Front-page decisions missing the mark

Sometimes I scratch my head in bewilderment at which stories make front-page news at the Daily Herald and which stories don’t. Last week’s front-page story on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie apologizing for his subordinates causing a traffic jam on the Washington Bridge a few months ago is a good example. He had a press conference for nearly two hours where he named the people and fired them with 24 hours of finding out the culprits.

Maybe it was a slow news day, but when the president lies about an attack in Benghazi, when the IRS takes its vengeance out on conservatives, when the NSA spies on its own citizens without just cause, when news reporters are targeted for journalism by the president’s administration, when the president and Hillary Clinton agree that sending a surge of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan won’t work, but they do it anyway, or when the president’s crowning achievement, Obamacare, is disintegrating into confusion, higher premiums and lack of doctors and services, you must ask: Who is making front-page decisions and what is the motivation? The topics mentioned rarely, if ever, appeared as on the front page.

Here is a bit of advice to your editorial board. Don’t let the mainstream media dictate your journalistic ethics.

Richard Francke

Bartlett