Letter to the Editor: The sad state of journalism

By LOU SANSEVERO Ferron

Editor,
Well said Patsy. After reading your Sept. 23 editorial I was forced to reflect on the sad state of both journalism and politics in our nation and how low our expectations of both have sunk as citizens and voters. I consider both Drew and Gary as friends, value their friendships, and have no interest in “taking sides”; Drew did what he did and Gary stated his position on it and as far as I’m concerned that’s it. If they are the men I believe they are, they’ll now put their personal opinions aside and work together as county commissioners on projects that are in the best interests of the county and now its up to the voters to decide who should be the next commissioner representing the southern part of the county as it should be. However, on the subject of the coverage of what transpired I have a definite opinion and that is that real journalism has two components, reporting and editorializing. These two areas are distinct and serve diverse purposes; reporting, in its truest sense, quite simple seeks only to inform the public of the facts . . . to be valid and serve the “public interest” it needs to be totally neutral and impartial, editorials on the other hand, by their nature, are biased but are the proper aspects of journalism for “shaping public opinion”. Both facets have their place in journalism and society so long as they are clearly identified as one or the other. Over the past several years, however, we have been conditioned to accept biased reporting (editorializing) as true reporting and have come to expect it from “reporters”. We have come to accept that newspapers and media news will be biased one way or another . . . liberal or conservative, democrat or republican, leftwing or rightwing and are too quick to mislabel neutral reporting (the facts and just the facts) as being a “cover-up” because it doesn’t take one side or the other. All this having been said I urge you to resist those who may wish to “advise” you to report a story with one slant or another and continue to present us (your readers) with the facts in reporting and your opinions in your editorials.