TRUTH

Truth transcends Politics, Relationships, and virtually everything else. The real truth of the matter is, that the truth actually matters. It's also a more widely known reality these days, that the wonder of any given situation is, there is so little truth IN it.

I've had the great good pleasure of being a journalist for the bulk of my life. I began interviewing Senators before I had a drivers license, and many of my most troubled personal times were caused by the fact that I drew swords and challenged the cultural "norms" of political convention. Put another way, I've often managed to piss off people in high places.

It goes with the territory.

The American Heritage is really not complex at all. A free society DEMANDS a free press. We were taught, at a very young age, that with the right of a free press comes the responsibility to the truth at all times. Political or personal persuasion gets left behind. There simply is no room for your personal feelings to be displayed, or your personal opinion opined when telling the truth of a story.

Now HERE is where today's American's fail to grasp the raw power of the press. They will pick up the phone and call the media to report on some PERSONAL situation that has happened to them or a member of their family. The EXPECT, truth be damned, that we will get in the face of whatever "official" is semi-responsible, report on it, and harass that individual until they give an inch, and then a mile, in favor of the caller and their issue.

To them, THAT is reporting pure and simple, and it IS reporting. Hard reporting because every story manages to piss somebody off. Either local Government is ticked, or, if there is nothing wrong as has been claimed, the listener is ticked. And they're ALL ticked at YOU, the media, not one another. To them, the only "win" is for the other side to lose.

If you take that very SAME premise and scale it all the way up to a National or International story, the dynamic changes, especially today.

What begins, usually, as a routine story about something someone in Government said or did, easily becomes a major or breaking story as you begin (as a reporter) to tug on the strings and those very same strings begin to unravel. It doesn't matter, at this point, how a reporter "feels" about the story, or the deal, or the individuals involved. You pull on the strings, well, because that is the exact responsibility with which a free press is charged.

As the story begins to take shape, there is often a "hero" and a "villain" in the story. Society tends to SEE those two sides. There's a bad guy and a good guy, even when the good guy is the bad guy and the bad guy turns out, well, good.

To us, that is not the issue, not at all. Good, wherever we find it, is a wonderful thing and we tell an awful lot of good stories....but today, the "good" stories are about someone chasing down a deer and helping it escape an entanglement, not discovering that an elected official got caught with his hands in the till and has taken the taxpayer for thousands of dollars.

Those are "hard news" stories, but to US, there is an inherent GOOD side to that story. The TAXPAYER wins, the bad guy loses. What is NOT good about that? However, for all the folks who think this very same official is a "nice, family" man with close ties to this or that, now we the media are the bad guys for "putting him through all of this."

Look, if the guy hadn't stolen from you, we would not have written the story, and your Mr. Nice Guy would be in Church Sunday. The fact that he/she is NOT has nothing to do with us hating them, it's that they did a wrong thing. Does that make them evil? Probably not, but in this particular case, we weren't wrong, they were.

Escalating further up the chain, we find ourselves at the center of a maelstrom involving the highest ranking official of the United States.

My personal feelings of the man himself are well known because I'm not the guy who holds anything much back.

BUT that simply does NOT change the tenor of the story itself. I don't KNOW, for a fact, that the President is guilty of any crime. I don't know this for several reasons. First, I haven't SEEN all the data, and secondly, I'm not a jury nor a judge. It's isn't my job to impeach the man, that is Congress' job, and the Senate's to convict if they find him guilty.

HOWEVER, and this is where the rubber meets the road. I have TWO options here, and only two.

1. Do my job and report the days events, which often times begins early in the morning with a tweet.

2. Get fired because I didn't do my job, or worse yet, live with myself because I judged myself and realized that I failed to do my job.

There really is NOT a third option.

We can argue, from now to eternity, about whether personal feelings color a story, or whether one news agency is doing a better job than the other. God knows WE, in the media, Monday morning quarterback ourselves all the time. Did we do enough, did we do too much, did we go to far, did we step over the line, did someone else's coverage beat ours, were we on time, too late, too early?

The list goes on and on in virtually every Newsroom in America, trust me.

We can also argue about the ability of a News Organization to have an opinion. We've ALWAYS had an opinion, going back to the beginning of time and certainly back to the beginning of this great United States. We have, forever, chosen candidates we liked and crowned them "our guy" or "our gal." Endorsements from newspapers made Presidents and broke Publishers.

What has changed in the Country today, isn't the media and I'm sorry if you think that's it. You're wrong and you will be just as wrong 100 years from now, or America simply won't exist.

What has changed then? You. Simply put.

