I must admit that writing lightweight news articles for a high school newspaper does not give me status as a journalist. Being editor of that same newspaper does little to sharpen my credentials either. That being said, I learned a bit about the difference between chronicling the news and voicing an opinion with my words. I was schooled in the rules of “Who, What, When, Where and How.” My job was to seek facts and to verify them before emblazoning them on the front page. I also had to learn how to write headlines that might attract readers without attempting to sway their thinking. “Just the facts” was the rule by which I ran my page. 

I admittedly would have preferred editing the opinion page or being in charge of the literary section. I felt as though I was in a bit of a straight jacket having to be so precise and concise in checking what my staff wrote. I suspected that a lack of titillating stories probably made my part of the paper seem a bit boring. The students much preferred the opinion page and the sports page was a smash hit. Nonetheless, I often dreamed of working for a major newspaper or magazine and be charged with going after the big stories. For a long time I considered majoring in journalism in college and Edith Bell, the editor of The Daily Cougar was my heroine.

I understand the importance of honest reporting, checking sources, maintaining truth rather than spewing innuendo. Sadly with so much print available from hundreds of sources in today’s world there are often stories that are not true because nobody took the time to vet the information. Innocent people’s lives are ruined when this kind of thing happens and it actually did last week when posts showing a video of a young woman yelling at a baby during a Kamala Harris rally in Houston went viral on X and Facebook. 

While the behavior of the young woman was despicable what happened later was even worse. A rush to determine who she was ended up placing the blame on a woman named Jordan Bowen. Those ready to find her guilty as charged came up with information on where she had attended high school and college and even the fact that she had at one time worked for the Democratic party. There were even postings of her phone number and address. The trouble was that Jordan Bowen was not the woman in the video. In fact, Jordan Bowen looks nothing like the screaming person and on that day she was wearing different clothing and a name tag. 

Even though it has now been verified that Jordan Bowen was misidentified as the woman in the video, she continues to get texts and phone calls threatening her and her family. Even her mother is being insulted. When facts are not checked before being publicly published this is what happens. Even as the Bible warns us, idle and untrue gossip is much like throwing a bag of feathers into the wind. The likelihood of retrieving them all again is unlikely. No matter how many photos and alibis are presented to prove Ms. Bowen’s innocence he name is permanently and wrongly smeared. 

I’ve always remembered the rules that I learned as a cub reporter in high school. I am religious about checking my sources before speaking publicly about an incident or an individual. Even then I have made mistakes now and again. With so much false information floating around it can be daunting to find the absolute truth. We all know that even eye witnesses to an event may sometimes walk away with totally different recollections about what actually happened. We consciously or unconsciously filter reality through our belief systems which almost always affect our worldviews. 

I remember taking a course on the works of William Shakespeare in college. The professor insisted that we first read a text outlining the Elizabethan worldview. By knowing the history of the times we were better able to understand the thinking of Shakespeare himself. Our analyses were sharper by putting ourselves in his shoes rather than relying on our modern thinking. This exercise taught me the importance of context along with the need to judge events as factually as possible. It has helped me to better glean truths about controversial situations. In many ways it makes me a kind of journalistic detective who is unwilling to go with only my initial gut reaction to what I see and hear in the media.

I myself have mucked up things. In a particularly emotional situation I spoke publicly before thinking during the pandemic. My failure to follow my own rules resulted in the loss of a long time friend whom I still love in spite of our seemingly permanent split. We do indeed hurt people when we jump to erroneous conclusions without taking the time to calm down and gather facts rather than relying on our feelings. 

We have a hard political season that has created massive divisions between the citizens of our country. Perhaps they have always been there underneath the surface but now so many of them have become public. Sadly they have led to misunderstandings when they might have been prevented if only we were all willing to first do our research with an open mind for find the truth. Let us hope that we can learn how to tame the beast of misinformation that is out there so that we might make fewer hurtful mistakes and always be in search of only the facts. It’s worth the effort to search for the truth.