Organizing for America | Kristen Szatny's Blog: My Open Letter to the Media

My Open Letter to the Media

By Kristen Szatny - Sep 14th, 2008 at 2:31 am EDT

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I have been interested in the field of journalism since I was a little girl who wrote down everything she saw and heard in her journal. I was always on the newspaper in high school and again in my community college back home in New Jersey. I wanted to educate the nation on the truth. I wanted to be as unbiased as possible and provide the truth. That is what a good journalist does, takes everything in their surroundings and investigates the lies, reporting only what is proven to be factual. After that good reporter types up their findings using the inverted pyramid, (the most important facts at the start of the story like who, what, when, where, why) a group of copy editors fact check again. The head editor then reads it over just to make sure everything is 100 percent accurate, that nothing needs to be rewritten or questioned before being published for the public to lay their eyes on. It is a long and efficient process before a story goes to print, this stops something like plagiarism from occurring. This is what my college classes have prepared me for. This is what my professors have taught me. You can notice that I keep emphasizing the theme of “truth,” “unbiased,” “factual” and “accurate” reporting. My question to the media is this, when did it become good reporting to print something in a newspaper or on a news site that has not been fact checked? When did it become ok to mix the facts with pure fiction?

When did yellow journalism come back in style? (“Yellow journalism is journalism that downplays legitimate news in favor of eye-catching headlines that sell more newspapers.”) I used to love checking my news sites every day. The local papers website, CNN, MSNBC; but now it seems that these sites are more about stories and headlines that will gain readers attention rather than important stories. It makes me sick that ever since John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice –president running mate, the news has IGNORED the important issues. No one should care about Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter. They should care about her stances on birth control; abstinence only based sexual education programs, and earmarks. It makes me sick that when Barack Obama used the phrase “you can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig,” the media overplayed stories about the topic rather than noting the fact that the quote was used in John McCain’s political advisor’s own book.

I am ashamed of the profession that I once full heartedly wanted to become a part of. I still want to become a part of it, but so I can try to help end the false smears and allegations that come up in the news all of the time. It is not right.

Since when did news outlets not point it out when a politician was lying? John McCain’s numerous false claims on Barack Obama need to be proven wrong. The media ignoring an issue and not investigating the claims is just as bad as making things up. It just makes me wonder if ALL of the mainstream news outlets are completely bought out by major corporations. We all know Fox News is hopeless. It should be “Faux News.” It disgusts me and cracks me up all at once. If you go to Fox News “POLITICAL” section

http://elections.foxnews.com/ I mean it might as well be called the “Sarah Palin” section.

Hopefully America can do the research for themselves before listening to these “accredited” news sources for the facts.

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