My first dreaded errand as a rookie reporter back in my long ago days as a print journalist was to fetch a photograph from the relatives of of a high school youngster who had been found face down in a creek one month before his never-to-be graduation day.
This was one of the editor-imposed duties for new reporters working the weekend shift.
Editors back in those days used photo pick-ups of those lost to tragedy as a means of what they called “separating the wheat from the chaff” in their reporting staff. Thank goodness the one in charge on my work weekend left a note advising me to “call the house first and let them know you will be coming by to collect the picture”.
With much trepidation, I stood on the front step and rang the doorbell, hoping to find no one home even though I’d taken my editor’s advice to call ahead. It was a lesson lesson that proved to me the innate goodness of people, even those prostrated by grief. The red-eyed person who answered the door sympathized with my mission. “It’s a terrible job they give you poor kids” he said passing me a small envelope, clutching it as if it held precious cargo.
And so it did.
When I was a safe distance from the house, I slipped the photograph out of its envelope. A young school boy, whose countenance bespoke a future full of hope, stared into my heart.
His name was Billy, a name that passing time never took away. Back at the office, I had to write a small story to go under the picture, including his name, the name of his parents, the school he had attended and a brief explanation of how he met his tragically untimely death in the annual spring run-off of creeks, rivers and lakes. This was back in the days when date and place of birth, high school attended and gender still mattered. Facts.
I couldn’t, of course, write the story I wanted to write, one that ended with the sincere words “Oh, Billy, the picture I picked up from your house today will live on in my heart forever.”
Back then, I could never have imagined how journalism would be all but completely overtaken by something called ‘social media’, that the popularity of journalists would someday rate even lower than the politicians they covered.
Should a reporter in the old days cross over the line in covering the deeds of a politician by exaggerating his or her sins, insert themselves (by way of opinion) into the story, or be caught red-handed making a story up out of whole cloth, the article would be physically ripped into shreds at the editors’ desk. The editor would cast upon you a menacing look, and rhyme off a speech that could be heard by the entire newsroom, bottom line of which was always: ”Don’t ever try to get that one by me again!”
Supposing your expose on the politician starring in your story was true, you had to go with the editors and lawyers into the board room and prove it line by line. Editors insisted on not one but three unconnected sources
Toronto Sun investigative reporter colleague Dick Chapman and I used to joke “three separate sources and signed in blood” back at our desks.
Nowadays internet ‘reporters‘ get to stalk political prey and the news outlets from which they make their living make no bones about it.
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It’s a National Enquirer, gossip-is-news reporting world.
It’s a National Enquirer, gossip-is-news reporting world.
“Michelle Fields, who resigned her job at Breitbart News and then charged Donald Trump's campaign manager with battery, is now working at The Huffington Post, where she has been hired to cover the 2016 election and focus on Trump.
"After the tumultuous events of the last few months, I am ready to get back to writing and reporting on what is without question the most bizarrely fascinating presidential race of my lifetime (and, perhaps, any lifetime)," Fields said in a statement on Sunday night, reports CNN Money.
“HuffPost has been critical of Trump's campaign since its beginning, when Huffington ordered coverage of it to be reported in the website's entertainment section.
“Even after she changed the policy in December, the website continues to add an editor's note to the end of stories about Trump, calling him a "serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, and birther."
Trump’s in good company because that’s how the current Washington administration describes its citizens.
HuffPo is not the only news outlet out there stalking.
The Washington Post recently announced it had hired 20 reporters to go after any scandals they could dig up on Trump.
Other news outlets are more subtle in their stalking. Facebook continues to suppress conservative news but gets loudly endorsed as “principled” by some of the very conservative news giants it suppresses (Glenn Beck).
FoxNews, which bobs back and forth between its “fair and balanced” mantra looks aside as one of its top hosts becomes part of the news rather than reporting it. (Megyn Kelly).
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald J. Trump claims not to be a Republican, a Conservative or a Liberal. As author of ‘Art of the Deal’, he merely gets along with them. But he’s being stalked by outlets like the New York Times and HuffPo anyway.
Except in the case of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, you are not what you say you are but what the media says you are.
The only protection against outright Internet News stalking is to be a Marxist-leaning Democrat like the Google-run Hillary Clinton.
Reporting the news in 2016 has not only come a long way, it’s gone down a long way--all the way down to the bottom of the cess pool.
Michelle Fields, who resigned her job at Breitbart News and then charged Donald Trump's campaign manager with battery, is now working at The Huffington Post, where she has been hired to cover the 2016 election and focus on Trump.
Judi McLeod——Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
My first dreaded errand as a rookie reporter back in my long ago days as a print journalist was to fetch a photograph from the relatives of of a high school youngster who had been found face down in a creek one month before his never-to-be graduation day.
This was one of the editor-imposed duties for new reporters working the weekend shift.
Editors back in those days used photo pick-ups of those lost to tragedy as a means of what they called “separating the wheat from the chaff” in their reporting staff. Thank goodness the one in charge on my work weekend left a note advising me to “call the house first and let them know you will be coming by to collect the picture”.
