Newspapers: Opinions or Reality

 By Kelly Bridgewater

Trouble is brewing across the political arena.

Trouble is brewing across the newspapers and news reports on national and local news.

Politicians are arguing against the other side but refuse to push the blame at their party’s errors too.

Many news cast are showing one-sided stories. Not reporting the truth from all angles.

Going to a university is a place to be educated and learn to think for yourself. Students are presented a number of varying topics, but the end goal is to teach the students how to interpret and draw conclusions from what they have learned.

The whole purpose of research papers is to analyze and come to conclusions about what is taught from either a textbook, non-fiction, biographies, articles, or scholars who have come before, then add your voice to the discussion.

A school’s newspaper’s position is to promote the happenings in and around the campus to boost morale. Talk about the successes of fellow students. Promote the teachers. Promote the groups on campus. Show the sports team’s latest scores. On the other hand, it is also important to show the strife running rampant through the campus. When something is unfair. Show any decision that affects the whole student body.

Honest-to-goodness reporting.

As a staff member with a MA in Writing, I have noticed that the a number of college newspapers have not been doing the honest-to-goodness reporting in the last year or two.

First, the writing is awful. Titles are all supposed to be in capital letters. Commas are a writer’s friend. Run-on sentences should not be allowed. Short, disjointed paragraphs that jump from idea to idea without a complete thought is a disgrace to anyone who can write a paragraph completely and effectively.

Second, the most glaring obvious errors are the topics. Universities have been publishing titles like “Why do Christian holidays receive special attention?,” The hypocrisy of pro-lifers,” “Storming the Capitol is not a revolution,” “Is America really a democracy?,” and even included couple of articles promoting cheating while in college and another similar article titled, “From online to in-person,” discussing how Universities should allow students to ease back into the Spring semester even after having five weeks off from school because of Covid.

Where is the double sided argument to these published articles? Why are these educated places of learning only allowing one side to be shown in a university newspaper? OR is this more part of the brainwashing that is being taught and shown in our political and public arena? We really cannot have students thinking for themselves. That is old-fashioned form of schooling.

Maybe this is something that seriously needs to be looked in to.

Our nation is crumbling around us.

Our schools are not educating student the way they should be anymore.

Why did my son, who is a freshman at a state college, have to take a quiz on sexuality in a Psychology class? Not called for.

Why did he also have to take a class to teach him to write research papers and the textbook supports Black Lives Matter and the Democrats point of view?

Why direct the education and the newspapers toward this only view point? Why not show the other side to coin?

Why not show true history?  

An effective argument or education shows both sides, but this is not the case anymore. I would like universities to stand up and be more a voice for both sides. Stop promoting one side and shunning the other side. Be a difference. Allow collge students to be a school where a public education does not have to be taught through the rose-colored glasses of arguments.