Election time will inevitably turn the temperature up on every issue under the sun, including lately complaints about the media displaying lack of veracity, lack of balance, and misinformation. Indeed, election time or not, those complaints are forever being fired at the newspapers here, and many persons continue to be distressed by not only the content but the very nature of the press here. However while the distress is understandable, significant relief is not in sight.
The first problem is that a newspaper has a very short window – approximately 7 hours – to produce a document (which, by the way, didn’t exist before that day), covering scores, or even hundreds of items, requiring text and photographs, checking of copy, checking of facts, confirming quotes, design and layout, and printing. It is frantic work, dealing with minutiae, often at speed, and having done it I can tell you that it is a wonder that what comes out is not much worse than it is. In effect, it is a