Read All About It!

There was a time when the locally printed newspaper was the primary source of news for most Americans.  Whether it came out twice a day, once a day, or once a week, folks waited patiently for the local “rag” to appear.  On its pages, in black and white and sometimes shades of gray, we could find the drama, tragedy and humor of our communities playing out.  It was our window to the broader world.  It was fodder for discussion.  It was the keeper of scores, the settler of arguments, and the suppressor of rumors.

Peddling my green Stingray bicycle around my neighborhood in the early seventies, I took my job as a paperboy very seriously.  Those tan canvas saddlebags that hung over my banana seat on either side of the rear wheel of my bicycle were loaded with bats of the truth, hand-rolled by me and tightly secured with a red rubber band!  To me, the logo of the Tyler Courier-Times painted on the side of those saddlebags meant that I was delivering the gospel.  The good Tylerites living on Martha, Baker, Lee, Cope and Bradshaw Streets were counting on me to bring them their daily dose of veracity and truthfulness, delivered right to their front porch (or somewhere in that vicinity).

How things have changed!  These days we are inundated with torrents of “news” from every direction in our lives, very little of which is presented to us in honest ways without bias or embellishment of the facts.  I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve found myself literally craving good old-fashioned, unvarnished facts.  It seems like everything we read on our screens, watch on TV, or hear on the radio has been spun, twisted, and tweaked in some way in order to try and sway our opinions and beliefs.  I’m tired of being played!  

Don’t misunderstand – I’m not naive enough to believe that there hasn’t always been editorial opinion or bias injected into whatever news sources we’ve consumed.  Human nature dictates that even the most ethical and virtuous news publisher, editor or reporter will sometimes let their individual biases show through.  I have no doubt that Mrs. Sarah Butler and her nephew, Calvin Clyde, who ran the Tyler newspaper establishment during my years there, would sometimes let their personal biases shade a story from time to time, for whatever reason.  The difference is that today, bias in the media is the norm rather than the exception.  Virtually everything is shaded and colored by media that has ulterior motives.  The facts are often nowhere to be found, or at least they’re way off in the background.  

I’ve gleaned from conversations with friends recently that we have all been so thoroughly “spun”, twisted and manipulated that none of us really have the ability to ferret out the truth anymore.  That is concerning to me.  It angers me.  Just when I think I know the truth about something, I discover the real truth from an entirely different direction!

I know I’m not alone.  A recent survey by the Knight Foundation and Gallup found that Americans believe that 62% of the news they consume on TV, in newspapers, and on the radio is biased.  Those surveyed said they believe that 44% of news reporting and 64% of news on social media is inaccurate. And they’re mad like me about it.  More than 80% said they were angered or bothered by seeing biased information, and slightly more felt similarly about seeing inaccurate information.  I find that I’m doubting everything I read or hear these days, because in my mind there is a direct correlation between bias and accuracy.  If I feel something is biased, I don’t believe what they are saying, no matter how accurate they may be with the facts.  

With a worldwide pandemic, racial protests, general unrest in our society, and a crucial presidential election coming up, the ability to have dependable sources for “The Truth” in news is more important than ever.  I decided to make an attempt to ferret out the most reliable, accurate and unbiased news sources I could find.  Unfortunately, like the news sources themselves, even the arbiters of bias have their own biases that have to be filtered out.

I did find, however, an interesting resource that I want to share with you.  It is a chart developed by Ad Fontes Media, a Colorado-based media watchdog organization which rates media sources in terms of political bias and reliability.  Ad fontes is latin for “from the source” or “back to the source”.  The organization was founded in 2014 by patent attorney Vanessa Otero with the goal of combating political polarization.  Does Otero have her own biases?  I’m sure she does.  But her method of scrutinizing various media sources seemed logical to me, and I’ve decided to use her analysis as a personal guide, at least for now.  I’ve included a static version of the (licensed) chart below, but I would also encourage you all to go to their website to study the interactive version of the chart there.  I’m also happy to send the licensed copy of this chart to anyone who would like to have it.  You might be surprised by her analysis! 

  https://www.adfontesmedia.com/

In case you’re interested, I did find a few of my favorite news sources on the Ad Fontes Chart to be ranked fairly high in reliability and fairly neutral in their bias analysis (AP, NPR, ABC News, and the Houston Chronicle).  I also found some whose location on the chart just confirmed my feelings about their bias levels and reliability, and made me wonder why I ever pay any attention to them at all!  

It’s ironic that at a time in our history when we are in such desperate need of sincere, deep-diving, polite, and civil discourse, we are being forced to limit all that, due to social distancing and isolation.  The outcome, unfortunately, is that many of us (myself included) have become more and more accepting of the flash of a misleading headline, the incomplete snippets of information that only tell half the story, and the brazen editorial abuse of our sensibilities by virtually every “news” source out there.  I’m convinced that none of us really take the time anymore to search for the truth and fully understand so many of the critical issues in the world.  And that has only made us all too quick to form rash opinions about each other, and to be way too quick to criticize each other, even our friends and family.  

I love listening to a broad spectrum of opinions and viewpoints – left, right, center, progressive, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla.  I believe we all should do so.  Different tastes are what make the world go ‘round.  I just don’t want to feel like I’ve been “played” or “spun” by a news source.  If you’re a news source telling me a story, give me the facts, all of them.  If you’re giving me perspectives, be balanced and give me all of the perspectives.  My own brain and my own beliefs will take it from there.

I can’t wait to get together and talk about the world with you all sometime…until then, I’d love to hear your thoughts!  Send me your comments.