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News Drama
I have
several documents that have been given to me by an unknown
person while I was standing in the line at the post office
last week…they may, just may be fakes…but we should try
to get these to Dan Rather at CBS…..these seem to be US
Army Intelligence reports from 1864 that reportedly show
that John Wilkes Booth hated Abraham Lincoln because he
wouldn’t give him a civil service job in Washington D.C.
….the reason I suspect these might be phony is because
they have a telephone number with an area code and a zip
code for the address…I don’t think these existed in
1864…..no problem, even if they are fakes…then it
appears to me that Sixty Minutes should want to see them and
look into this matter. The proof might be false, but the
content might be real…..Gives new meaning to the phrase
…"It’s the thought that counts" doesn’t it?
It’s almost gotten to this point, hasn’t it? Sad times we
live in.
I can remember, and you probably can also, when the news
channels only reported the news; the only commentary given
out would be at the end of the broadcast when they would
give their opinion on some topic or a kind of editorial on
the events at the time. Those were short, succinct, and
balanced. These were rare, certainly not an everyday
occurrence.
Today, the reporters seem to be intent upon making the news,
not just reporting it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for
giving out as much information as possible, but let’s get
real, giving out false or misleading information doesn’t do
anyone any good at all, does it? We all live in such a fast
paced world that it is difficult for us to process some
piece of information that we assume to be true and correct
and then have to come back in a week or so with an updated
version that is completely different from the one we heard
the first time. Obviously this creates confusion and
distrust of the original source.
It is unclear what will happen to CBS and to Dan Rather.
Will they survive, who knows? Listening to the local radio
talk shows this morning, I heard plenty of callers report
that they find themselves unable to trust CBS from this
point forward. I’m certain the ratings numbers will reflect
this level of distrust in the coming months.
All of us are pressed for time these days, it seems the days
are too short for what needs to be accomplished. We need to
be able to rely upon the news channels, whoever they are, to
give us true information, which has been checked out
thoroughly before it gets reported to the public as fact.
None of us are being paid to be investigators for these
issues. At the same time, the public has a tremendous sense
of what is true and what seems to be false. It takes a long
time to build up a foundation of trust and only a short
period for the trust to be destroyed. The people of this
country do not like or appreciate being lied to.
Having said this, I will expound on to say that everyone
makes mistakes to be certain. Even if mistakes were made the
best thing for anyone (example: Richard Nixon) to do is
admit their mistake as soon as possible and get on with it.
The cover-up is very often the final nail in the coffin.
Nixon would have been much better off in our eyes had he
admitted the Watergate issue and asked for forgiveness.
Clinton could have done the same with the intern issue.
It never hurts to say….”I’m sorry, I was wrong.”
We all can be wrong…but none of us needs to compound a wrong
with another one…somewhere I think in the past we have
heard…”Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Old words, but good ones for all of us to live by.
Have a good week.
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