When I worked in Boca Raton, my collegues were mostly guys in their 20-30’s, trying to make it in the computer industry. I am not naming names to protect the guilty.
We’d go to lunch together and have pitchers of beer, a good time and then go back to work. We were single, well employed and for the most part, presentable to good looking.
One of the lunch spots/watering holes was Tom’s Ribs next door.
On a particular lunch outing, one of our guys invited the editor and some writers of the National Enquirer. This was the 80’s so their reputation was near or at the bottom for truthfulness.
We enjoyed the best ribs in the South (Florida only) and numerous pitchers of beer. I was the PR department where we worked so I bonded easily with them even though we were in different industries.
I was used to reporters being heavy drinkers, but not on the day they had to close the current edition that day and it was only half written.
I chanced to ask the Editor how he was going to fact check his story (something all journalists used to do) in time to get the publication out by deadline. Here it is….he said, we don’t have to worry about the facts. He waved his hand in the air as if he was batting the truth away. The worse things we publish, the more they read. Everyone loves a train wreck and that’s what the Enquirer wrote about.
We all had a good laugh and we went back to the computer world and they went back to the tabloid world and got their edition out on time. The Enquirer was like pro wrestling. We knew it was fake, but watched it anyway. (Now, they get it more correct than the MSM and break actual stories that the rest of the media jointly buries).
I learned a valuable lesson. Even though I worked with the media for a living, I realized that those behind the words are human also. Some care about the truth and others care less. Also learned was that the media has control over some people. In other words, they believe whatever is written, like my son-in-law from Portland who watches NBC and CNN and believes them.
They as a group be-clowned themselves starting with the Clinton-Lewinsky affair in the Oval office, got worse under Bush and gave away any credibility after 2008.
Sharyl Attkisson has a summary of their mistakes. She is the media reporting on them.
It is quite the list. Before you end it, you’d realize just how little you trust the media after watching them blatantly fabricating the truth.
This brings me back to the lunch. The reporters today, care as little about the facts and the truth as the drunk Enquirer writers that day eating ribs. Both laugh at the truth and the integrity of their jobs.
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