Newspapers:

I have been watching what many bemoan as the death of the American Newspaper and heard many differing opinions on this ongoing event. American Newspapers have a long as interesting history. But once again Americans seem to confuse the thing with what the thing represents. Newspapers do not guarantee truth or freedom. Recall that the leading news publication in Communist Russia was Pravda (Truth in Russian) yet many times that hardly was what those pages contained. Even in America stories in newspapers have been proven to be false and yellow sheet journalism has at times been the norm not the exception. Yet we go on bemoaning the untimely demise of newspapers when we should be doing all in our power to see that what the media tells us is in fact a true reflection of reality. In point of fact it matters little where we as citizens get our information from so long as that information truly represents what is going on in our world.

We must stop confusing issues and opinions with facts that inform us of what is really happening. Americans like to think their press is free to publish the truth. Sadly many times such is not the case. During every major conflict America has been involved in the reporting of that conflict was less than accurate in every case. Truth seems to be the first victim of war - Google Search . In our own time this includes photographs of the dead on the beaches of Normandy being censored to the latest series of sensational reporting about the poor in Washington DC and reports of the enemy dead in the View Nam war. Of course the electronic news media has its own set of problems. I am always struck by the term Eyewitness News. Any lawyer or police detective worth his pay can tell you how unreliable eye witness testimony in fact is. Human memory can often deceive even the person doing the remembering.

Lastly I shall only advise that even when we look at something repeatedly we fail to notice the true essence of the story. Consider slavery in Egypt. No here I am not talking about 2009. I am speaking of slavery that occurred some 3,000+ years ago. The story of Moses and the people he led to what was to become the Kingdom of Israel. This is one of the first “freedom stories” yet many have never viewed it that way. I expect that will not change for we often see what we wish to see and not what is right before our very eyes.