The Orlando Sentinel occasionally publishes my comments on its opinion page as a letter to the editor. Today, for the second time, I received an anonymous letter via snail mail disagreeing. The “disagreeing” is fine. The “I know where you live” part not so much. It isn’t hard to find me: The Orlando Sentinel publishes […]
Read More →Writers want our words back. Politicians, advertisers and advocacy groups stole perfectly good words, twisted meanings and left us in an awkward position: We can’t talk about certain topics because we don’t have the tools to say what we mean. “Freedom of speech” doesn’t work without the “speech” part. “Fake news” is the latest. It […]
Read More →Originally published Nov. 29, 2016 in The Orlando Sentinel. The “lamestream” media, the “liberal media” and other bashing is code for “don’t believe a thing they say – believe what I say.” It’s a brainwashing tool. That’s not to say some – perhaps most – publications don’t lean left or right. But if media bashing […]
Read More →Trust no one. There are a lot of dedicated journalists, but don’t assume the one in front of you has no bias. If a TV station, website or newspaper swears independence, it still quotes someone first, picks a lead story, and makes hundreds of small decisions that reflect an editor’s opinion. (See earlier story, […]
Read More →I research, select, write and publish news stories. A decade ago, I considered an article unbiased if the story received a roughly equal number of complaints from Republicans and Democrats. That must mean the story fell roughly in the middle, right? Many of those stories had something to do with a Congressional bill on […]
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