I am taken aback by The Herald management’s demands of the Everett newsroom guild in labor negotiations as an aviation journalist. To be a journalist, one must seek out information, sort out what is accurate and relevant to one’s audience, and then write an explanation of events grammatically and economically.
Story quotas translate into reducing the time for quality, accurate information gathering, becoming dangerous press release journalism where press releases just get rewritten into news stories. One should instinctively oppose having government public relations spun as news without reinforcement or rebuttal by other sources such as public records. Also it should oppose having corporate public relations spun as news; and I’ve had to cringe through meaningless corporate public relations quotes attributable only to the corporation offered up with follow-up requests denied to explain controversial issues like labor negotiations and weapons deals.
In conclusion, I offer this Feb. 9, 2005, Ron Sims quote I’m fond of: “The greatest threat to democracy is bad information. Good government is based on good information. Good government is based on the facts.”
So, we should all desire Herald journalists to continue to have ample resources to help watchdog governments.
Joe A. Kunzler
Sedro-Woolley
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