NorthIowaToday.com

Founded in 2010

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Opinion: The Sad Disappearance of Unbiased Journalism

I miss Walter Cronkite, and you should too. It was not a fluke that he was coveted as the “most trusted man in America” for decades. Americans knew that when tuning in to the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite they were going to get a factual, unbiased, apolitical delivery of the most important “hard news” items for that day.

As much as we trusted him, he trusted us as individuals and as a Republic to know that if he gave us the facts, Americans were capable and ready to understand, ponder, discuss and decide with a majority, the ramifications to our country for any given reported event. That was made possible because Cronkite practiced the skills and craft of the discipline of journalism.

Our founders, when envisioning application of the First Amendment to our Constitution, they blended the concepts of freedo! m of speech and freedom of the press to reach a concept of Freedom of Expression in as such one can not exist without the other. As a Nation, we have veered precariously away from the intent of the designers of our United States. We were entrusted with the First Amendment and we have failed its authors and signers.

Our founders, as modernized by the Supreme Court, intended the craft of journalism, as it relates to freedom of the press to be writing, speaking, broadcasting or any other means of mass communications characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation or utilizing bias. (emphasis added)

The First Amendment is supposed to protect us from government dictating what we must believe and how we should worship. In this day of the 24 hour news cycle and the thirst for sensationalism at the cost of facts, it appears to me that the media has become a polarizing quasi government that! violates the intention of the founders every second of every day. As a society we now make our decisions as citizens by ingesting worthless drivel and untruths spewed out at us from totally polar and equally destructive perspectives. The American ability to determine facts from fiction and arrive at our own fate is dead due to the disappearance of the craft of journalism.

Like I said, I miss Walter Cronkite …….

James Sayles

Mason City, Iowa


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NOTE: The opinions expressed in letters to the editor are not necessarily those of NorthIowaToday.com.

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