What did the father tomato say to his son? Ketchup!

What information should the editors and reporters of a newspaper give you, the reader, to make informed decisions about events which impact your life?

That's the question editors and reporters answer on a daily basis. They make their living by collecting information, sifting through it, editing it and then finally distributing it to you. One would think that there is an abundance of news going on in the world, but if you read several daily newspapers and watch several national broadcasts, there are only a few things in the world that matter.

I was busy with my normal trucking job this past week and didn't really get a chance to read as much as I'd like. When you're a bureaucrat or a journalist or in public relations, you get paid to read the news. And generally the coffee's provided but you have to bring your own donuts. As a trucker, you don't get paid to read the news. And there's usually no free coffee. So I've been trying to catch up with the world now that I have a few moments.

This past week the only thing that really mattered apparently was a missing woman from Georgia who turned out to be a runaway bride with second thoughts about commitment. Important news there. The next time a female accuses my gender, or me directly, of fear of the Big "C," commitment, I can point to Jennifer Wilbanks and say, "See, that's why I don't want to commit! You women are all alike!" It'll give me just enough time to duck and run for cover. I may be large, but when commitment is required, I can be pretty darn fast.

And of course there were the Democratic moves in Washington to bag the House majority leader, Congressman Tom DeLay of Texas, on an ethics violation. I've never seen a poor politician, but these folk are asserting Rep. DeLay accepted favors from a lobbyist. That would make him, what, the 15 thousandth Congressman to do so? Cleo Fields, the former Democratic congressional representative from a former gerrymandered district that included yours truly was caught on tape accepting a briefcase full of cash from former Democratic Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards. Until his gerrymandered district was ruled illegal, Fields was elected handily and went to the house oversight subcommittee overseeing the Small Business Administration while all the shenanigans were going on at SBA and Commerce. I don't recall the Democrats making a fuss back then about that. They sure are selective about ethics. Do you think it's politically motivated? The Christian Science Monitor thinks there's about to be one heckuva ethics mud fight. I think so too.

And then there were the "obesity" stories. Does anyone in the world not know that birth eventually leads to death and that being overweight might hasten that fact? There must be some folk who don't know because there are at least three major reports daily on the "obesity crisis" in America. The only result I see of these "obesity" stories is the continuing demonization of the large. The one "new" piece of information on obesity was actually printed Monday. A medical writer for the Associated Press reports doctors have known for years that it's primarily the poor who are obese. If they've known it for years, why haven't any of us read about this before? It could be because the poor don't buy Slimfast or Thigh Masters or health club memberships or Jane Fonda workout tapes and the affluent do. I see on today's news where former Pres. Clinton is sticking his nose in the tent on the childhood "obesity" problem. Just what the world was waiting for -- this is sure to solve the problem now that Slick Willie is on the scene. He couldn't stop bin Laden's people from bombing our embassies so now he's going after Twinkie the Kid. I would think the former president might have chimed in on another issue with which he'd be more intimately familiar. I've yet to see any story whatsoever on how growth hormones injected into America's food stock might be affecting Americans. Or a study on how the obese volume of "obesity" studies has done nothing but demonize a class of people. Apparently there's no revenue to be made from reporting or researching that kind of truth.

The New York Times reported on how the former editor of Reader's Digest is requiring PBS to install an ombudsman -- viewer's advocate -- and provide balance and objectivity in its programming. Of course, much of the article concerns how the Republican-appointed former editor questioned the objectivity of Bill Moyers in his program NOW. You see, the PBS charter doesn't allow for political partisanship. The NYT report did mention in passing that Mr. Moyers was an aide to Pres. Lyndon Johnson and affiliated with PBS since the 1970s, but declined to fully disclose the extent of that affiliation -- that Mr. Moyers got his start in journalism at the behest of Pres. Johnson after working on Pres. Johnson's Texas senate campaign, began in broadcasting at a Johnson-owned television station, held several positions during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and was so involved in the formation of PBS from its roots at WETA as a member of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations that he essentially was associated with PBS since 1961. Nor did it mention that Mr. Moyers had served as speech writer, press secretary and chief of staff to Pres. Johnson. Would John Q. Public American have gotten the shot Mr. Moyers had gotten in journalism and broadcasting and had such a long affiliation with PBS without the grooming and tutelage by Pres. Johnson? Not hardly. And Pres. Johnson would not have groomed someone who didn't share his political views. Despite the fact that Mr. Moyers is an ordained Baptist minister, there was no mention of his religious roots either. But then again, liberals never mention the religious roots of other liberals.

From the first day in Journalism 101, students are taught to write news reports in an inverted pyramid shape, keeping the most important information in the lead paragraphs and leaving the less important information at the end of the report. Why? Because the final arbiter of what you read in the commercial press is the printer, and if the report is too long, it's cut to allow room for an advertisement. And believe it or not, that is the only person in the whole news process who will cut arbitrarily "without fear or favor."

[Update 5/4/2005: Chicken Little takes job as editorial writer at New York Times -- You might be deluded into believing the sky is falling at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from the editorial stand taken by the NYT in today's edition. The NYT is worried that the chairman of CPB, Kenneth Tomlinson, a respected and experienced journalist who at one time was editor of Reader's Digest, will replace partisan Democrats on the CPB governing board with partisan Republicans. How dare the CPB governing board be a diverse body! Tomlinson believes PBS and NPR should be objective, offer balanced political viewpoints, and have an ombudsman, a viewer advocate who can independently judge whether programming is overly biased liberal or conservative. Though the NYT has its ombudsman which it calls its Public Editor, it apparently doesn't believe PBS or NPR should have one. Seems slightly schizophrenic to me.]

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