When it comes to modern-day journalism, the state of the art is that there is none. It’s basically all manipulation, cover-up, and brainwashing. I constantly ask myself, who was trained in print journalism in the days of Walter Cronkite and other established, respected and honest journalists, what happened?

We journalist wannabes were taught that each story should focus on the 5Ws and 1H — who, what, when, where, why and how — in the first paragraph. In other words, lead with the news. 

If there was to be any interpretation of what transpired in the particular event being reported on, then all opinions must be attributed to others, and those opinions must counter-balance one another.

In other words, there should be no slanting of the news toward a certain perspective, and the reporter/author should remain voiceless unless penning an op/ed (opinion/editorial) piece. 

Where have those standards vanished to? That’s a fairly huge topic, and it can begin with the American educational system, which has been taken over by what the media prefer to call “progressives,” but in truth are your basic socialists and communists.

In one of my gigs in my professional career, I worked for a teachers’ union, and even in the brief time I was there oh so long ago, activists managed to take over operations and refocus all efforts and initiatives with a far-left tilt.

Anyway, this whole topic deserves another, more detailed post, which I’ll get to someday and add to my site.

Postcript: The featured picture is of my copy of the last edition of Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, a Hearst Corporation property (remember Patty Hearst?), where I worked as a struggling journalist.