Presidential Filters Have Been Removed

America had a president in the 1930's, elected to four terms (over 11 years), that was handicap.

F.D.R. (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) suffered from a disease that disabled him to a wheelchair.

Although the disease was reported in the news, making the handicap an issue that would prevent him from executing the duties of the office may have been a non-issue, or a poor intellectual argument.

News media was careful not to highlight F.D.R.'s reality unnecessarily, perhaps in keeping with the integrity of the office and the perception of a very (arguably the most) influential position in world politics.

Perhaps there were other reasons.

The integrity of journalism was also at stake; freedom of the press.

With freedoms come responsibilities.

The criticisms against F.D.R. were largely about his policies and programs, not so much his character.

The man wasn't a perfect man in word nor deed, yet one's personal life wasn't much of a public affair despite the public office.

F.D.R. had his affairs, but somehow these topics didn't find their way into mainstream media.

One could argue that there existed facts of any matter (found in the news as an official story), then possibly a rumor quoted by a name, were found in published news media.

This was journalism.

Journalism was about sharing facts, opinions, and citing those sources.

The journalist's sentiments nor opinion was not part of the news.

Opinions and stories lacking hard citations were called yellow journalism / tabloids journalism.

It was a different time...and cultures change.

The news is supposed to be non-fiction.

Today's journalism seems to have been suffering from a lack of integrity for some time...and I think it has gotten worse regarding the mainstream and popular 'news'.

There seems to be much journal opinion written within any given news article.

Yellow / tabloid journalism is read today as viable news.

And fake news is another step further from even the 'standard' (using that word loosely) of what a tabloid paper is.

Yet fake news, and mainstream propagandized news, is read as legitimate and honest sources of information.

It seems as the freedoms have increased, the responsibilities have not...nor has the ability of people to tell the difference.

I remember taking a news writing class at the university and the aim was to write objectively the facts with no slight of personal opinion.

To include (mistakenly or purposely) any inflection of bias was a failure.

Yet I can't help but notice how many opinion pieces in mainstream news are heralded as 'news' (or fact-based stories), while the section of actual 'news articles' have bias overtones that fail including objectivity or fact finding.

The truth is that the truth of any matter rarely 'sells' anymore in the news, and the news is a business like almost all other human efforts.

You're likely to read about certain aspects of a particular story with a very short list of facts.

The focus is mostly on a person's character than their words and deeds pertaining to political issues (speaking to political issues).

These shortcomings are reflected in mainstream popular news.

Mainstream news seems to be geared to a short attention span...seemingly treating the general public as having an attention deficit disorder.

Has this development in news reporting regarding politics been according to a prescribed program, or the outcome of a cultural shift?...or something else?

Since popular programming (television, cable, satellite, radio, etc.) is mostly fictional with advertising in between, it is no surprise that most people have short attention spans that gravitate towards the simple samples of societal suspicions.

There are specialized news journals that explore any and all possible angles to a news story.

But these journals are unfortunately not widely read like much of the nightly news or prime time entertainment shows are widely viewed.

The entertainment news is parroted the next day around the water cooler and the search for facts, or distinguishing bias from objectivity, is lost.

The reality show has entered the White House, and the populous is well entertained.

I can't help but suspect the news media had something to do with that.

Much how F.D.R. was elected to four consecutive terms while being handicap, so has a cultural shift occurred in the news media AND the political offices (the attitudes).

We live in a collective, and our collective efforts have lasting impacts on others.