After stints as the editor of three daily Arkansas newspapers over 46 years, I still would make a lousy national broadcast news director in 2018. I was reminded just how bad in late October following the terrible mass killing where a deranged gunman killed 11 and injured six, including four police officers, at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. This slaughter of innocents joins an already lengthy list of horrors committed by those whose elevator to reality rises no higher than their ground floor. What makes it even more regrettable is this won’t be the last time we will learn of these kinds of terrible crimes. Today’s broadcast and cable news cycles run 24/7, screaming to be filled every minute. I believe that as a purveyor of news with an enormous staff of reporters to rely upon, I’d apply a dash of reason and context to how my imaginary broadcast operation would cover mass shootings and other tragedies. For instance, since we live in a vast nation of 325 million people, my imaginary news would report such regional killings initially with as much information as available. At the same time, however, I’d expect reporters to continue supplying other relevant news of the day while breaking in with updates on the latest breaking news as additional facts are discovered. I would avoid repetitive speculations by all the chatty “experts,” obviously used to kill time. As radical as this may sound to some, I’d continue presenting the other significant news of… [Read full story]
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