In days past, journalism was an ethical profession. Journalistic practice was based on presenting the all the facts to the people – the basic foundation for an informed population in a democracy. The United States founding fathers felt strongly in this concept – and enshrined it as the first item in the Bill of Rights.
Old newspaper editors separated their staffs into news, analysis and opinion (editorial) – and created different sections in the newspaper so that readers would understand what was a news report, what was analysis, and what was opinion (the editorial page). Although editors and publishers had beliefs, the old-timers tried to balance their editorial page so that their readers would see both sides of the argument.
Old-timers made an effort to provide even and balanced coverage of news.
Somewhere between the USA founding fathers and today, this basic journalist principle has been eroded. Many knowledgeable people today blame this decline on Fox News – but they are just capitalizing on the population’s current desire to mix watch entertainment masquerading as news. But few people remember the yellow journalism of the early 20th century lead by William Randoff Hearst. Honest journalism left the room a long time ago.
Econintersect.com was established to present Economic information based on old-time basic journalistic principles. What is not clearly understood by many is that “facts” propagated by authoritative Economic sources are not “facts”. What Econintersect.com is endeavoring is to present news as news, analysis as analysis, and opinion as opinion.
Today, Econintersect.com is rolling out its third blog – Opinion. Opinion is opinion – not fact or analysis of fact. This will allow a broader range of discussion on Econintersect into areas which we have previously avoided. Our pledge to our readers is that we will endeavor to balance opinion – and an anti-Federal Reserve opinion will be balanced with a positive Federal Reserve opinion article over time.
If you have an opinion, let us know.
John Lounsbury, Editor-in-Chief [email protected]
Steven Hansen, Publisher [email protected]
