We need policies to ensure our news is fair and factual

By JERI LYNN PAULL

One of the biggest differences between the year 2026 and the years when I was growing up, the 1960s and ’70s, is information and technology.

In the ’70s and ’80s, news was on in the evening on the three network stations — ABC, NBC and CBS.

We trusted the anchors — Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and Peter Jennings — to tell the truth. In fact, Walter Cronkite, CBS anchor for most of the 1970s, was named “The most trusted person in America.”

They were journalists when journalism was, well, journalism: the activity or profession of gathering, verifying, analyzing and presenting news and information to the public. Stories were fact-checked, researched and confirmed; the truth mattered.

In 1948, only 1% of American households had a TV set. By 1955, it had risen to 75%.

In 1949, when TV was brand new, a policy was adopted to protect the American people from one-sided reporting. Our leaders understood, in the early days of TV, that broadcasters would have too much power and influence over the American people without a safeguard.

This policy was called The Fairness in Reporting Doctrine. Enforced by the Federal Communications Commission, it forced broadcasters to air both sides of an argument in matters of public importance.

President Reagan abolished the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine in 1987, arguing it violated broadcasters’ First Amendment right to free speech. Congress responded by passing The Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987, but it was vetoed by Reagan.

Almost 40 years later, there is very little trust left in broadcast news. We have 24-hour “news” that often has little basis in either fact or the public interest.

One network program, masquerading as news, was recently sued for billions of dollars for reporting falsehoods that damaged a company’s reputation.

The owner of that network said at trial, “No one believes what this host says. Everyone knows the reporting is for entertainment only.” Yet millions of Americans still get their “news” from that same network.

Then there is Google, which most people use as a search engine.

Google decides what information we see first. It can literally position stories that follow a narrative it approves, burying conflicting accounts under hundreds of other articles. And that is a lot of power over what people think and believe.

We are all new at this. Computers, social media, radio and TV talking heads with an agenda. This did not exist until fairly recently.

Nightly news began in 1940. Home computers didn’t really catch on until the mid-1990s. Social media — remember MySpace? — debuted in the mid-2000s.

We need policies to protect the American people from corporate manipulation. We should have truth in reporting requirements in place. One element should ensure opinion pieces are clearly defined as such.

What each of us can do right now is support our local newspaper and find a trustworthy periodical to subscribe to. We need to support journalists while we still have them.