OU's J school taught me not to report fake news
December 24, 2025
Fake news is nothing new to the Senior Sooner who left the buiness as a result.
Not Sooner forgotten:
Fake news that's seditiously being reported daily throughout media is nothing new. It's the reason why I left the newspaper business decades ago.
I was merrily rolling along as sports editor of the "Albuquerque Tribune," having installed the then-innovative layout and content, when the editor in chief called me into his office.
"I want you to have your columnist write about how the UNM basketball coach is having an affair with the Lobos' volleyball coach." What's our evidence, our source, I asked. "None. Let's say they did and run a retraction later."
Wha-wha-why? "To bolster street sales," came his answer.
OU's Gaylord School of Journalism
I remembered at that moment about Law and Ethics, the toughest course at OU's School of Journalism. Back then many students didn't get their diploma because they couldn't pass the course, even though they completed all other requirements.
I thus refused his order. saying that's unethical, adding I was taught better than that. "Then you no longer are sports editor," he barked. I was punished by being demoted to high school girls' basketball (which I turned into the hottest ticket in town, packing gyms that would somewhat empty for subsequent boys' games).
It's not fake news today how many in the so-called legacy media, according to D.O.G.E., are being bought off to report biased and purposefully inaccurate news. And I have to ask myself this question:
What if that editor had offered to sweeten the deal with, say, a cash bonus. After all, I had two kids who needed more than Walmart sneakers to school. Would I have sold out like today's journalists? I hope I wouldn't, for I believe in the ideal that media MUST be the watchdog FOR the people, not against. We see now what happens when media doesn't keep an eye on politicians. Our media's true purpose isn't to indoctrinate us but to shine an unbiased light on facts and let we the people rightly make up our minds.
Hard to tell one from another
Yet the talking heads at ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN remarkable say virtually the same words daily on the same issues, allotting the same amounts of time -- as if their scripts are all supplied from the same secret source.
The odds of that happening are astronomical, a fact I learned in a journalism class when a video of a car accident was shown, and students were asked to write a report. Those accounts varied widely, making it all the more strange to me how today's media is so remarkably similar in handling issues.
You'd think one network would want to do better than another to gain more viewers to better bless their shareholders. After all, the networks' real business is to make money through higher ratings, right?
I wasn't the only fake news casualty back then. I had a good buddy in OU's broadcast journalism. When CNN started, there he was as an anchor on TV sets everywhere. I used to point and proudly tell people "I know that guy!" After a couple of years, though, he disappeared. I figured he went to an even better job, but when I ran into him later I learned that wasn't the case.
"I had to leave," he told me. "They kept wanting me to report things I knew weren't true."
It all topples when the press isn't free
That was back in the 1980s. These dark days our supposed watchdog not only is off the chain but has been turned on us. The networks are brainwashing the viewing public and actually attacking people with factual views. No longer keeping an eye on government shenanigans, they are weaponized against the American public despite low ratings.
The ongoing fact that no "fake news" network wants to regain the public's trust by breaking ranks to report unbiased news should worry us all. Until then the fix is in.
