'60s Journalism, It Wasn't the Same As Today

A recent Gallup poll found that only 21 percent of respondents trust newspapers today. And even fewer trust television news.

My two Sunshine novels are set in 1967 and 1968 and a third story will take place in 1970. Newspapers and TV play a role in those stories but journalism back then wasn’t the same as it is today.

There was no Internet, no social media and no cable TV news. Newspapers leaned to the left or right in their editorials. Most newspaper columnists were either liberal or conservative. Newspapers, and TV and radio, separated opinion from factual reporting. Newspaper reporters were supposed to be scrupulously objective. Letting opinion seep into the reporting was a serious ethical lapse.

Today, the whole idea of objective truth is being called into question. Some journalism professors today maintain that advocating for social justice is more important than objectivity. Social media, as well as cable TV news, makes money by delivering information that reinforces what people already believe.  

Fifty years ago, most people believed in the same set of facts and argued about what those facts meant. Today we have trouble recognizing factual information. If a cause is righteous — social justice, for example — reporters might only present facts that support it. And some people with causes they believe are righteous manufacture facts. And social media amplifies everything. Misinformation, disinformation and completely false information have become so common that there is increasing talk of censorship. 

During the Vietnam era, pesky journalists kept uncovering facts that contradicted what our leaders were telling us. Eventually, the American people turned against the war. Journalists also made many mistakes. We won that Tet battle and it was a military disaster for the North Vietnamese. But that’s not what you read in newspapers or saw on TV.

I was a journalist for most the 1970s and it is disheartening to see my profession in decline. I miss the time when you could usually trust what you read in the newspaper. 

Even if you didn’t like it.