Alicia C.Shepard "Image Problems" (Honolulu Star Bulletin insight editorial section, Aug 12) makes a good case for journalistic fairness. She fails, however, to mention the public's responsibility to get the real story and not be taken for the proverbial ride down B.S. alley.
The proliferation of news sources gives a bird's eye view of the marketplace of ideas those of us who grew up on shortwave radio could never have foreseen. But news origination has become, to paraphraze Frank Llloyd Wright, "mob-ocratized" with the advent of home grown and grass root initiative. The influence of blog-journalism has rendered the Fairness Doctrine virtually irrelevant. Now more than ever do sources require healthy scrutiny.
Why should one Hawaii newspaper agree to publish "Broken Trust," and not the other? Why should National Public Radio, despite an ombudsman, regurgitate official slogans (Operation Iraqi Freedom) without disclaimers during their newscasts in the early days of the war? By the way did anyone ever ask Juan Williams why he carried (literally!) Condee Rice's books on the way to her 9-11 testimonial? (run that MSNBC footage please).
To demand rather than expect journalists to justify the how and why of what they do is no mere academic curiosity. Caveat emptor.
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