I haven’t written a letter to the editor in a while, but as a journalist for many years who believes good journalism is integral to democracy, this subject is dear to my heart.
It is in response to a letter by Barry Dittler in the Friday, Feb. 26 issue of the The Garden Island. I don’t take issue with anything Mr. Dittler includes in the first two paragraphs of his letter. However, in the final paragraph he said something that is a misunderstanding about journalism that, unfortunately, he shares with thousands (perhaps millions) of others.
Mr. Dittler is upset that TGI ran an opinion piece from the Los Angeles Times that he says was biased. Here’s the problem: Opinion pieces and editorials are almost always biased. All such commentators in print or broadcast media have, and express, a bias. That’s their nature. Yes, it’s fair to expect them not to cherry-pick facts, but cherry-picked facts is partly what editorials and opinion pieces are all about. As in oral debates, the proponents of one side or another choose facts that support their side of the issue.
News articles and newscasts are a different matter. We should all expect these to give us the facts, all the facts, and nothing but the facts. News articles and newscasts are what provide us with the facts we need to understand what is going on in our community, our state, our country and the world. It’s the information we need to be good citizens and to make well-informed decisions and choices. It’s what we need to have a healthy democracy.
Like Mr. Dittler, many people think journalism is dead only because they don’t fully understand the distinction between news and opinion, and can’t always tell which is which. Here’s a little help. Generally, the first section of The Garden Island, except the page(s) marked TGI Forum, are expected to be non-biased news, presenting only facts. The Forum page (also known as Op-Ed or Editorial page) can be expected to be nothing but opinion. You can make the same distinctions in broadcast media: newscasts should be the facts, all the facts, and nothing but the facts, while guests who are brought on, and personalities who have their own shows are opinion-mongers.
Good journalism is not dead! It is just being drowned out by too much opinion and misinformation from unreliable sources. If you want reliable information, learn to identify what is news and what is opinion. If this were a diet, news would be your nutrients and opinion would be the junk food. Unfortunately, there is too much junk food around, and too many of us digest too much of it.
(Post script: Studies have shown that the least-informed individuals are those who rely on cable-news outlets, while the best-informed are those who get it from public radio (NPR) or newspapers. Network news broadcasts are somewhere in between. I would add that those who rely on unvetted internet sites are actually the least informed. But that’s just my opinion.)
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Vera Benedek is a resident of Kilauea.
An interesting letter. I’ve got no problem with good journalism. TGI is no exception. When you have stories about a former mayor who played college football at Hawai’i vs. someone who is a businessmen, it is easy to put them together so people will believe it to be so. Is this good writing? Yes, if it sells newspapers. No, if it doesn’t sell. Money is always the issue. Journalism sells papers.
Excellent journalism is rare and difficult to find in today’s media. And, that has led to today’s failure with our Constitutional Republic. Journalist’s have failed the United States of America, even with its Constitutional protections.
Miss information, people’s opinions? 9/11 was 100% controlled demolition. Bill Clinton and Bush Sr was 100% in cocain deals. But one can’t have a brain to think that journalists have independence. And if journalists have independence they are pushed back behind the lines to report the facts. Freedom in freemason world cost what they want you to pay for, not want God intended the this world to be. Thank God there is a life after this one.
In reply to Vera’s letter to the editor. Au Contraire. Forty years ago out of college I worked in a CBS TV newsroom and then wrote news stories for The Philadelphia Inquirer (Knight Ridder) including front-page murder trials & federal indictments. The days of Walter Cronkite are long gone. The Big Three national news stations are terribly biased. Night after night. Here’s an example. In the Spring when the pandemic took off ABC national nightly news ran a story about an ER nurse contracting COVID-19 and infecting her family. I am sure every viewer believed that woman caught the virus at work. Even my ER trauma wife thought that. Wrong! If you read the AP story you’d learn it had nothing to do with her being an ER nurse. She had friends visit her family and THEY gave it to her whole family. She didn’t bring it home from the ER ( again the inference by ABC). Terribly irresponsible, self-serving reporting.