I like my hat

At a recent community event, one of the introductory speakers mentioned that we can’t always trust what we hear from national media.

The crowd laughed.

Sadly, it is a valid point. National media outlets each have their own heavy biases and make little attempt to pretend they do not. Viewers and readers gravitate toward the stations and publications that reinforce their own beliefs and biases, and thus hear the side of the story they are already inclined to believe.

What that speaker apparently did not realize was that the publisher of this newspaper was next one to the mic.

I used a moment of my time to point out that I believe he is unfortunately correct about national news, but local media is the last bastion of what news was always meant to be and what it certainly used to be. Part of that is because local media tends to be owned and operated by local people.

On our website and in every single edition of The Reporter, you can find my phone number and email as well as the number and email for another of our owners, Circulation Director Isaac Taylor. When you disagree with The Reporter, you have a direct line to people behind the pages.

The Reporter works to provide fair, balanced and accurate information to our readers. When there is a particularly sticky issue to cover, we reach out to people on both sides of it and we give you the exact words each said. If we were unable to reach people from both sides, we tell you that we tried and which side chose not to engage with our readers.

Ok, in the interest of transparency, sometimes we edit their grammar a bit or provide a few extra words [in brackets] for clarity.

The owners of The Reporter talk to one another about the goals, direction and standards of this newspaper.

We listen to the feedback we get from our readers. Sometimes we make adjustments because of that. Sometimes we do not. But we listen with open minds, and we always admit our mistakes.

We believe the media should continue to be the fourth estate.

Without an open and reliable press, it becomes exceptionally difficult to hold our leaders accountable for their words and deeds.

The owners of The Reporter have our individual and collective biases. Everyone does.

We try to strip out as much bias as we can before words hit the page. We choose to reject a great deal of potential news content in which the bias is too heavy to edit out without destroying the intent of the original message.

Now let’s get back to that distrust of media issue where this column began.

I have been to more public and private events than I can count where someone stands a few feet away and talks about how untrustworthy the media is these days.  In almost every instance, they follow up with, “I don’t mean YOU. I mean the national media.”

It reminds of Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack. “This is the worst looking hat I ever saw. You buy a hat like this, I’ll bet you get a free bowl of soup.” Rodney turns to see Ted Knight wearing that very hat. “Oh, it looks good on you though!”

The irony that I am widely known for my hats and coats is not lost on me.

I look like exactly what I am: a newsman who belongs in another era.

An era when the occasional snarky headline was a cause for chuckles and a bit of thinking instead of a reactionary and instant taking of offense.

An era when words on paper had weight.

An era when you picked up a newspaper to find facts.

An era when readers trusted their newspaper and the newspaper trusted its readers to read more than the first two paragraphs, then think, then make their own decisions.

Wearing that hat may be long out of fashion, but I’m going to keep wearing it and hoping someday people see the value in it again.