Jeff Stahler for November 24, 2016

Poor baby! We need to be nice to Crybaby Conservatives — can’t just treat them like normal, well-adjusted politicians.

So where were you liberal hypocrites who are so pro-media and free speech when the blood soaked war criminal Barack Hussein Obama Obama was conducting his war on whistleblowers? Just wondering.

And you all are correct. The media, left or right rarely lies, but they seldom tell the truth. I’ve been part of or witness to news-making events and when I saw them on TV or in the paper, I was convinced I wasn’t there.

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Back in high school, we were taught how to read a newspaper. Once you have this skill, it’s amazing how much bias you can pick up in reporting. For all of its 24×7 news outlets, America has the most misinformed public in the world.

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I get my news from internet wire services – looked at with the same critical eye learned back in HS, and from BBC America. I used to watch Al-Jazeera America, but it went under; it was too boring – all they did was report news. They didn’t run the Trump and Hillary show, so they suffered in the ratings. There wasn’t enough “reality TV” in their reporting.

Free speech is not a privilege, it’s a right.

It’s simple for Trump: whoever disagrees with whatever he makes up is lying.

The media will tear him down, the first chance they get.

dflak

I have a specific, if outdated, example. I had a weekly newspaper of dissent (today it would be a blog). Contrary to the 1930s newspaper movies, only investigative reporters guard their exposés until their scoop is published. Beat reporters divide up who to interview and exchange notes afterwards. It keeps the same people from being asked the same questions by each reporter on the scene, and so promotes cooperation with the press.

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We were covering the Majestic stand-in in Dallas. A black and a white would go to the ticket booth and ask for two tickets to the first-run movie. They were turned down, and went back to the end of the line, slowing ticket sales. Otherwise, no talking. If asked, they would point to their designated spokesman.

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I drew the owner of the theater chain and got a headline quote, that he would much rather integrate the theaters and sell more tickets. We exchanged notes and left. The two (this was long ago) dailies published an alarming account of the police barely containing a mob bent on violence (one bored policeman and nothing resembling a mob) and my little paper was the only one quoting the owner.

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The owner lived to see his chain desegregated, the Majestic is now a concert venue, the microfilm of all seven issues of The Dallas Forum has vanished from its reel at the SMU library, there is only one daily in Dallas, and this is as near publishing as I get these days.

Think of the two big lemonades you had fifteen minutes ago, kid, and just let go.