The Last Straw Part 4
June 25, 2025
The Last Straw Part 4
When I was a boy and up until early adulthood, I listened to the news from Walter Cronkite and, before him, Douglas Edwards and Edward R. Murrow, on CBS. I also watched Harry Reasoner, who was on ABC, and John Chancellor on NBC. Later, Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung, and Barbara Walters came aboard. For decades, I hadn’t seen any substantive differences in the news reported by the different networks. When a rocket went up from Cape Canaveral, when Khrushchev visited the White House and the UN, when Fidel Castro visited the US, and when President Kennedy was assassinated, all the networks reported the facts.
Even during the civil rights era, news networks seemed to report the facts. During the same era, journalists reported that Communist countries had “managed news,” a term meaning that government controlled what news was delivered to its citizens. In countries like this, the dictator threw out journalists who didn’t align with the party line. Some journalists went missing or were mysteriously poisoned. All media, including radio and TV outlets, were managed by the state.
In high school, I was on the staff of our high school newspaper, “The Toshua Times.” Mrs. McNutt, our teacher, who had worked for a major newspaper, taught us that news journalism had a creed that the truth must be reported without bias. She taught us that to render an opinion in a news article was editorializing, a corruption of ethical journalism. She said we should stick to the facts as did great journalists of the major newspapers nationwide, and like Cronkite, Chung, Sawyer, Chancellor, etc.
Things have changed since those days. We have the three major networks, but for the most part the primary news sources are around-the-clock news channels. It’s rare to hear any major American news report on these channels that doesn’t have a slant. Along with blatant editorializing, any journalist in any interview can elicit what emotion they want the person they’re interviewing to express. So often, they devise a question that forces the person to express a specific feeling. Their strategically worded question also gives the journalist an oblique way of expressing their opinion in the interview! Here is an example: the journalist asks: “How furious are you that the capitol was attacked by what some call an angry mob?” or “How distressed are you that the border was overrun needlessly for years?” What gives the interviewer the right to force the person they’re interviewing to have a particular feeling — a feeling chosen by the “journalist?”
What happened to journalism’s creed to report the unvarnished news? In recent years, I realized that after viewing one news source, I was always sad and angry; after viewing another, I felt satisfied and hopeful. The last straw was when it finally hit me: I wasn’t watching the objective news, but different subjective stories about what was happening worldwide — stories that were crafted to make me believe a specific way about the news item. Some news networks ran counter to my hoped-for world, and the other ones catered to it. I wasn’t getting the real news about which I could form my own opinion. I was getting stories laced with political views and biases geared to shaping my opinion or patronizing me.
So much of our news seem to be “managed,” but in my opinion, not for political reasons as in communist countries, but for economic reasons. We select to hear the news that fits our narrative. As a result, commercial economics seem to be a huge force driving ethical journalism with the result that America is divided into at least two teams — and each has its channels on TV that say its team is right and victorious. Even some “journalists” are becoming political heroes. So, we tend to choose the channel that roots for our heroes and team. Then the media take things even further by making the ‘other’ team look evil and bad. Then news can be further distorted and placed on social media where anyone can post anything and call it the truth.
So, we end up with a divided citizenry groomed by news channels to hate the other side and then, the hate is fueled by social media. Besides this imploding us as a nation, the news media profits greatly. When they have to pay fines for reporting false news, they don’t mind because fines are drops in the bucket compared to the billions made by telling people what they want to hear whether its truth-based or not.
The good news is that conscience people find the truth, even if they must make extra efforts to find it. Conscious people refuse to rely on “facts” from news entertainment sources and from unsubstantiated social media.
Spiritual practice: Journal your thoughts about the news sources you listen to and Jesus's statement: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8: 32)
Self-inquiry: Why would you believe the news?
Dear God,
Please guide me to the sources of truth. Amen
