By TERRY GOLDMAN
Los Alamos

As always, John Bartlit knows what today and how to say it. In his latest post, “Tales of Our Times: Stellar Broadway Drama Retells Timely History of TV News”, he reviews the story of how Edward R. Murrow and the high standards of accuracy of television news saved America in the McCarthy era from the Senator’s efforts to destroy the deepest American values embodied in our Constitution. Just as importantly, he contrasts our current online era with a reprise of Jim Lehrer’s rules of those values as they apply to disseminating information, aka ‘news’. The particular rule that I think stands out the strongest is: 

• No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously. 

which, unfortunately, is exactly what our current online system of regurgatory podcasts, aimed at entertainment rather than accuracy, seems designed to not just allow, but encourage. The violation of this rule is also a feature found in every autocratic, dictatorial, police state and is now again beginning to appear widely here in America. 

Thank you again, Mr. Bartlit.