“And that’s the way it is”

From the 1960s until the early 1980s, Walter Cronkite was often cited as “the most trusted man in America.” For almost nineteen years he anchored the CBS Evening News and grew a reputation for straight reporting, incisive interviews and journalistic integrity. Along with Chet Huntly and David Brinkley on NBC and Peter Jennings on ABC as well as others, Cronkite presided over an era when people turned to broadcast television news for a fair, objective and honest presentation of daily events including politics. When Walter said “that’s the way it is” people accepted that as a fair and unbiased statement.

In those years, editorial opinions were largely absent on broadcast news services and confined to the editorial pages in newspapers. Yes, there were liberal newspapers and conservative newspapers, but those opinion options were primarily limited to the prescribed editorial page of the publications.

Not anymore. Many of our media outlets are defined by their political leanings—i.e. Fox news is conservative, CNN is liberal and the traditional networks are all biased–at least in the minds of those who are highly politicized and deep into political wrangling.

In spite of those opinions, we each have our favorite channels that we watch faithfully every night and depend on to let us know what is happening in the world. But, still, some people are a little edgy and try to find a source which represents their viewpoint and opinion.

What many people don’t realize is that NBC, CNN, FOX, ABC and CBS plus our newspapers and other online news sources all get the majority of their news from the wire services which present a wide plethora of news stories without a political bias. And, the wire services do it with little fanfare or a desire for recognition other than to be listed as a source.

The folks at your favorite news outlet draw primarily on the following historic news services for their information: the Associated Press and Reuters, along with lesser known AFP and EFE. Here is some basic information on these four news services

The Associated Press (https://apnews.com) was formed in May 1846 by five daily newspapers in New York City to share the cost of transmitting news of the Mexican–American War. It is a not-for-profit news agency and operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association that produces news reports that are distributed to its members, i.e. newspapers and broadcasters. Over the years, AP has earned 58 Pulitzer Prizes, including 35 for photography. It is also known for publishing the widely used AP Stylebook.

The news collected by the AP is published and republished by more than 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters in English, Spanish, and Arabic. The AP operates 248 news bureaus in 99 countries. It also operates the AP Radio Network (https://apnews.com/hub/news-radio), which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. As part of their cooperative agreement with the AP, most member news organizations grant automatic permission for the AP to distribute their local news reports.

Reuters (https://www.reuters.com) was founded in London in 1851, by Paul Julius Reuter, who immigrated to the United Kingdom from the German city of Aachen. Reuter opened the agency’s first office to transmit stock news to Paris using a new telegraph cable. Before that, he used carrier pigeons.

From 1858 the Reuter Agency became the main supplier of information to all the major London newspapers, including the Times. The credibility and timeliness of the information conveyed contributed to Reuter’s growing authority and popularity. Today the Reuters agency has over 14 thousand employees in 91 countries around the world, including about 2.5 thousand journalists, photojournalists, and videographers.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) (https://www.facebook.com/AFPnewsenglish) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C., and news bureaus in 151 countries in 201 locations.

Agencia EFE, S.A. (https://efe.com/en) is a Spanish international news agency, the major multimedia news agency in the Spanish language and the world’s fourth largest wire service. EFE distributes around three million news items per year, thanks to its 3,000 journalists from 60 nationalities, operating 24 hours per day from more than 180 cities in 120 countries.

So, the next time you watch the evening news or peruse your local newspaper, be aware that thousands of reporters around the world are supplying much of the content through the various wire services often without a mention or attribution. And, if you want news updates throughout the day and night, those links operate 24 hours a day and don’t require you to wait for the newspaper to be delivered or the evening news to take to the air.

PLEASE NOTE: All of the links listed in this article are to English-language sites.

A True Confession

By Kenneth D. MacHarg

I am an addict.

That’s right, an addict that is hooked on something that I go to great lengths to obtain, even when we are traveling anywhere in the world. I will connect with it almost the first thing when I get up in the morning and it is the last thing I check when I go to bed.

You see, I am a news junkie.

Yes, one of those who has an insatiable appetite for news—in any form: newspapers, news broadcasts on radio and TV, online news sites, especially the wire services (Associated Press, Reuters, AFP—the French press service, EFE—the Spanish press service, the BBC, Al Jazeera). You name it, I have it bookmarked it on my computer or have a link to it in my phone.

