The Truth is Mandatory. . .

This is a new blog that is about something much more important today than politics. It is about TRUTH! We must know that if we cannot dig out of this deep layer of untruth and corruption that is covering our nation, we will soon suffocate and die from it.

Finding truth in today's choices of social media is like looking for teeth in a chicken. The unbiased word and those still-unbiased airways are being gobbled up by such critters as social media, biased news outlets, and politicians - those things we should fear the most!

We used to have reliable and accurate newspapers to rely on for useful information. Admittedly, mistakes were made, but libel laws kept newspapers on their toes and when their sources gave them wrong information, it was corrected quickly. Errors by the typographical gremlins were 99% of the problems  and the 1% were through other means. Even in libel cases, an attorney had to prove the newspaper's error was due to malice, and those were few and far between.

Facebook, Twitter and a bevy of other gibber-jabber platforms have scrubbed clean a sentence about "truth" from their mission statements - if they even had such a thing. "It's free speech, my friends. We have confidence that everyone will post only the truth!"

America has lost 1800 newspapers since 2004. and since then about 100 disappear every year. Americans from 3 to 103 years of age have had this little device attached to the palm of their hands since Motorola came out with the cell phone April 4, 1973, and they are multiplying like rabbits. Don't get me wrong - it's a great invention and it has more than proved its worthiness, I'm sure.  But the instant bullpucky in that little biddy screen - Lordy!

It has been the devil's workshop, too. It has muddied many a youngster's mind about what is true and what is false in the world. Politicians have entered the world of lies and found it is the greatest campaign ploy since "Boss Tweed's lie-a-second campaign runs."

We're going to explore this new social media and how it is killing off your old reliable hometown newspaper. It's been a horror show for those of us who relied on the truth in newspapers and for those of us who worked in the business. It was a thing of pride to deliver a fact-based bundle of news, weather, sports, advertising, and entertainment to your doorsteps. 

Today, someone is delivering to those small screens the most unreliable, unsourced, and uncensored snippets of bullpucky anyone could imagine.

I hope you'll follow me in this fight that I believe is at the very core of America's biggest problem! 

John Watson is a retired newspaper publisher and political cartoonist. 

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