For those of you who appreciate really good television, "The Andy Griffith Show" was and is a classic. The writers were particularly brilliant, men like Aaron Ruben, James Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum. Every generation has a handful of truly gifted writers; the rest of us are, as I once read, good at typing.

In one episode, "Opie's Newspaper," young Mr. Taylor decides to publish his own paper, and relies on gossip and inside information around town. When Andy and Barney discover what's been done, they work overtime to pick up all the deliveries. The neat ending, of course, reveals that they weren't wholly successful.

Opie, however, was not a disingenuous publisher. He simply printed what people were saying. In other words, he reported. No editorial spin, no self-serving agenda. Would that publishers in the real world today had the wisdom of an eight-year-old.

Al Neuharth, the 86-year-old founder of USA Today, is an iconic figure in publishing. When the paper launched in 1982, the skeptics had a field day. There couldn't possibly be a national newspaper, they said. It was a fad.

Here we are, three decades later, and USA Today has had a dramatic impact on the newspaper business. For one thing, stories are simply shorter; we've been told that busy people will not read columns of gray text. Others would say it has contributed to the dumbing down of the American reader. In the ping-pong world of public opinion, others would say the brevity has increased the knowledge of the world for those readers with short attention spans.

Yet change is not always good. When mavericks like Neuharth or Ted Turner provide something new and dramatic, there is always the potential for mischief. In the realm of bias masquerading as news, USA Today is no different than any other paper.

Today, Gannett Co. owns USA Today, as well as other large dailies such as The Arizona Republic and The Tennessean. One can guess how those papers treat politics in their respective communities. It would be interesting if a journalism student did a study, for example, on the kind of coverage Al Gore got all those years from that Nashville paper.

What I'm getting at is our life experiences and bias influence what we write. Not a fatal error in itself, but when our writing conveys wrong information, or information that harms the greater good, then we are guilty of much worse than fraud.

Interestingly, Neuharth recently wrote in his "Plain Talk" column (cleverly titled, conveying at least a veneer of truth-telling) that what America needs is another Cronkite. In other words, the viewing public needs someone like "Uncle" Walter Cronkite, allegedly the most trusted man in America in his day.

Cronkite, of course, famously visited Vietnam in 1968 and declared the war un-winnable! Lyndon Johnson remarked that if he'd lost Cronkite, he'd lost Middle America.

Neuharth, who served in both theatres during World War II, surely knows that Cronkite was no military expert. Cronkite was simply parroting what his liberal, leftist friends were saying. Cronkite was communicating his own bias and, at that time, furthering the agendas of folks like Fidel Castro and the Soviets.

I can tell you that journalists, print and otherwise, thirst for that kind of power. That's what journalism has become: How does this further my career? There's not much reporting anymore.

Today, we have a situation in which the American media present what they want the public to know, not necessarily that which is truth. What we must realize is that papers like USA Today come at life from the left.

Here is an interesting exercise: Pick up any well-known daily newspaper and look for the words in a particular article that have nothing to do with conveying what actually happened. For example, a well-placed adjective will subtly convey an image of, say, a Republican senator; that image won't be positive.

That's why independent publications are so important. Recently, Pat Boone was given the opportunity in a column to present a perspective on Barack Obama's views on Islam. I am not far from 50, and I do not remember in my lifetime a column that brave. Boone said in print what many think: The American president is unusually chummy with Islam.

I do remember a piece from the '90s, in which Ralph Peters called Bill Clinton, in print, a coward. I kept the clipped article for years in my wallet. I felt Peters' charge was so spot-on.

Leftist publications will discuss the same issue – "Is Obama a closet Muslim?" – but from the perspective that those who raise the issue are dangerous sociopaths. They attack the messenger from the right, not the message. It's a common political tool.

I often refer to former Jerusalem Post editor David Bar-Illan, who once said: "Some of the world's journalists have written the most mind-blowing nonsense. But they know that only the most assiduous researchers remember their folly."

Well put, David. He was saying that today's journalists openly lie, but they know that most people are hard-working folks and don't have time to really keep up with the propaganda masquerading as legitimate news.

I am one of those right-wing nutters who happens to believe that a government crackdown on free speech – in the form of controlling the Web – is coming. I'm not sure what journalism will totally look like then, but I do know one thing:

Opie doesn't live here anymore.

Originally Published on World Net Daily August 30, 2010

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

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