I check in early and then frequently catch up during the rest of the day. In the car if I’m not listening to a CD I have the radio tuned to a newscast. And, I read four, (count ‘em), four newspapers per day that are delivered to our home—plus a weekly news magazine.

I’m hooked. When we travel if I can’t find a decent newspaper to purchase I start to get fidgety and restless. Our recycling box is crammed full of newspapers every Monday when I struggle to carry it to the curb.

How did I get this way. Well, I attribute it to my parents and where I grew up.

You see, my father was born in England, so not only did we get the Detroit Free Press newspaper and listen to the news on the radio (and later on television), we also received the weekly international edition of the paper from his home town, Barrow-In-Furness. (We also received the Northeast Detroiter, a weekly publication covering just our area of the Motor City. The first article I ever published was a report about our eighth grade school trip to the Detroit city hall. It didn’t win a Pulitzer prize but it did get me on the long path of writing and broadcasting the news).

Not only that, listening to the noon or six p.m. 15-minute newscast on the radio commanded silence from us while my parents listened with great interest to what was happening in the world. And, as a way for my father to hear news from the BBC regularly, my parents purchased a Zenith Transoceanic shortwave radio which I eventually inherited.

Remember, this was in the era before all-news radio or TV network stations or even hourly newscasts. Listening to the news was “appointment” listening, you had to be there at six, seven or eight a.m., noon or six p.m. if you wanted to hear the lastest. (There were no “top of the hour” newscasts every hour in those days.).

The “breaking news” concept, which is vastly overdone on today’s network television programs, consisted of a sudden interruption to your radio or television program with an announcement, “We interrupt this regularly scheduled program to bring you this news bulletin.”

Later, when TV stations were able to utilize filmed (i.e. movie film, not tape nor live feeds) reports, we witnessed bulleting on live TV accompanied by the phrase “film at 11” to indicate that out-of-studio reports had been “filmed” and would be delivered to the station and developed before being shown on a later program.

 

When I went away to college in Maryville, Tennessee one of my first actions was to subscribe to the Knoxville News-Sentinel and have it delivered to my dorm room.

Still, today, here in Carrollton, Georgia, I receive the Times-Georgian from Carrollton plus the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the weekly Guardian from England.

Out of all of this, I felt drawn to journalistic/media work as well as to the ministry. (Eventually, I combined those two fields of service.)

In high school, I took a “radio speech” course,  chose a journalism class as one of my electives and ended up working for the school newspaper as the “headline editor”—a specialized and important position in a day and age when you had to be very precise about the length of a head if it was going to fit in.

I was very fortunate in the 1980s to be a part of a ministerial association in Jeffersonville, Indiana (Louisville market) which initiated a weekly call-in radio program on WXVW featuring local pastors responding to calls from listeners seeking advice or information. From that experience I was eventually offered a part-time on-air position as a DJ  and for a while I also hosted  the  weekly public affairs program, Byline 1450, a program similar to the daily Community Voice program here in Carrollton on WLBB.

From there, through some connections, I was offered the opportunity to do fill-in program hosting for a Sunday night talk show on WHAS, the 50,000 watt, clear channel station in Louisville.

(Those clear channel stations are the most powerful AM voices in North America—the majority of them can be heard in at least 40 states as well as in Canada and the Caribbean. Close to where we live, WSB in Atlanta is one of the heritage, 50,000 watt, clear channel stations.)  

When we went to Ecuador to work at the Christian international shortwave radio station, HCJB, The Voice of the Andes, one of my responsibilities was delivering daily news bulletins on the shortwave and FM outlets. Plus I did a lot of freelance work from there for the Mutual Radio Network, ABC Radio Network, USA Radio Network and Monitor Radio (the broadcast outreach of the Christian Science Monitor).

My most active newspaper work was with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, just north of Miami. I got into that by submitting an individual article related to our work with Latin America Mission but involving folks from a church in Fort Lauderdale.

Surprisingly, I received a call from one of their editors inquiring if I would be interested in doing some free-lance reporting and writing for them. Was I interested? Of course!

