It’s indeed sad, the first thing I do before I read a story is look to see the source, I used to respect the AP but they are blatantly slanted these days. I’m not sure they would hire unbiased reporters these days anyway.
Hurts my soul!

On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 3:41 PM Pete Crow <petermcrow> wrote:

During my nearly 40 years of owning newspapers in Oklahoma the head of the Associated Press would come out to visit with me once or twice a year and we would spend the afternoon talking about the industry and other matters — Because the associated press is or at least was owned by the daily newspapers in the United States I was actually a tiny owner of the associated press

in those days my regard for them and for their staff could not have been higher and in fact the associated press recruited out of the news rooms of the daily newspapers in the United States including picking off several of my best reporters over the years and doing so with my full blessings because we wanted the very best reporters working for the associated press and they absolutely were

but about 20 years ago in the late 1990s during one of our meetings the fellow running the Associated Press in Oklahoma told me that he could no longer reliably find reporters who did not have an agenda and that reality made fair reporting increasingly difficult because it is not what the reporter places in the article that matters it is what they have left out and that is discovered only later after the story has been disseminated

which leads us to the sad situation we find ourselves in today where reliable accurate and full reporting no longer exists and readers and viewers are left to believe what they wish to believe or which they are maneuvered into believing by a selective leaving out of relevant information

One can choose to believe a glowing report from the associated press or from any of the media on the left or the right if one so chooses but the more effervescent the reporting becomes the more skeptical the consumer should become — with a near complete lack of editing a reporter can nearly always get their story disseminated before it’s veracity is challenged — This is made even more difficult because of the 24/7 news cycle and the desire to outcompete the competition but it has come at a terrible cost to the trust that the industry Once enjoyed with our readers and viewers

In the past year I have been sending out copies to friends and others of Orwell’s 1984 and recently a friend wrote back disputing that we were in 1984 saying “this is not 1984 we are now living in 1985 and beyond” in a world of rampant censorship and growing ignorance and a near complete inability to see all shades of gray. The head of the associated press saw it coming in the agenda-driven reporter cohort seeking jobs that began to present them selves more than 20 years ago and so did I