But why is it news?

I read a lot of news.

And what I see more often than not is that news tends to fall one of two ways.

One way is the highly negative and cynical approach that news isn’t news unless it’s bad. And the other way is to just play it safe and avoid any negatives at all to insure that no person or institution will be offended. Those are the publications that insist upon just giving equal weight to all voices in the story, no matter the uneven weight of facts or evidence.

But the news that impresses me the most and serves as a model, is a news outfit that tells the news as it is and why it is.

It’s stunning to me that so many publications have a hard time with that.

Some publications err on the side of the highly negative, shocking or disgusting giving the reader no real idea about why it is, or how it got that way.

And other publications simply announce good news giving the reader no real idea about why it’s good, either.

There is nothing inherently wrong about reporting any kind of news, good or bad. But what is wrong is not putting in the work, the shoe leather, to find out why and report that, too.

The publications I have admired the most and use as a model give the context and explore why on either the bad news or the good news.

And so that’s one of my many goals for Free Press. When I fail to do that, let me know. And when I succeed, let me know that, too.

Thank you for reading and for paying attention to our work.

Author Profile

Founder, publisher, and editor of Oklahoma City Free Press. Brett continues to contribute reports and photography to this site as he runs the business.