WE no longer have news. We have springboards for commentary. We have cues for Tweets.
Something happens, and before the facts are even settled, the morals are deduced and the lessons drawn. The story is absorbed into agendas. Everyone has a preferred take on it, a particular use for it. And as one person after another posits its real significance, the discussion travels so far from what set it in motion that the truth — the knowable, verifiable truth — is left in the dust.
“… Americans have seemingly grown accustomed to this. They may even hunger for it.”
Not this American. No, sir! There isn’t a day when I don’t lament the fact that our national press looks more like the National Enquirer used to look to most of us up until a dozen years ago. CNN and its obsessively ludicrous coverage of Flight 370 is only one example of how a news outlet undergoes a “Foxification.” So, when the Jill Abramson story hit the wire, it wasn’t so much the whys of her story, but how the Times handled it. The handling was as far from classy as you can get. People come and go. They succeed or fail. That’s expected. How those successes and failures are handled, on the other hand, need to inspire confidence.
“… Americans have seemingly grown accustomed to this. They may even hunger for it.”