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© Copyright 2002, Jim Loy
I don't read newspapers much. Many years ago, I subscribed to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. But they have a horoscope, and my paper girl threw the papers in the snow. And besides that, it was a bad newspaper, with many errors and omissions. One of the big headlines was "Local Man Says Government Should Sell Marijuana." It was an interesting idea, but the guy wasn't an expert, just a local drug user. The paper apparently agreed with him, but they were stupid to make it their big headline. But they kept winning awards, so they wouldn't listen to criticism. I switched to the Billings Gazette, because they covered Bozeman news just as well, and Bozeman sports even better. But it eventually became obvious that it was a bad newspaper, too (typos). The Great Falls Tribune was just as bad. So I quit.
I now buy a paper when there is something interesting on the cover, like Sep. 11. Well, the Bozeman Chronicle is still riddled with errors. They got me to buy a paper recently with this headline: "Flour Girls Sentenced." The flour girls are three high school girls who caused an anthrax scare, shutting down a post office, by putting flour in a mailbox. I was interested to see if they got off with a mere slap on the wrist, or if they were going to jail like they deserve. Well, they haven't been sentenced, they were being charged, which is not big news.
Today I bought a paper because the big headline said "Debating Darwin." I figured that there must have been a big debate on campus, and I wanted to hear about it. It turns out that one of the reporters wanted to push creationism, and they filled up the front page with it (along with a big article about a celebrity groundhog who saw his shadow). I guess when it is a slow news day, you can make up your own news. The Darwin "article" had a few questionable "facts" interspersed with quotes from respected evolutionist Jack Horner. The subtitle was "Scientists at odds: The dispute continues 143 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species." We found out from the paper that 55% of scientists support "secular evolution," whatever that is. I assume it means that 55% of scientists are atheists. They implied that 45% of scientists are against evolution. From what I gather, more than 99% of scientists in the biological sciences believe that evolution is fact. Scientists are not at adds about that. The "article" was mostly religious preaching, and had no right to be on the front page.
And so I see that the Chronicle has not changed. And I suspect that it will still be churning out garbage in the year 3000.