Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Newspaper Editorial policies

I'm sure all of you are scratching your respective heads about the journalistic integrity of the National Media. There have been repeated attacks on Barack Obama in various news outlets about him being a Muslim. CNN and the AP have done extensive research even sending research crews to Jakarta to research the schools Obama attended as a child. This research provided zero evidence Obama was ever a Muslim. Yet the lies continue in new forms via Internet chat rooms, and via various email networks.

In my own community a letter writer to the local paper, essentially "cut and pasted" extracts from these slanderous emails, and submitted a "letter to the editor", of my local paper. Despite the fact the letter was full of easily debunkable lies (is debunkable a word?), the letter was published in it's entirety. In the following days, the newspaper was bombarded with letters castigating the letter writer, and the newspaper for allowing such garbage to be published.

I write many letters to the editor, at least one a month. I sent an email to the editor of the local paper, as soon as I saw this letter get published. I asked him "how can you let outright lies to be published?" "It's one thing to have an open minded policy to provide a broad range of opinions to be published, it's another to allow outright lies to be published". The editor sent me a reply and apologized, and said that shouldn't have happened.

I am on good terms with the editor, and have written letters in the past defending their editorial policies.

Today the original letter writer was allowed to publish a letter apology, explaining that the original letter might not have been "completely" true. His excuse is that he is a 9-11 American, still haunted by that day. Then he goes on to defend his position that Obama is a Muslim, citing the fact when Obama was in Africa as a child, he attended an Islamic school. Obama never was in Africa as a child. What did he do, take correspondence courses?

It's one thing to allow a letter writer publish outright lies and distortions once, but twice in a span of three weeks? Journalistic integrity is a myth. Everyone has a right to their opinion. No one has a right to be wrong about their facts, yet distorting facts seems to be an accepted practice these days. It makes me sick, and pisses me off!!!