FREEDOM

Monday is the 4th of July. We’ll celebrate the beginning of our country in 1776 and our freedoms.

I am especially concerned with the freedom of the press. At an early age, Mom taught me to keep quiet when the news was on the radio. She knew the times of day that each of the local stations did their broadcasts and she listened to all of them. We subscribed to the area daily paper, Rockford Morning Star, that arrived with our mail. When TV became a fixture in our home, we didn’t go to bed until we’d watched the ten o’clock news.

After I was an adult with kids of my own, I became a freelancer reporting the happenings in the Durand community to the area daily I had read since I was a child. I was surprised when my editor explained the ‘news hole’, the space for news after the advertisements had been laid out for the next day’s edition. I had assumed the size of the paper was determined by the news of the day–instead, it’s the amount of advertising sold. TV broadcasts also rely on sponsors’ dollars.

For thirteen years, I stuck my nose in where it wasn’t always wanted at school board and village board meetings. Their actions affect everyone in the community and I believe in the public’s right to know. Most of our residents subscribed to the newspaper and read my reports.

Journalists exist on all levels. Some risk their lives going where there’s a war such as Ukraine. Others are Washington, D.C., regulars who serve as ‘watch dogs’ on our national government. We may be acquainted with those at the local level.

In this age of the 24-hour news cycle and vast resources, competition for audience and advertiser attention has increased. We are inundated with stories. Although writers are expected to report the facts on both sides of an issue, that isn’t always the case. Some are guided by their personal bias. As consumers of news, we have an obligation to question what we’re seeing and hearing.

Which news sources do you use?