I’ve been a news junkie of sorts since my youngest days at the California State Legislature, where I worked my way up from the bottom to being an assistant to the Speaker of the House. I used to practice my shorthand skills by transcribing the TV news — in shorthand. It was great for getting my speed up.

Since those days, I’ve been fascinated with public- and private-sector doings — political races, business expansions, businesses moving to our region from outside, new buildings going up, new parks, new leaders and new technologies coming out of our region.

Economic development has been one of my keenest interests, which no doubt led me into my career as a business magazine publisher. I love my job, and I still love the news — but I’m terribly troubled by much of it at the same time.

We’ve all heard the term “fake news,” and there does seem to be a preponderance of it in the legacy media. Probably because of this, podcasts have become my preferred way to get behind-the-scenes information, which, for whatever reason, the newscasters don’t care to share with us.

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It seems to me that “legacy media,” those old standbys of network and local TV and radio news, local newspapers and those that cast a broader net (i.e, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal) — are trying more to create the news to sustain interest in a certain narrative, and of course, ratings. Doing this demonstrates bias, rather than reporting what’s really going on.

This seems to be the way of much of the industry these days — and worse, it seems to be accepted. Perhaps it’s because too many of us don’t choose to do the research ourselves, and we believe whatever the news tells us to believe. Since I hear this from many people, I know it isn’t just me.

Even the staunchest defenders of the press have to admit that seeing isn’t always believing any longer. What is it they say? “Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.” (My favorite news station is KFBK, which I’ve listened to for decades. Yes, they’re a commercial station, but they seem to believe their listeners are adults, so they don’t pander to us or exploit genuine news.)

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In the 1970s, a major sea change occurred when people throughout the country said they trusted the news on television more than in newspapers because they felt it seemed more immediate — plus, they could watch with their own eyes a developing story which might be written about the next day in their papers, with relatively few visuals to verify the account.

People who worked in the newspaper industry were understandably shocked that its credibility had slid. But now, so has television’s — dare I say, even to the point that I rarely watch it anymore. It is almost all  “selective sharing” rather than “real news” — and it certainly is rarely the whole story.

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Some observers have said that television news began its slide from credibility when the Sunday evening mainstay, CBS’s “60 Minutes,” zoomed to the top of the Nielsen ratings decades ago. The feeling is that it was the first news show to demonstrate that a program without a laugh track, car chase or sympathetic characters could prove profitable. “60 Minutes” inspired the creation of news magazine clones and variations, including “Dateline NBC,” “20/20” (ABC), “Frontline” (PBS) and even the BBC’s “Panorama” — all great shows to watch.

Then came the cable news shows in the 1980s, which presented “news” on a 24/7 basis. More often than not, the stations would keep returning to the exact same story and expanding its seeming importance by gathering panels of so-called “experts” (usually the same people over and over but sometimes in new combinations).

Here’s an example of “selective sharing” and repetitive fear-mongering: Recently, a handful of airports across the country experienced long TSA lines because Congress didn’t do the work we pay it to do (pass a budget). This was fresh meat for cable and broadcast news, making the airport delays sound like a nationwide catastrophe when they only impacted a few airports.

My daughter was flying back from an out-of-country destination, and I worried for her return to our states. Turns out it was a breeze for her. There are about 5,000 public-use airports in the U.S. — 1/10th of those are commercial, and only four of them — the major hubs of Atlanta, New York, Houston and New Orleans — had passengers facing the horrible wait times that news shows were reporting as universal. Why was there such an exaggeration? And we probably shouldn’t even get into political news reporting.

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I feel blessed to have run a business magazine for 37 years rather than a 24/7 cable television station. We’ve dedicated ourselves to factual reporting and analysis of very important regional and sometimes global issues. Not being part of cable’s 24/7 news cycle has been a genuine plus. When we come out with a new issue each month, the contents are 100 percent new. We don’t exist to simply fill time and space and repeat ourselves.

We collectively have so much to be grateful for — our people, our amenities, our accomplishments, our universities, our parks, our buildings and architecture, our sports teams, our waterways, our events, our cities and the generosity of so many.  And Comstock’s brings out the best of all we have to offer as a Capital Region.

And that, dear readers, isn’t fake news. What do you think?

Winnie Comstock-Carlson
President and Publisher

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