You have chosen sides, left or right. You have made a decision that you are going to see and read only "facts" that agree with your point of view, things that make you feel good, things that perhaps back up your very reason for living. Most in the South, just as an example but by NO MEANS a directive, feel that Mr. Trump is their guy and that whatever he does he is doing for them.

I can't, nor will I disagree with you on that. He may well BE doing what he does, just for you.

But just like the caller who wanted us to investigate some local politician or city worker who left the fireplug open and thus flooded their basement, when we call them back to tell them that this was a planned event and published 5 times in multiple local newspapers and on radio, and while the city is going to help, THEY do have a responsibility to "be a citizen" and stay abreast of things and thus they are also in the wrong and the city, itself, really didn't do anything wrong. In fact, they came to your house on Thursday at 9:43 AM two days before the event and left a flyer on your door and you apparently just threw it away.

A reporter simply can NOT be in the pocket on anyone, ever. Unlike race car drivers or Congress, we don't wear or allegiances on our sleeves. You can advertise on our Station, but that buys you NOTHING at all if you break the law. Nothing.

I will guarantee you, that we will suddenly be a mean, viscous horrible person who simply has been paid of by the city to do nothing and she's getting an attorney to sue us all.

We did our job, we told the truth, and we're the bad guy.

I wasn't being "loyal" to the city. Those of you who know me also know that I'd fight them till my last breath. BUT, when they're right, they're right and THAT is the story.

When Donald Trump is right, as he has been in the past occasionally, we have championed his accomplishments. On the other hand, when he has not been right, which he has been known to be, we call him to task for that as well.

Pre-Trump, EVERY American President has KNOWN, 100% for sure, that this is the way the cookie crumbles. The major difference is, ALL previous Presidents, even Nixon who hated the Press with a pure passion, could see past the end of their nose and realize that some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you. Tomorrow will be different. Working WITH the Press vs. AGAINST them, may not win you any awards, but it WILL guarantee that your days will go smoother.

Trump, on the other hand, works in mysterious ways. Cross him just a teeny tiny bit and you're human scum and will NEVER be allowed in the front door for drinks and dinner. This will not change tomorrow when you report that he did something good. You've been marked with the scarlet "M" and that is that.

Like that lady who hates us for not being "on her side," with Trump you are either for him or against him.

The Media has never, not once in my lifetime, EVER worked like that.

Here's another reality. This story is not about Politics in reality, it's about TRUTH and our unfettered RIGHT to tell it. The Constitution of the United States of America guarantee's a Free Press, and simply because one side or another decides to believe or not believe the truth, wherever it falls, that is simply NOT the fault of the Media, nor does it make for "Fake News."

Fake News is about DIS-Information. Your Government has long been in the disinformation business, except generally speaking, it was acknowledged that it would only be practiced on foreign soil. We engaged in it in Vietnam in ways that you and I could talk about for the next 18 years and not fully understand.

We've done it in virtually every country in the world. In most elections of other countries, and we've overthrown governments and replaced them with people that "we liked." We managed to tick Iran off when we toppled their regime and placed the "Shah" in power. Imagine our surprise when, some years later, he was gone, and the regime was back and not happy.

Are we now to be surprised that it's happening here on US Soil? Are we to be surprised that other countries view us in awful and intolerant ways?

What is happening, here in the US is really quite simple in my uneducated, less principled mind. We've eaten at the world's table for years. Ingested all the wrong things that we have wrought, along with the good that we have done.

You are what you eat, we're told, and frankly, therein lies the rub. We've become exactly what we've eaten all of these years. Dictators, Con Men, Genocidal Maniacs, Political Fruitcakes and more.

Suddenly, it's all coming home to roost.

This is one gigantic circus, in other words. We've distracted ourselves with impeachment while we roll hundreds of millions, even BILLIONS of dollars to this government or that, in hopes that we can persuade them to be on our side. We do this under the guise of humanitarian assistance, but the truth is we all know it's little more than payment in advance for services we expect to be rendered at a later date. We've done this with the political understanding that this is "what was best for America."

What is best for America, may not always be what is best for the world at large, and frankly, often times is not. What is best for America is not Biblical in any manner, nor is is even what is truly best for America, but rather the governments VIEW of the same. Left to the American People themselves, IF we were made to understand ALL of the nuances, we would most likely make a much different decision.

When we wind up taking your oil, or asking you for a favor, we'll expect immediate results and in our favor.

I remember, as a kid, my parents telling me that "if you dance with the devil" you'll wind up being owned by him.

I doth think we protest too much. We've danced with the Devil forever, we're still dancing with him.

Sooner or later we had to pay a price.

I'll leave it to YOUR expert analysis as to who the devil is, and in which manner we shall now pay. As the Media always had and will always do, it is solely our DUTY to report the news, and thus I have.

It's your call now.