Dear Editorial Team at RealClearPolitics;
Coverage of the news, which is how history will be written, has gotten out of hand. Where are the true journalists? In junior high school, during the 60’s, we were taught about muckraking and yellow journalism. I had thought they were a thing of the past. I was wrong. Not only are they still with us, but they are more sophisticated and dirtier than ever before. It seems like there are only a few RealTrueJournalist any more; the rest of those who claim to be reporting the news have become talking heads. Did you catch the play on “RealClearPolitics”, where both sides are at least presented? However, even with RCP the readership is still left to ferret out the truth.
Perhaps each reporter should be required to identify their political affiliation and how they voted in the last ten years. Oh, we can’t ask that of a reporter, it might violate some of their privileges. (They call them rights and they say, “Trust us we are non-bias, we can regulate our selves”; but they have sadly abused their positions to the point that few in the public believe most of them. They see them for what they are. Besides they never allow any other agency the courtesy of policing themselves; something to do with a fox in the hen house, or so they say.
So much for the berating and belittling (which is probably the wrong approach) and is of little value unless a solution is proposed? While we must rely on the press to try to keep each other in check; each member should be required to take an oath similar to the Hippocratic Oath doctors take. I do not pretend to know exactly what it should say. I will suggest that everyone who reports the news should strive to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Where have I heard that before? The oath should be taken under the penalty of self banishment by the offending individual if they fail to uphold the strictest of standards. Well, maybe, their colleagues might have to help them find other employment and show them the way to the door.
In reality each reporter and journalist for any form of the news vehicle is writing history and should be held to the standards of Lucian, A.D.120-200. If you were to substitute the word “news person, reporter, journalist for historian”, his edict might well become our modern oath or standard for those we trust to deliver us the news.
“The historian should be fearless and incorruptible; a man of independence, loving frankness and truth; one who, as the poet says, calls a fig a fig and a spade a spade. He should yield to neither hatred nor affection, nor should he be unsparing and unpitying. He should be neither shy nor deprecating, but an impartial judge, giving each side all it deserves but no more. He should know in his writing no country and no city; he should bow to no authority and acknowledge no king. He should never consider what this or that man will think, but should state the facts as they really occurred.”
A motto for the news media, a badge to wear, a philosophy; that until the various news outlets require these types of standards of their employees, top to bottom, the public’s right to know will be the casualty, hidden beneath the bias and the lies of those who promise to serve with truth and honesty, but would rather consciously or subconsciously to promote a particular point of view they hold dear..
Let it be written, let it be said, and please let it be so; that we can have a free and fair press. Where have I heard something like this before?
Some thoughts for a national discussion; do you have any suggestions on how to start the ball rolling?
Thanks for the time you took to read this essay. I assume if you are reading the thank you read it all.
Ted Boyett, tired reader (TBoy@acgmail.gr), 21.09.2008
I am open to any of your comments. I fell confident nothing will become of this submission due to the fraternity protecting its own. But it does me good to get type of thing off my chest (vent)& out of my mind. Oh, you have to have a mind before you can purge it. As Josh says, "have an excellent day."
George is seated to the left of me and the individual to the right is Appopoulos (sp) at 75 year old retired professor of matematics. He has written 80 tomes (books) and is very well known and respected in at least the Greek scientific community. He is also quite the philosopher. He did not speak english so those who did interpreted for me. George's 12 year old daughter, seated at the furthest to the right of the picture, was very good with her english. Other english speakers included the women dead center and the man to her left as we look at the picture. Of course George was fairly fluent in english. Once Again the Greeks out did themselves with a wonderful meal. The boar had cooked all night. George claims to have shot it. He fits right in with Arthur and me. When I left they sent me home with some cookies. 
