Reliable Resources in Greater Danger as Time Goes On
My Love Affair with Reliable Resources
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson,
author of poetry, fiction and the Modern History Press’s acclaimed HowToDoItFrugally Series of book for writers
I fell in love with reliable resources when I became a staff writer for my high school newspaper and realized the acquisition of a deep love for that concept surpassed my original attraction for my high school’s Thunderbol. (Was mostly interested in the smart(and cute!) ivy leaguer group of who guys hung out there!) And for very good reason. It turned out the cute boys ignored me, but that being “reporter” who could support my position help me when our editor (or staff advisor) wanted to edit (or ax) one of my columns I could save it by pointing to a reliable resource that supported my viewpoint.
I learned more about the value of reliable resources again sometimes around the time CNN introduced the highlight of my weekend TV consumption; I viewed their Reliable Resources as a class in class in constitutional law and began to see the how close the relationship to my chosen career of journalism which by then had served me well through a couple decades of assorted occupations. It was a TV one-of-a-kind and it never occurred to me it wouldn’t remain a staple of the cable station that brought believable news my way during several occasions when I also became aware of dishonesty coming from places I had until then trusted and admired (the Nixon era, and Vietnam and Iraq wars come to mind). It kept me from losing hope for better things to come so I could focus onbuilding a business and raising a family.
I was appalled when it was cancelled in 2020. I literally mourned for its anchor Brian Stelter who someone managed to survive under the radar with his online Reliable Resources Newsletter. Had I been more of an internet aficionado, his new journey would have helped me avoid years of negativity. Even in these bad moments, things were getting better. Not perfect but good enough to start believing in Camelot again.
Flash forward to slowly growing to love my hometown newspaper. It wasn’t The New York Times, but it was sure enough reliable. I even saw value in it their new management made a highly critiqued move. Though many didn’t agree in when they started re-labeling much of what had traditionally been identified by its placement the Opinion page. That page became “Opinion Voices” and even their columnists were targeted with headlines that carefully delineated in one word, Voices. Yes, both bold and italicized. So did their new label, “guest contributors,” when editors felt that was needed—apparently to strengthen its stance on free speech because it helped readers more easily identify what the simple word opinion had managed to do for a long time across the breadth of trustworthy media.
I also follow ideas (and dangers to watch for) that come from PEN America. During her interim co-CEO stint and chief program officer, Summer Lopez, interim co-CEO and chief program office was among the first to warn of the then-recent revelation that a lawsuit by a sitting president was brought against Penguin Random House the world’s largest trade book publisher and two authors for publishing a book!
I’ve always been proud of PEN with its global membership of writers and literary professionals). I’ve even participated in some of PEN’s efforts to support young writers by sponsoring seminars, only one of the paths they use to support our founding fathers’ determination to keep our country operating differently from the European countries they all hailed from. You know. FREE.
It turned out I had been ignoring the signals. I opened my daily newspapers to Lopez’s opinion piece dominating the LA Times Opinion page with the decree that reliable resources are in danger again. This administration seems to love the freedom afforded by our courts to speak our minds but tends to rely on diminishing other reliable resources like laws and precedence to govern. It’s clear enough: This lawsuit “against a book publisher” is a “dangerous escalation.” I only hope that it doesn’t become the straw that broke the camel’s back. I hope that this time the back that gets broken is from that heavy load known as “truth” hurled by writers themselves. All writers including authors of books and the powerhouse executives that publish their work. I hope they’ll all use the power of the pen to keep resources reliable before we lose the power of free press, free speech and, using Lopez’s words, “the freedom to write.”
MORE ABOUT THE “WRITERS-on-the-Move” COLUMNIST
Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts. Carolyn writes nonfiction for writers, poetry, and fiction and has studied writing at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague, as well as several universities right here in the good ol’ USA.
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