Fishing, egg hunting await local kids
Before we get into the heavy topic this week, let me remind you all that spring is here and two of my favorite springtime events happen this weekend. On Saturday morning at 6 a.m., the trout fishing season begins in our area. All across the state, bodies of fresh water are being stocked with thousands of trout to delight the many thousands of anglers who will participate in this rite of spring and drop a line. There are many organized fishing derbies, but the one closest to my heart takes place here in Woonsocket at Cass Pond. The City of Woonsocket Parks and Recreation Division and The Elks, B.P.O.E. #850, along with other volunteers ,invite children 13 years and younger, supervised by their parents or guardians, to compete for trophies and make some great memories. There will be plenty of prizes given out all morning, and free hot dogs and soda, courtesy of The Elks and The Italian Workingmen’s Club. You can preregister at Pete’s Bait and Tackle on Burnside Avenue, or at the derby.
Then this Sunday, the 9th, the annual Children’s Egg Hunt has a new location. You may have gotten used to us being at Barry Memorial Field in the past, but last year the hunt was moved to the huge soccer fields at River’s Edge Complex on Davison Street, off Hamlet Avenue, because weather postponed it and Barry wasn’t available when the weather cooperated. Well, it worked so well there at Rivers Edge that we’re doing it there again this year.
Warning…….. unlike Barry Field, you don’t see the soccer fields from the road. There’s a big sign for the big complex, but a long driveway to get to the parking area. Please drive down the driveway; there’s plenty of parking for you at the end of the driveway, and it’s a long walk, especially with kids in tow, if you don’t drive in. Please be ready to hunt by 12:45 p.m.; the hunt begins promptly at 1 p.m. for all age groups. In addition to the eggs, there will be special prizes raffled off immediately afterward and it’s all free for our children aged 10 and younger.
Now to our topic. My elders taught me not to be a complainer. I was taught to find a solution to what I saw to be wrong and then offer it. But friends, I just don’t see a ready solution this time and all I can do is to warn you of what I see so you won’t be taken in by bad people.
It will come as no surprise to you that a man in my line of work has known and seen a lot of news reporters doing their jobs. I’m in radio and TV, with friends in newspaper. So I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. But it seems today I am seen far less of the good. What remains are far too many self-righteous, untrustworthy, agenda-driven bullies who have “drunk their own Kool-Aid”. I think they are dangerous people. You’ve seen them, passing themselves off as “hardhitting, tenacious seekers of ‘The Truth’ (as they see it) in a ‘holy crusade against evil’.” They put on a good show, but that’s all it is, a show. They give the honorable news reporting business a black eye and ruin the lives of basically honest people. Is it any wonder, then, that government officials and their employees give such maddeningly polished and stock answers when being attacked by these bullies? Is it any wonder that our president treats them with such disdain? I think they brought it on themselves.
I wish that the good people of the press could have continued to separate themselves from and to moderate the effects of such bullying-in-the-name-of-journalism. But such is increasingly not the case.
Even the seat once held by Walter Cronkite, declared “the most trusted man in America” at CBS-TV News, has fallen into disrespect. Its present occupant, Scott Pelley, openly ridicules the elected leader of our country nightly with such condescending venom as to make any sane person defensive and uncooperative. I’m not saying our President doesn’t give him plenty of things to ridicule, but ridicule does not belong on a news program. It belongs on entertainment shows.
This past Sunday I had the poor judgement to leave the TV on as one of the Sunday morning “news” shows aired. It was more like a modern-day session of “Christians and Lions.” The interviewer, who more rightly could have been called the interrogator, badgered the government official with increasing ferocity because the official wouldn’t agree with the interviewer that Mr. Trump ought to think and do thus and so. The official, or as I see them, the “victim” of this rude and inappropriate public treatment would only say that Mr. Trump makes up his own mind about these matters and they, the subordinate, should carry out his orders. It was not their place to tell their boss what he should think.
These answers incited near rage in the interrogator……. uh, I mean interviewer. Finally, the time for the interview over, the interviewer brought on their next “guest” and promptly asked them to agree that the previous guest was wrong. Ugh. I shut the TV off, but it was too late. I was left with the terrible truth that the news industry is currently destroying itself. What will America do when it truly needs them? They will not be worthy of our trust.
It reminded me of what my mother used to say when I didn’t care to eat all the food on my plate. She’d seen pictures of children in other countries without enough to eat and it bothered her that even though we had plenty enough, I wouldn’t eat it. This situation with the press reminded me of this because I had earlier that day read a story on the news wire about a newspaper in the border city of Juarez, Mexico, which shut down because so many journalists in Mexico were being killed for reporting about criminal mobs operating in their country.
Here we are, our reporters are not being killed for reporting the facts, with nothing better to do than to bully anyone who won’t admit to whatever crime they didn’t commit, but which the reporter imagines they may be guilty of.
We are going the wrong way down this path, friends. But with so many good reporters choosing not to work with these bullies, they are running rampant in the industry now. All that is left is for the good people in the audience to show them we reject their toxic brand of news “reporting” and pay more attention to the responsible practitioners of the art.
It’s not much, but it’s all we’ve got.
That’s what I think. What do you think? Comments to: dave@onworldwide.com or postal mail to Dave Richards, WOON Radio, 985 Park Ave., Woonsocket, RI 02895-6332. Thanks for reading!