KANSAN Comment
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL
TM - All rights reserved
Publishers-Hall Syndicate
'The Senate wants to keep combat troops out of Laos. Didn't they believe the president when he said we weren't here?'
Re: Spiro Agnew
By STEVE SHRIVER Kansan Staff Writer
One of the common fallacies held by the public about newspapers is what I have labeled the "pro-con theory." People who read a paper too often proclaim it as gospel truth. Spiro Agnew continues to levy attacks on the news media and too many people are taking his opinions and elevating them to the status of fact.
What so many people have forgotten, or what they may have never known in the first place, is the purpose of a newspaper. The news media are not omniscient; they do not write bibles, nor do they read from them.
Too often the line between these two types of writing becomes very thin for the reader. Too often a reader will label a paper as "leftist" or "right wing" when he becomes adversely affected by the content of a news story. By the same token, he might be persuaded to believe everything he reads in an editorial.
There are two sides to a newspaper—an editorial side and a news side. Straight news stories are not biased; editorials are biased by nature.
Take for example, John Q. Public sitting down in his easy chair after dinner and opening his newspaper to the front page. He first reads
a news story about the war, the facts of a particular battle. He will usually be affected by the content of the story either pro or con.
He will almost automatically take a stand and assume the newspaper stands with him or against him. He is reading between the lines, expecting too much of the paper and holds the paper responsible for something which originated in his own mind. This is the fallacy of the "pro-con theory."
Actually the purpose of a newspaper, and the news media in general, is to present the facts of the news to the public. The reader may draw his own conclusions from the facts. But once he has drawn that conclusion he must not credit the source for the content of the news, whether it is good or bad news for him.
The reader must make his own judgement, and in the case of an editorial, he may want to consult another's opinion. He does not have to agree with, or even believe an editorial. He should take it for what it is worth, no more and no less.
Too often a reader will misconstrue these basic differences in a newspaper. A news story will be taken as an editorial and vice versa, and he will read both in the same light with the same attitude.
Off the wire
LAKE PROVIDENCE, La.—Local poverty program Director Jack Wyley commenting on Washington officials investigating his program:
By United Press International
"Then comes this little girl out of Washington with some big greasy, bearded rascal. She had on these patent leather boots and a miniskirt up to her behind. I wouldn't call her far left, but she was liberal as hell."
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BOSTON—A safe expert discussing bank manager Peter Loomis who accidently locked himself in a vault:
"He's going to have a million-dollar nap."
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★★
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MONONGAH, W.Va—Dr. Hawey Wells of the Physicians Committee on Miners Health and Safety commenting on the killing of labor leader Joseph A. Yablonski:
"If the United Mine Workers of America leadership wishes to clear itself of all suspicion in the assassination of the Yablonski, every official, district and international, must submit to a polygraph or lie-detector test."
CHICAGO—Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley answering a question in the conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven:
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"Every man who serves in government is a fine man."
Baltimore—Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, chairman of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, recommending a step he says the nation will eventually have to take: "The day is coming-it ought to be here today, but isn't—when we are going to have a system of restrictive licensing so that those guns must be taken away from everyone except those who need them."
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★★
SAIGON—Marine Maj. Gen. Ormand Simpson, saying the U.S. is on the verge of a tremendous military breakthrough in the areas of pacification and Vietnamization: "The enemy is in very bad shape. He is desperately short of rice. He can't take and hold anything that's ours. We can deal with anything this guy wants to do."
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GRIFF AND THE UNICORN
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Griff & the Unicorn, Copyright, 1969,
University Daily Kansan