LITTLE ROCK — The news of late for those who practice my craft has been deservedly dismal.
For the fourth straight year, most Americans report little or no trust in the mass media to report news truthfully, accurately and fairly.
It’s a sad situation when a record 57 percent of our citizens now say their trust has been squandered by biased and inexcusably bad news reporting. A newspaper is only as valuable as its credibility.
This regrettable situation has been building for decades, ever since megacorporations that neither respected nor understood quality journalism began buying up independently owned papers and smaller groups of them across the nation.
The big-bucks buyers had no intellectual or emotional attachment to the communities or to the inherent First Amendment responsibilities of newspapers.
It didn’t take long for non-newsoriented bean counters to wring every possible expense out of news operations. They replaced genuine news editors and directors.
Their sole responsibility was to satisfy the corporate office. They couldn’t comprehend the almost ministerial sense of calling that so many of the country’s finest and most courageous editors they replaced had known.
As more and more papers consolidated into fewer and fewer hands, the abuses of their power and misplaced political bias and influence began to emerge. The number of daily papers began declining from about 1,750 in1970 to around 1,400 in 2001, along with big losses in circulation.
The devoted reporters, many of whom had entered the craft in the post-Watergate era, began to peel away.
Their departures increased as it became obvious that the thrust of their publication or station had devolved into weak-kneed, irrelevant mush before their eyes.
Today, those at this particular newspaper, which has more than held its own, are fortunate to still be employed by an independent publisher who always has believed in aggressive, quality journalism and putting readers first.
At the Hussman family papers, I’ve never once been told to back away from a story, a column or an editorial. But we also are very much in the minority, and that 57 percent of distrustful Americans only proves it.
Boo to you
America’s so-called most haunted hotel, the 1886 Crescent Hotel has really been on a national roll of late, appropriately enough just before Halloween. The reported ghosts within that grand old hotel have provided fodder for a spate of stories by People, USA Today and cnn.com. As a result, visitors are showing up in record numbers, so much so that an official ghost tour supervisor has been appointed.He’s had to add daily ghost tours that begin at 5 p.m.
I once stayed in the famously haunted Michael’s room. The only mystery I saw or heard in my semislumber was the sound of flushing about 3 a.m. Then I realized that it was me.
I’ve written about Beth Shibley, who said she had a truly terrifying experience with an unseen force in a hotel bedroom with her mother, even capturing bizarre images on film during the pre-dawn hours. If you head that way, be sure to say hi to my college buddy, Billy “Boo” Ott.
Some voice
You may have felt as reassured as I did to hear Sen. Blanche Lincoln say that hers is an “independent” voice for the ordinary folks of Arkansas. Just a chunk of good ole shirt-sleeve, downhome, country-fried independence.
But then her GOP opponent, 3rd District Congressman John Boozman, burst my bubble by asking publicly how she can be so independent if she’s voted with President Obama 95 percent of the time.
Then Boozman’s folks reminded me that Lincoln was the senator who cast the infamous 60th deciding vote that ultimately allowed the largely unread 2,700-page Barack Obama/ Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid health care abomination to be forced upon us after dark.
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Mike Masterson is opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Northwest edition.
Editorial, Pages 89 on 10/24/2010