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Abrams: Opinion has no place in a newspaper

Opinion’s place in a newspaper

The Summit Daily’s July 25 editorial page was full of articles that continue to polarize the American political scene. From John Young’s article that leads one to believe that voters from western states have no sensitivity to “people of color,” poverty or food stamps to Timothy Faust’s rant that the right’s political platform in based on fear. Where is the media, including the SDN, on the “journalism” aspect?

Journalism, according to the dictionary, is “a style of writing used in newspapers, magazines, and radio and television characterized by the direct presentation of the facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation.” We have few media organizations in this country that adhere to this definition. In fact many media organizations skew the facts to conform to whatever agenda the organization is focused on at the time. Thank God for the internet, where it is possible to discern facts. Let’s take Mr. Faust’s fact: “That only 5% of black people and 2% of white people will ever commit a crime according to the FBI.” Now many people reading that statement would agree Mr. Faust’s statement of “how low the overall crime rate is.” Let’s take another look at the 5% and 2% that Mr. Faust presented. According to the 2010 Census, the US population was 308,745,536 of which 72.4% (223,531,760) where white, and 12.6% (38,593,190) where black which shows the white population is nearly 6 times that of black population. According to Mr. Faust’s statement, the black population will commit 2.5 more crimes than will the white population, (5 divided by 2). When I look at the numbers this way I find them disturbing, backed up by the facts that black males, ages 15 to 35 commit more than 50% of robberies in the US, have an unemployment rate of 30+%, and that 73% of black babies born in the US are born out of wedlock. What’s the chance of black boy born without a male or family presence in today’s black communities making it as a productive citizen?



So instead of throwing political grenades, let’s offer some solutions and debate them in a non-polarizing way. We are a great country and we need to reintroduce “civility” back into our national conversations, Perhaps the media can lead us by reintroducing true journalism back into their organizations that lets us address and resolve some of our national issues.

Chuck Abrams



Silverthorne


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