Last week, CBS news anchor Scott Pelley astonished me: He told a balanced story.

Pelley reported on President Barack Obama bashing critics of his plan to import 10,000 Syrians as just “popping off,” suggesting he had the moral high ground. But Pelley quickly clicked to Sen. Ted Cruz excoriating Obama for insulting his constituents as bigots.

Such even-handedness is rare in today’s news. Generally, newspapers and TV news reports are smelly swamps of bias – mostly arrogantly liberal with a vindictive tone.

Most news stories today are thinly-veiled commentaries that belong on the editorial page. Indeed, many editorials are more balanced than the news.

Pelley’s action made me stand up and shout “Hurrah!”

In 1957, when I entered the Syracuse University School of Journalism, telling “both sides of the story” was a religion. Dean Wes Clark and his team insisted that students learn how politics, courts and government worked in detail; and then report all sides.

I cannot count the times a city editor tossed back a story snarling, “Call somebody and get the other side, you idiot!”

After graduating from the Old Women’s Gym by Archbold Stadium, few called themselves “journalists.” We were “newsmen,” “reporters,” “newspeople.” Only the most precious among us opted for “journalist.” I figured I’d never kept a journal, so how could I be a journalist?

Everything changed after Watergate.

Kids flooded into j-schools looking for glamor and power like Woodward and Bernstein of the Washington Post. Sadly, however, most couldn’t write, didn’t read much and weren’t in the least bit curious about life in general. They had all the answers already.

Then, to make things even worse, liberal profs didn’t teach the kids anything: they indoctrinated them into a left-wing outlook that brooked no “other side.”

And there we are today, with a news industry that is on life support. People used to read newspapers because they felt they had to to remain informed. No longer. There’s not much information in today’s newspapers or TV reports. Mostly propaganda.

And so the nation suffers. Tom Jefferson once said that if he had to choose between having government or newspapers, he’d choose the newspapers. Instead, we have government without real news. I weep for the business I loved for most of 40 years, and also for the country, impoverished as it is of real information.

John J. Omicinski
BA Journalism
Syracuse University ‘61

Published on November 22, 2015 at 1:27 pm