The Knight-Ridder newspaper empire has been sold to a smaller outfit that plans to sell 12 of the assets and keep 20, among which is the Lexington Herald-Leader. As a result, one could have hoped that there might be more fairness in the paper than exists now, with respect to balance vis-à-vis the liberal, moderate, conservative, libertarian positions, but the word is that there will be little change in Lexington.
One could even hope that the paper might be returned to the journalistic traditions of a few decades ago, and actually take on the appearance of a serious document put together by news reporters on the news side and commentators, editorialists on the opinion side. That isn’t likely to happen, either. Now, as the news (always bylined, something never done before in the newspaper heyday) is delivered on pages once reserved for news, it is “reported” within the concomitant analysis of the reporter. This is done, ostensibly (or so one gathers), so that the ignorant public not only will know what the news is, but will also know what it means…or at least what the editors with their own agenda attempt to make it mean.
The TV people have fallen into the same agenda-driven operation. Check out the evening news “shows” on ABC, CBS, and ABC to see how the news is filtered through the political or other network agendas…in other words, remember Dan Rather. Just as in the case of newspapers, these “news outlets” are losing viewers, not least because many people check the blogs, radio talk-shows and independent sheets of one kind or another to find out the facts that the mainstreamers are loath to expose because the facts often destroy their liberal agendas.
On the front page of the 12 March edition of the Herald-Leader appeared an account concerning former UK- basketball-star-turned-evangelist Cameron Mills. This might have been worth a few column inches in the Features or Religion section, but it was given about two-thirds of the front page and another three-fourths of a later page in the same front section, with a total of six pictures. It was bylined by Frank Lockwood, who helped the paper ridicule Southland Christian Church over the Christmas non-service and the governor’s recent prayer breakfast because it was allegedly somehow discriminatory at best or insensitive at worst. This is not a slam at Mills, but it’s worth noting that Lockwood brought out some facts that certainly didn’t do the decent and obviously devout Mills any good…plus the fact that it wasn’t front-page news.
In the edition of 07 March, columnist Merlene Davis was allowed to cite what she obviously considered an item concerning racism in Connecticut. She told one side of an episode, gave no corroborating sources or even the initial source leading to her screed, and was careful not to offer the “other side.” In her offering of 14 March, she claimed that there had not been enough discussion in the Urban-County Council of the camera-traffic-light matter before the vote was taken. The vote was 13-2 against. How much discussion is needed in light of a consensus as overwhelming as that? She expressed the view that the vote represented bullying. These are examples of the depths to which the paper has devolved.
One longs for the days when there were two newspapers in Lexington, as well as in Louisville. There were even two independent dailies in Danville, the small town where this writer grew up. The papers were independent and represented competition and, no doubt, poignantly differing editorial stances. Now, the monopoly in both large cities (Louisville Courier-Journal, H-L), where the papers have belonged to the huge Gannett and Knight-Ridder chains, respectively, for years is disintegrating as subscribers take a walk and the papers are forced into meaningful cost-cutting. Worth noting, both papers are ultra-liberal in a state that becomes more conservative each year in a nation that is behaving likewise.
It’s simply too bad that there isn’t balance in the state’s largest print media, but the fact that there isn’t is beginning to tell.
And so it goes
Jim Clark
No comments:
Post a Comment