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 an enormously polarized society. With social media delivered into the equation, Americans are thrown 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 understand. In light of the talk surrounding fake news, partisan politics, our lengthy-going walks on the War on Terror, and my position as editor-in-leader of a news website, I may explain how sure editorial decisions are made.
Unlike many mainstream information retailers, NEWSREP is staffed nearly totally by 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 kind.
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 for the U.S. Army. Other most effective documents on veteran-precise problems include PTSD or VA blessings. Still, others wave the American flag and upsell their reader’s patriotic T-shirts. Nothing is inherently incorrect with these things, but it isn’t what we do.
The Navy includes some of the absolute pleasures that America has to provide but also its worst. The military isn’t always inherently desirable, but it’s made exactly by the good carrier of the humans in it.
As a creator and an editor, I could do a good deal instead of reporting on the fantastic testimonies. There are many of them, and our conflict-warring parties deserve the popularity.
I try to paint 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 about all types of tragedies and America that have ruined and destroyed lives. If you switch those human beings away and refuse to take their calls, you definately are not jogging an information site, and you aren’t virtually a journalist. You are more significant, at that point, like a DOD public affairs officer.
Our reporters are not inside the military anymore and are not here to wave the flag, act 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 turn away from it instead. In different instances, the general public has the right 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 every five minutes rather than reporting. This creates a vicious circle in which journalists and readers get increasingly frustrated with one another.
