Airy After Midnight rides with the local police. I can remember seeing the type placed on the press after he wrote an article and finding the newspaper with the article on our doorstep the next morning. Sometimes it took a lot of bourbon to make it happen if the ancient press was acting up but I can only remember a few times when the paper was late. To me, it was magic of the noblest kind. It was a reminder of the revolution that the Gutenberg press brought us.
R.J. was fond of saying that most people only got their name in the paper three or four times, at their birth, their high school graduation, when and if they married, and then when they died. It was his absolute belief that they deserved to have their names spelled correctly each of those times. It was just part of his commitment to making sure the facts were right.
Of course, I am not as good as R.J. was with names, punctuation, and spelling and do not have a dedicated editor looking over my shoulder so I can live with the odd spelling error on my web work which I can always fix. However, what I cannot tolerate is opinion masquerading as real reporting. When I read something on the opinion pages, I am okay with someone espousing a particular view of a situation. There is no need to hide their tendencies on the opinion pages. Just do not mix opinion with real factual reporting.
When I get off the opinion pages, I expect the reporters and writers to do everything possible to bring me a balanced view. Unfortunately, we see more and more slanted reporting in a crass effort to pander to certain political groups. Newspapers have always had their own slant on politics, but great newspapers make a real effort to air competing views and make it clear where they stand. Really good newspapers perform a great service in our country by challenging the establishment at times when the opposition parties may be ineffectual. Papers that just spout a party line are little more than propaganda machines for agendas often driven by those who care little for our democracy.
A free press is essential to our way of government. Yet this article is not about the current challenges that the press faces from the judiciary, but about the challenges, the press is facing from within. If I write something for the web and make a mistake, I can easily correct it. Often I can correct the article before anyone has even read it. If someone writes an incorrect article and it is published in the newspaper, the correction can at best be made the next day or the next edition and often ends up being less effective than the almost continuous corrections and revisions we see on the Internet.
This means it is absolutely critical that sources be checked and double checked, that if the article is any place beside the opinion pages, a great effort should be made to make certain the article provides a balanced perspective and focuses on the facts.
Doing a good job means doing real research not just getting sound bites. This is a tough job in a world of instant news. It is, however, one of the ways that newspapers can remain relevant in our fast-changing society where the world moves at the speed of the Internet.
I read an article which positioned itself as a balanced view of the computer platform war between Apple and the Windows world. The article quoted multiple sources but ended up making a fatal error. Much of the information on the Apple platform came from a salesman whose job apparently is to sell the Windows platform. There were so many errors that it was clear that the information was coming from someone who had no current experience on the platform where he chose to provide negative commentary.
Perhaps some will think it is a minor deal that an article with potentially incorrect information was published but consider this. Perhaps a large west coast technology company happens to be visiting Roanoke on the day when the article is published. After reading the article they conclude that the technological literacy of the Roanoke Valley is not what they are looking for in their workers and move on to new potential location. A newspaper and its articles are often the daily faces of a locality. A vibrant newspaper often means a vibrant community.
I actually wrote a letter to the author but he basically said he had no time to debate and was working on his next article. I was not looking to debate, I wanted to provide him with correct information but he was uninterested. R.J. would have been appalled if someone ignored critical information. I did write my own response, Computer Battle.
Making sure that articles are well researched, balanced and accurate is an awesome responsibility that most newspapers take seriously even in today's world of reduced staffing. To remain a beacon of fairness and balanced ideas, our newspapers need to keep their commitment to quality reporting even if it means we have to wait a little longer for the real story. Our society depends on newspaper to keep us free, open and well-educated on current issues. The freedom and independence of our press is one of the pillars of our democratic society
I know many never touch newsprint these days but a good newspaper can be a beacon of truth in a world where anyone who has a computer can make up their own news. I hope the world of newsprint never dies.
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