TRANSPARENCY? DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH — NOT TODAY
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
Today is World News Day.
Something we at MuskokaTODAY.com care passionately about, because ‘Local News Means the World to Us.”
A free press doesn’t meaning reading free on Facebook or getting your news on Google.
Think about life without the media.
Think about life without Local Journalism.
Then think about COVID coverage, Black Lives Matter, climate change, diversity, gender equality, community news and police briefs.
And who is speaking truth to power.
It’s not easy and it’s not cheap.
It is a calling.
“The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” said Mr. Dooley, a fictional Irish bartender in a 19th century column by Finley Peter Dunne in the Chicago Evening Post.
It’s a motto journalists of the fourth estate ascribe to daily.
Not so the “PRRUS” — Press Releases ’R’ Us social media and “Friends of Facebook.”
Transparency? Don’t make me laugh.
Fake news is pervasive in print, on the airwaves and in your hands.
In the wrong hands it changes governments, lives and lets people to die.
With governments, corporations and institutions hiding ever more essential facts and figures from the public, the need for investigative journalists and news you can trust is vital to a society craving more than who, what, when, where and how.
More than just the facts is context and the meaning behind the story and people making decisions that affect your life.
COVID-19 is just the latest obstacle the press has run in to — and has struggled to largely overcome.
Long-term care homes — public and private —that don’t tell the truth about the number of cases — until exposed by media forcing government and public health officials to reveal more than they tell in daily photo-ops.
Anal district government staff who don’t respond to or return repeated calls for fear of going off-script the message.
Don’t trust us? Why should we trust you?
Fortunately for us, society — and you — many of you (and more than half Americans) see benefit in paying for steak and not hamburg.
And holding truth to account.
A world with news you can’t rely on cheapens you.
Your children, grandchildren, the country, the future world.
Think about that when you freely fatten Google and Facebook pockets at the expense of Local Journalism that cares more about you and the truth than likes and click bait.
Tell your MP and businesses to support the fourth estate — especially locally.
Have you read today? For free?
You’re smarter than your phone.
We hope so.
If you like this story and want to read more, subscribe here to MuskokaTODAY.com for $25. You’re worth it.
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