Whatever Happened to the Watchdog, Just the Facts, Public Service Print News of Years Past?

Like the proverbial "Dolphin in a Tuna Net" Fishing operations--today's print media appears to take a position of fire, ready, aim!--regardless of the ramifications. Regardless of the innocent by-catch. This is especially apparent locally with the Pensacola News Journal!

Where did it go? Whatever Happened to the Watchdog,  Just the Facts, Public Service Print News of Years Past?

These days, we have a press that increasingly appears to be compromised.   

At the national and local level.  

Averse to negative publicity, reactionary towards any criticism, and fickle politically.  And overly obsequious to their advertising base, to boot!

At the local level, I have seen some of the best and worst of journalism.

Some of the best comes from William Reynolds at NorthEscambia.com.  He publishes news pieces---just the facts-no spin, no "opinion."  He knocks it out of the park with his online paper.

While Rick Outzen and I have not always seen eye to eye---he tackles important stories and deals with them fairly and in a balanced way.  If not for his coverage of the shenanigans surrounding the Newpoint schools 5 years ago-----that issue may have never been cleaned up--and some folks that deserve to be in jail and are in jail currently probably would not be in jail!  He does a good job with his weekly paper.

And then we have the Pensacola News Journal--the "PNJ."

They Kowtow to their advertisers and put out some of the most putrid, disgusting rubbish you could imagine.

They go through staff like most folks change socks------ and they never do quite get the story right.

Fire, ready, aim must be their mantra--and folks locally are catching on to it.  

And believe me--the PNJ  loves to attack those of us that are elected locally trying their best to make our community better....yet they have their "favorites"---- that could commit murder and not get scrutinized in the pages of their "publication".  It is sickening, the duplicity....

But I digress.....

This evening,  I received more evidence of this feckless, weak and irrelevant print media PNJ..... I got a document dump from a public records request related to the County's  OLF-8 project (Which will be discussed tomorrow morning at a Board of County Commissioners Committee of the Whole meeting) where I have now found some incredibly disappointing emails related to the PNJ....... and it isn't surprising.....

Sadly--a team of designers that is supposed to be working for the county is apparently working at cross-purposes with us.  

That's bad enough..

But now I am seeing that along the way, this group of designers have been feeding stories to the Pensacola News Journal that run a narrative that puts us, the elected board of county commissioners, in a negative light.

So this, in and of itself, is deplorable.  But then there is the PNJ editorial board......that prints this garbage and doubles down on it!

The saddest part is the way they allow themselves to be manipulated.  

They are allowing a third party to provide the material for their stories--then apparently allowing these same folks to correct stories after publication.  Compliantly, like useful tools.

How sad.

But that's not even the saddest part.  The saddest part is the demeaning way in which the PNJ editor refers to one of her own employees in emails to folks outside their organization.  Really sad to see, and I feel sorry for this employee that such an opinion or assessment of her performance would be shared like this to someone in writing, outside her organization.  Totally unprofessional.

But again--getting back to the important topic at hand--the question remains the same:  Whatever happened to the watchdog, just the facts, public service print news of years past----looking out for the community and wanting to do what is right?

Answer---it's gone, does not exist anymore.  Everyone has an angle, everyone has an agenda.

There is no loyalty--------especially at the PNJ.

And good people and good employees get caught in the middle like Dolphins in the Tuna net.