I expect the headlines of ….

I expect the headlines of the major news outlets will change radically after January 20. For the past four years I have seen nothing but negative headlines about President Trump. It appears he cannot say or do anything without a negative spend in the news report. But that, I am guessing, changes after January 20. There will be little or no criticism of Biden. Everything he does or says will be given a positive spend. If the COVID19 epidemic is abated, he will be given the credit.

However, if it continues unchecked, Trump will be blamed. If the employment situation improves, Biden will be given the credit, but if unemployment stays the same or gets worse, Trump will be blamed. So much for an objective unbiased press. [ Editor’s Note: Short answer… I guess we’ll see.

Longer answer… the official term for what you describe is commonly referred to as “ yellow journalism,” and describes news reporting that presents little to no legitimate research and relies on eyecatching headlines or sensationalized stories. And just to let you know this is nothing new, the idea goes back more than a hundred years. This is opposed by the concept of “ journalistic integrity,” which is the idea that news be presented as a report of the facts with no slant, bias or editorial stance. Now, it’s important to note that neither of these is a law or anything. In fact, the “ freedom of the press” in the First Amendment says nothing about being unbiased. It is in fact the ability to take an editorial stance that the U. S. Constitution guarantees. It has long been debated about what obligation or responsibility the press has to “ pick a side” on important issues.

Anyway, we’ll see how it goes with Biden…]

*** How many cars have to be damaged by the awful job they did on fixing the railroad crossing on Highway 77 before they will really FIX it? I guess they are just waiting on the traffic to smooth it over instead!

[ Editor’s Note: Just for the sake of full disclosure, that text was followed by a “ mad face” emoji, which sadly, doesn’t transfer over into my newspaper editing software, but trust me, it was pretty angry. Anyway, I don’t know that there’s a magic number or anything, since I don’t think that kind of data is available. The railroads are pretty good at being hard to get a hold of, though, so I won’t even suggest calling them about it. The state Department of Transportation might be willing to listen, though, since it also involves a state highway, but the rehab project itself was done by the railroad company, BNSF if I recall correctly]