Where is Cronkite when we need him?

Recently, we have seen, in this paper, opposing letters about our president. There clearly is not a common fact base underlying these letters.

On the op-ed page of the Nov. 16 Daily Herald, the first writer asserts: "The bottom line is that the Democrats with the help of the "Fake News" have been lying to the people for 2½ years. Democrats are once again trying to launch a phony coup attempt . . ."

On that same page, the second writer asserts: "While it is obvious to anyone who has the intellect to see and understand the facts, or the open mindedness to see the truth, Donald Trump is an unfit, un-stable, habitually lying, narcissistic threat to this great country and the world."

Clearly each author is getting his "information" from a different source. Joseph Goebbels (Hitler's Minster of Propaganda from 1933-45) would have given anything to have a propaganda machine as capable and as effective as either the right-wing Fox News or the left-leaning CNN in spreading their respective partisan views that only coincidently converge on "the facts."

So how do we pull back from an abyss that seems to widen daily? Ultimately, as a society, we must demand and use trusted news sources that can stand against the biased opinion programming that mistakenly gets labeled news.

A first step in this journey is to recognize that citizenship in our great republic comes with the solemn obligation to become a truly informed citizen and voter, not just a biased partisan spewing unverified talking points. We must all become better researchers, using skills that should have been taught to us in school. The late Dean Jacobs of the Kellogg School of Management once opined to a group of lead-ers: Every day we should all read things that are "disconfirming" of our beliefs. Perhaps that is where we must start.

Lynn Jensen

Arlington Heights