When I first arrived in Newport News we had two good daily newspapers - the Daily Press for mornings and the Times Herald for afternoon.
The Chicago Tribune bought the Daily Press and soon after bought the Times Herald. They became known locally as the Morning Mistake and the Afternoon Correction. The Times Herald was shut down and published its last edition in 1991. The Daily Press launched a drive to educate us poor dumb Southern Rednecks. They had to teach us that President Bush was evil and that only the Democratic Party could save the nation. We had to learn that firearms were evil and only police officers should be armed. Southern Tradition was evil and backward and only Yankees were civilized.
I cancelled my subscription. Today, with subscriptions still dropping they’re still trying to “educate” us.
Part of my government training was to be a PIO (Public Information Officer)
It was interesting to sit in on press conference of facts that I knew very well. The press briefing kit had been well crafted. The briefing was precise and informative. Yet, at the briefing, "reports" (arbiters of the truth) would ask leading questions as if there was some hidden fact the government was withholding.
When the news articles were published, often we could not recognize what was reported with what they had been told.
I have since learned not to believe what is printed in a newspaper because it was often written by someone who could not take a set of facts and properly digest them. The PIOs were often on the telephone, after the fact with the reporters using the opportunity to correct their stories, and sometimes to add something that none of the other papers had yet understood. It would have been easier if the paper would have just quoted from our press briefing. Yet they want to put the facts through their magic filter as if the masses can only understand it better that way.
Instead newspapers have become havens for unhappy liberals who want to use their forum to reeducate the masses.