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Journalists Live in a Fantasy World

If you like fiction, then turn on the news.
You will hear journalists giving their views.
Facts are conveniently pushed to the side;
Truth becomes something that they may deride.

Journalists live in a fantasy world:
Lies are their truth while dumb insults are hurled.
News they report is like shoveling dung.
Some of the ones I have heard should be hung.

Journalist class once eschewed such invective;
Reporters were taught that they must be objective.
What ever happened to neutral news features?
Brainwashed away by their liberal teachers!

Journalists should be both fearless and bold;
Paragons of this have died or grown old.
Writers’ opinions turn into news capers,
Hide the plain truth and put lies into papers.

Americans trusted in Walter Cronkite
Him and his kind gave us world news at night,
Sticking to facts and avoiding the blather
But then one night we were met with Dan Rather.

Networks on TV that once were topnotch
Twisting and spinning till we cannot watch.
Indictments of fakes news have riddled our nation
Now are extensive in this generation.

Journalists cry about Trump’s second term,
Bitching and whining, worms that will squirm.
Four years of mincing their acerbic words,
Driven to blurting out like cuckoo birds.

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Poet’s Note: For younger generations, Walter Cronkite was the gold standard TV newscaster 60 years ago. Dan Rather replaced him and slanted news of the Vietnam War.

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LTC Roy E. Peterson, US Army Military Intelligence and Russian Foreign Area Officer (Retired) has published more than 6,200 poems in 88 of his 112 books. He has been an Army Attaché in Moscow, Commander of INF Portal Monitoring in Votkinsk, first US Foreign Commercial Officer in Vladivostok, Russia and Regional Manager in the Russian Far East for IBM. He holds a BA, Hardin-Simmons University (Political Science); MA, University of Arizona (Political Science); MA, University of Southern California (Int. Relations) and MBA University of Phoenix. He taught at the University of Arizona, Western New Mexico University, University of Maryland, Travel University and the University of Phoenix.

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14 Responses

  1. Paul A. Freeman

    This may be the story with much of the Western media these days. However, you do still have the old-style ‘fearless and bold’ journalists at work around the world. In Russia journalists have been murdered by Putin’s thugs and the ‘opposition’ press closed down. In Turkey, now a holiday destination that doubles as a cosmetic surgery hotspot for European tourists, ‘insulting Turkishness’, i.e. saying anything critical of Erdoğan, gets journalists tossed in prison and the key thrown away. And of course in Gaza, foreign journalist are banned and local journalists are killed with impunity.

    Reply
  2. Margaret Coats

    You give them a tough time, Roy, but most probably deserve it. I don’t know any practicing journalists, but I do know several well-trained ones who have quit the profession because they were unable to follow its ideals while working. Teachers are not the main problem; it is the personalities and cliques in control who insist that journalists display politicized views.

    The situation is magnified because of the numerous news agencies available. Watchers, listeners, and readers look for journalists who share their views, and are satisfied that such persons tell the truth. More and more, therefore, we get our news from those journalists who tell us what we want to hear. They do not try to be objective.

    Can’t say that I give news much attention on a regular basis, but it does seem that local reporting is less slanted. And it is possible to find a more objective tone on some international networks.

    Whatever happened to “human interest” pieces and nature stories? These seem to have lost time to “group discussion” shows, in which all members of the group think alike.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      As you well point out, Margaret, not all journalists slant their views, but when they depart from the facts and are no longer objective, they fall into the trap of not being objective. Do they think everyone of their listeners is ignorant and cannot think for themselves? I long for the days of reporting of the facts and letting us decide on the merits or demerits of the case/event. All too often they are driven and fed by a cabal operating the networks or supervising the news that is printed. They must have been checked for their points of view prior to hiring. The “group discussion” shows are among the worst. They are not “group discussion,” but “group think.”

      Reply
  3. Warren Bonham

    Right on point. Dan Rather may have been the turning point but, by comparison with the anchors currently holding down the fort, he looks pretty saintly. The internet was supposed to allow us to bypass the official “truth-tellers”. So far, that hasn’t happened, but I haven’t given up all hope yet.

    Reply
  4. Ivy Joew

    Articulate and fluid dactyls, much unlike the rapping and yapping pundits on television and online. Watch any installment of Firing Line with William Buckley Jr. and then a Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson podcast episode to experience the decline and fall of quality and objectivity in public discourse.

    Reply
  5. Brian A. Yapko

    Great poem, Roy — both funny and sharp. I vaguely remember Walter Cronkite who was, I believe, the most trusted name in news for decades. He must be rolling over in his grave over what has happened to the so-called-news. The mainstream media is in freefall after the election and I hope they stay there a long time. I assume you’ve heard about ABC having to settle Trump’s defamation case with an apology and a $15,000,000 payment to the Trump Presidential Library? And, I believe, that’s only the beginning. A reckoning is coming. It has started.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Thank you, Brian. Yes, I have heard of the $15 million ABC payment and had to laugh. Now for the rest of them to be taken to the woodshed.

      Reply

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