That began a several year relationship with the SS in which I wrote not only features for their three-times a week neighborhoods editions, but also reported for the business section and occasionally wrote articles used in the first section of the daily  paper.

In fact, my first story for them was a contribution to their lead article on the September 11, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers in New York City. What a dramatic way to start!

Since then, most of my news writing has been for my blog, Ken’s Introspect (kensintrospect.wordpress.com), although I have also had articles published in the Carrollton Times-Georgian, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Wall Street Journal and other outlets.

So, if you call in the middle of the day and I don’t answer the phone, don’t worry. I’m probably busy reading a newspaper or writing another article for publication somewhere.

It’s an addiction I can’t give up!

Kenneth D. MacHarg is retired and lives in Carrollton.

From a small town in Georgia to a massive global impact–One of the most famous and fascinating persons I have ever met

He was tall and lanky and had to sleep diagonally across the double bed in our guest room.

He had a deep southern accent that would make some northerners cringe in the face of their stereotypes.

He was known around the world but got down on the floor to play with our then-young children every time he visited us.

He moved with ease among the rich and famous, including a former president yet dedicated his life to serving the poor and homeless around the world.

His humble background in a small Georgia town still surprises people today when they realize the impact that he had on poverty and how what he started has changed life for millions and improved the world in so many ways.

He was Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, a project to build affordable, comfortable, quality houses for people across the USA and around the world.

Millard also was the founder and president of The Fuller Center for Housing a similar organization with the same goal. He was widely regarded as the leader of the modern-day movement for affordable housing and was honored for his work in the United States and abroad.

A successful businessman and lawyer, Fuller became a self-made millionaire by age 29. In 1968, after giving up their wealth to refocus their lives on Christian service, Millard and his wife, Linda, moved with their children to an interracial farming community in southwest Georgia. Koinonia Farm, founded by Clarence Jordan in 1942, became home to the family for five years until they moved to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) as missionaries in 1973 with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Upon returning to the United States, the Fullers began a Christian ministry at Koinonia Farm building simple, decent houses for low-income families in their community using volunteer labor and donations, and requiring repayment only of the cost of the materials used. No interest was charged, as it is with traditional mortgages, and no profit was made. These same principles guided the Fullers in expanding this ministry, called Partnership Housing, into a larger scale ministry known as Habitat for Humanity International. That vision was expanded in 2005 in the founding of a new non-profit housing organization, The Fuller Center for Housing.

In early 1984, Millard courted the man who would become Habitat’s most famous volunteer, President Jimmy Carter. A native of Plains, Georgia, just a few miles from Habitat’s headquarters in Americus, Georgia, Carter gave not only his reputation to the new non-profit, but his own resources as well. President Carter and his wife Rosalynn would make financial contributions regularly, but most significantly to the organization, they would develop the Jimmy Carter Work Project, an annual week-long effort of building Habitat homes all over the world. The Carters participated for the full week at these events which came to attract thousands of volunteers each year.The Carters’ involvement with Habitat propelled the organization to even faster growth.

Fuller continued his work in the housing movement with the establishment of the Fuller Center for Housing in April 2005. He expanded on the foundation of Habitat by encouraging communities to create “collaborative and innovative partnerships” to address the housing needs of the most needy in communities. He continued to travel extensively, speaking at Habitat affiliates and Fuller Center Covenant Partnerships to raise awareness, funds and volunteers in his effort to eradicate poverty housing from the face of the earth.

Millard was the recipient of numerous awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. In September 1996, President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and said, “Millard Fuller has done as much to make the dream of homeownership a reality in our country and throughout the world as any living person. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Millard Fuller has literally revolutionized the concept of philanthropy.”

In 1998, Millard received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 1999, he received the Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards. In October 2005, the Fullers were honored by former President George H. W. Bush and the Points of Light Foundation with a bronze medallion embedded in The Extra Mile national monument in Washington, DC.

Millard had a simple burial and is buried on the grounds of Koinonia Farm in Georgia.

It was truly a blessing to know and work with such a dedicated man.

(I was privileged and honored to be the founding president of the Louisville, Kentucky chapter of Habitat for Humanity)

https://www.habitat.org

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(Thanks to several online resources for biographical information included in this article).

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