Letter from the editor: Writing and editorial selections about controversial stories
We stay in some tumultuous instances, with what seems to be a complete-blown lifestyle conflict erupting between diverse factions in a enormously polarized society. With social media delivered into the equation, Americans are thrown together into one big pool—one that is regularly full of sharks—at the same time as the design of stated social media apps has the impact of chumming the water. Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I suppose you get the point. In light of the talk surrounding fake news, partisan politics, our lengthy-going for walks War on Terror, and my position as editor-in-leader of a news website, I idea I may take a stab at explaining how sure editorial decisions are made.
Unlike many mainstream information retailers, NEWSREP is staffed nearly totally by way of navy veterans. Our readers proportion plenty in not unusual with us, and even if they’re now not veterans themselves, our audience tends to be overwhelmingly pro-military. Since we are former army, this gives us a home-subject advantage while reporting defense news. However, it also incites the ire of many on social media, as we’re perceived as a part of a fraternal brotherhood of veterans, and reporting anything that displays poorly on the navy is often viewed as a betrayal of kinds.
There is an entire genre of navy-themed news websites nowadays. We had been the primary on the scene back in 2012. However, others have followed. Many of the best include advantageous insurance of the U.S. Army. Others most effective documents on veteran-precise problems inclusive of PTSD or VA blessings. Still, others wave the American flag and upsell their reader’s patriotic T-shirts. There is nothing inherently incorrect with these things; but, it isn’t what we do.
The navy includes a number of the absolute pleasant that America has to provide, but also its worst. The military isn’t always inherently desirable, but it’s far made exact by way of the good carrier of the humans in it.
As a creator and an editor, I could do a good deal instead be reporting on the fantastic testimonies. There are a lot of them, and our conflict-warring parties deserve the popularity.
I try to paintings on these sorts of memories whenever feasible. However, I am additionally the fellow who gets the phone calls, text messages, and emails about the dark side of the military. Veterans and active-duty foot soldiers (and now and then their spouses) have reached out to me approximately all types of tragedies, and cowl-America that have not just ruined careers, however, destroyed lives. If you switch those human beings away and refuse to take their calls, you definately are not jogging a information site, and you aren’t virtually a journalist. At that point, you are more significant like a DOD public affairs officer.
The reality is that our reporters are not inside the military anymore and are not here to wave the flag, acting as a cheerleader, or carry the water for the Pentagon.
There is a growing phase of the population that dismisses any terrible information as faux information. The truth is frequently uncomfortable, and some might instead turn away from it. In different instances, the general public has the proper to be skeptical about journalism, as journalists don’t constantly get it right. During the last few years, particularly, we’ve seen an increasingly hysterical media enthusiastic about pushing out “takes” on countless memories each five minutes rather than reporting. This creates a vicious circle in which journalists and readers get an increasing number of frustrated with one another.
