Should be MANDATORY Viewing...

I agree. Things have changed quite a bit since those days.

I used to like the fact that newspaper stories would generally put the basic facts in the first paragraph, and the details would follow. That would make it easier to scan quickly to get apprised on the day's events without necessarily having to read every article in its entirety. But it seems to be different nowadays.

I've noticed some articles which leave out key details and obvious, unanswered questions that the reporter apparently forgot to ask. Even if someone says "no comment," they'll at least say that, if they did try to ask. But I've some stories where they just leave the reader wondering if they're even TRYING to do their job.

I remember one local story about a traffic accident which just read like a jumbled mess. I couldn't tell who hit whom, what caused it, whether any of the drivers were cited. (I wasn't the only one; there were a few comments in the online comment section from people who were equally confused.) They even had a couple of quotes from those involved, saying how bad it was and how they thanked God for being alive, but I was still scratching my head trying to figure out what in heck happened. It turned out that they even got the location of the accident wrong, as it actually happened at another intersection.

I can deal with a certain level of political bias from the media, but more than that, I just like to see good, quality writing and a thorough, unambiguous reportage of the facts of a given story.