...and the truth shall make you free...
I used to contribute to my little hometown paper. After a new editor and I failed to see eye to eye on a small handful of issues, we decided I don’t contribute to the paper anymore. That’s OK. We all have boundaries. In the process of the break up, I came to appreciate the power of the press more than I had before. Both my parents had worked in the newspaper industry (my mom as a typesetter/printer and my dad as a linotype operator, before the days of computerization), and I figured I had a healthy respect for the creation, description and dissemination of the facts. When news was not news, but opinion, it was clearly labeled just that: opinion. Before recently, I hadn’t considered the ‘responsibility’ of the editor to tell readers what they’re reading before they read it, via the headline (nor the possibility that editors or publishers in small-town America might be in the business of propaganda). A headline not only summarize a piece, but can easily influence the opinions of readers...