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<\/a>Jack & Barbara Sparrow in front of the Novato Advance<\/p><\/div>\n
Hey Dad, I know you haven\u2019t been with us for nearly 20 years now, but you must be turning over in your grave, what with all that\u2019s going on in the newspaper business and news media in general today.<\/p>\n
Dad, Jack Sparrow<\/strong>, graduated from high school in 1932, into a world that was trying to climb out of the Great Depression<\/strong>.\u00a0 His choices after graduation were to get a job or . . . get a job.\u00a0 So, he got a job at the local newspaper in San Rafael, California<\/strong>, the Independent Journal<\/strong> \u2013 which, in those days, was actually INDEPENDENT.<\/p>\n He worked hard at every level of that newspaper from reporting to running the linotype.\u00a0 Then in 1941, at 26 years old, he purchased the Novato Advance<\/strong> and at the time became the youngest newspaper publisher in California.\u00a0 Since television wasn\u2019t a popular media until the mid-50s, newspapers were where everybody got their news.\u00a0 The goal of the newspaper and the news reporter, was to report the events as they happened and let the readers come to their own conclusions.\u00a0 Today\u2019s reporters must have missed that day in their journalism class.<\/p>\n Today the media see themselves as influencers and whoever pays them the most, in whatever form that payment may be, gets the good news.\u00a0 Today, politics plays a huge role in what a media outlet will report and how they report it, or even if they report it.<\/p>\n The basics of a news story in the old days were covered by the \u201cFive \u2018W\u2019s\u201d<\/strong>:<\/p>\n If a reporter could get the answers to these questions, he had a good, and complete, story. \u00a0News stories today have a different standard and are measured very differently:<\/p>\n OK, maybe I got a little too deep into the weeds there, I guess I could have summed it up by saying that most media outlets, print or electronic have rolled all the above standards, or sub-standards into one term \u2013 Fake New<\/strong>, but that\u2019s nothing you don\u2019t already know.<\/p>\n I know, Dad, we used to be able to say, \u201cYes, it\u2019s true, I read it in the newspaper.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, really!\u00a0 Sound ludicrous now, but newspapers used to have a noble goal \u2013 inform the public and help keep our politicians\/government honest \u2013 be the people\u2019s watchdog<\/strong>.\u00a0 Now, the ‘fourth estate<\/strong>‘\u00a0is the politicians \u2018lap dog\u2019<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0We\u2019re at a point where we cannot trust anyone or anything you hear or read; you must consider the source; no one is watching the watch dog!<\/p>\n So, Dad, we’d sure appreciate it if you could somehow reach down and teach our news “personalities” how to report the facts…just the facts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bob Sparrow Hey Dad, I know you haven\u2019t been with us for nearly 20 years now, but you must be turning over in your grave, what with all that\u2019s going on in the newspaper business and news media in … read more\n
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<\/a> measurable facts<\/li>\n