Wake of Echoes

When you see the Stars & Stripes, do you feel like standing or kneeling?  For my part, I stand. In fact, I stand with by hand over my heart, the Star Spangled Banner on my lips and tears in my eyes. But here's the thing: if you see yourself as more of a kneeler, I understand. Even if we tally just a brief list of grievances that might convince you to kneel, we include these whoppers: slavery, native extermination, suppression of women's rights, Japanese internment camps, Jim Crow laws, child labor, exploitation of workers, forced sterilization of the mentally ill, and state-sanctioned murder of the unborn. So, yes. I understand. Forgiveness is hard. Yes, forgiveness. Because that's the issue, isn't it? America has committed sins, and you want her held accountable. You want her to pay for what she's done. But here are a few things to consider while you're on your knees: 1.  America is more than 250 years old, and the people who led her -- t...

News this weekend included floods in the gulf coast , a fire and knife attack on a Swiss train, an elderly woman who was accidentally shot by police in Florida, and a Washington woman who crashed her car upside down into a Starbucks drive-thru. So why were these stories in the news? And what stories might have been rejected so these stories could be featured? Newsworthiness is the term I learned back in J school that expresses all the possible components of an event that could qualify it for coverage by the media. Today I will define each term, give examples and then talk about how they might be manipulated to create bias. Newsworthiness isn’t an equation or a checklist. An event doesn’t have to meet three out of seven criteria to be considered newsworthy, for example. Neither does ONE element typically make something newsworthy. It’s usually a combination of these elements that has to be judged by editorial staff. On a slow news day, the top story might be a pol...