| |
When
News Becomes Drama
by Peary Perry
|
|
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.
© Peary Perry
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com
Letters
From North America |
| |
