Just the Facts Man: One Man's Plea to the Media

The scene of an emptying courtroom paints the 6-inch screen of the television. The picture gets

fuzzy, and a young boy gets up to adjust the rabbit ears so the message can come through

clearly. It was 1954, and the Supreme Court of the United States has just ruled on the Brown vs.

Topeka Board of Education case, and overturned the ruling of Plessy vs. Ferguson.

That was Bob Prince’s first experience with the media. “I just remember how matter-a-fact the journalists were. They were commentators in journalistic mode and their purpose was to inform the public so the public could make their own decisions.” He doesn’t see it that way anymore though.

Prince, 54 of Anderson, SC., pointed to the late 1960s, after the Kennedy assassination, as a time when journalism started down its slope to the mess the media know finds itself in.

“When Kennedy was assassinated, it was kept as fact. His private life was kept separate from his public life,” Prince said. “Then the Vietnam Conflict happened, and I think that changed media as we know it.”

Prince points to the war footage, shown for the first time, and how the media created a double standard for the military. “They started showing footage, and that painted a negative picture of the military. Journalists started holding our soldiers to the ‘rules of war’ but didn’t hold our enemies to the same standard.”

Prince also said that the line between fact and opinion began to blur, and an ultra-liberal point of view began to take foot, though it wasn’t near as bad as it is today. “Dan Rather I’d have to say was the first broadcast guy. He was the first liberal minded journalist on camera. At the same time, Tom Brokaw was more of a ‘just the facts’ kind of guy.”

Watergate was another key event in Prince’s opinion. “To me, Watergate changed the way media as a whole looked at the news.” Prince believes that even though Nixon was right to resign, he was convicted in the media. “Not all the accusations were verified. It was done mostly on assumptions and anonymous sources. It was a lot like the 1930s muckrakers.”

Prince thinks that the practice of muckraking and Watergate, along with the Vietnam Conflict, and the revolutionary environment of the time as a whole, led to the mushrooming mistrust of the media that permeated into the ‘90s and today.

Another event that led to the public mistrust and devalue in the media was the rise of 24-hour news in the 1980s. “Not only did the rise of CNN and FoxNews have a negative effect on paper circulation, but it also added to the dilution of information. It turned away from information and more towards to infotainment.”

“While all this is going on, more and more agenda was seeping into the media to where it became what it is today.”

One momentary saving grace was the early ‘90s and the internet, according to Prince. “Internet was full of truth in the beginning. It was used by scholars to exchange truthful information.”

Now, Prince says, “it is useless unless you know the sites.”

“Now, the web has become as cluttered as TV. You still have the political slant and agenda driven media. You just have to sort through both sides and come to your own conclusion.”

Upon reflection of the changes in the media throughout his memory, Prince would like to see a return to the old days, while utilizing the new media.

“I was a fan of Walter Cronkite, and I’d like to see news get back to ‘just the facts man’. I’d like to see it public driven again, instead of agenda driven.”

The three things he wants most from the media, and its journalists, are “humility, honesty, and integrity.”

“It really bugs me when journalists think they know what I should think of the news. Just tell me the facts and let me come to my own conclusions,” Prince said.

The changes and “de-evolutions” the media have made over the past 50 years, while groundbreaking, leave Prince with just one word.

“Horror.”