Walking, studying coverage and getting ‘even’

Antelope Valley Partners for Health Warford Walk for Wellness set for Saturday in Lancaster

It’s that time of year — lace up your walking shoes and join us Saturday for the 10th annual Warford Walk for Wellness.

The event — sponsored by the nonprofit Antelope Valley Partners for Health — is designed to promote fitness in our fair valley.

Unlike most events, there is no entrance fee, no fundraising. Just sign up and walk.

This year’s event will be at Antelope Valley Partners for Health headquarters, 44226 10th St. West in Lancaster (in the center where the Whole Wheatery is).

Registration starts at 8 a.m., with pre-walk stretching at 8:45, the walk at 9, and Zumba after the walk for those who wish to wind down with

that popular exercise.

We do three laps of about one mile, so anyone who isn’t up for the full five-kilometer can do a shorter course.

Hope to see you there.

I like the cool weather of this week, by the way. We know what’s coming in June, July and August; enjoy the sixties while you can.

You may recall my having mentioned fairly often that the national media outlets have dropped all semblance of objectivity since President Donald Trump took office.

Not a fan of the president, I believe criticism of him is justified, but the major mainstream outlets are just completely over the top.

In fact, I read the same sentiment in The New York Times from a longtime French diplomat, who is critical of Trump but sees the press as out of control.

Now comes a new study that supports the idea that the media coverage in the US has become more subjective or opinionated. Unfortunately, the years covered by the study do not include the years of the Trump presidency. From the RAND Corp.: “U.S.-based journalism has gradually shifted away from objective news and offers more opinion-based content that appeals to emotion and relies heavily on argumentation and advocacy, according to a new RAND Corporation report.”

The study covers 1989 — the dawn of the Internet era — to 2017. Thus, the main assertion made by the report is that the immediacy of the Internet led established news outlets to turn away from reporting only facts (since anyone could get the basic facts instantly from any number of outlets) to more opinionated analysis of events.

That is no doubt true, but it seems almost certain that the dawning of the Trump era turned the trend from “gradual” to “rapid.”

A common device in political arguments is to evoke the name of a prominent person on the other side who agrees with you.

This is most often done by adding the word “even” before the person’s name to further emphasize that virtually everyone agrees with you — even this person on the other side.

An example you are hearing this week is: “Even Pat Robertson says the Alabama abortion bill goes too far.”

Robertson, the Christian televangelist, has a history of making controversial claims about God’s intentions.

I did not know until this week, or if I knew I’d forgotten, that Robertson has a law degree. From Yale, no less. He also served in the Marines.

Despite graduating near the top of his class at Yale Law, Robertson failed in his first and only attempt at the New York State Bar Exam.

He then underwent a religious conversion, decided against a career in law, and the rest is history.

William P. Warford’s column appears every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.