Newspaper Journalism
Killing Our Right To Know
The Problem ???
Decline of American Newspaper Journalism
What’s wrong with American “newspaper” journalism today… as we march through the Twenty First Century ??? Some would say “nothing” and they would be wrong. Some would say it’s becoming an indecipherable art form and I (a man who has lived many decades in both the 20th and 21st Century America and read many a newspaper) would tend to agree. But, that does not mean the ship cannot be righted. Hopefully, this critique will be a step in that direction.
The problem… in a sentence ??? It’s hard to tell whether America’s 21st Century, newspaper Journalism is being written by humans or by Artificial Intelligence. And, IF written by humans, it seems that many American, newspaper journalists of today are competing against AI to see who can sound more indecipherable or obtuse and less like the tried and true, “Once upon a time,” story-telling, “format of humanity” (that we all grew up on). Hey, maybe that is precisely what’s wrong with American, newspaper journalism of today (2025). Maybe “We the People” who seek out our “Right to Know” are just being fed a steady diet of AI journalism or journalists trying to write and sound like AI ???
I see today’s American, newspaper journalism as too “constructed,” overly erudite, needlessly stilted and contrived… AI-like presentations that have lost the art of telling a human story that reflects our common humanity. Even a casual reading of many American newspapers today, reveals the substantial drop-off in the ability of the American Press to connect the human dots and elucidate the complex subjects that American newspaper readers want to “know” about… in the world and in their local communities.
As a long-time consumer of news and newspapers, I find myself (in today’s 21st. Century world) unnecessarily challenged by a journalistic style that cannot (or will not) tell the stories with proper flow, proper sequencing, clarity (and, with a little of life’s abundant drama splashed in, here and there). And, I am not alone.
From the very first sentence of the many, newspaper articles I read, I must work my way through a “lede” sentence (aka an intro) that is more obstacle course than informative… ledes that are too sophisticated, too clever, too cute, too dizzying, too overwhelming and too wordy… “all-embracing” ledes, that “shoehorn in” so many concepts, so many thoughts, so many words that (right from the get-go) we readers are bogged down in needless confusion before we can even get past the first long winded sentence and into the actual article. The lede should be an artistic “tease” or a “set the table” outline of what’s to come… not an insurmountable obstacle course of confusion and dizzying awkwardness. The lede should not be an exercise in reading James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Example… Obstacle Course Lede
The “simplest” of examples. A lede in a recent Detroit Free Press article (12/28/2025) opened with…
- “Denneen Smith, Friendship Centers of Emmet County executive director, went to Lansing for her first time after a client with dementia at the local Council on Aging went missing two years ago.”
What ??? Are you kidding me ??? Way too disorganized, too chopped up, out of rhythm, in-artfully sequenced and lacking in direct, straight forward, Once Upon a Time communication… forcing the reader to stumble, right out of the gate, and then try to play “catch-up” (like a 4th Quarter, NFL two-minute drill).
Simply put, much better communication (without losing any information)… if the Free Press writer’s lede simply said,
- “Two years ago (2023), Denneen Smith, the Executive Director of Friendship Centers of Emmet County, was prompted to seek a new law to protect dementia patients from wandering off from care facilities.”
But, I am a competitive guy. So, I just press on, blinking my eyes after reading the lede, and then (ever the optimist) I head into the article-in-chief hoping to find an actual presentation that has some kind of decipherable development that ends with an (“ah ha”) conclusion. But most times the “sequencing clarity” that us readers need is just not there. Or, as they say (nowadays), “There is no there, there.”
As I say, most times, I refuse to give up and just repeat my reader mantra, “Okay you journalist-authors, you ain’t going to get the best of me.” But, alas, as I enter into the thick forest of the article, the light grows dimmer and dimmer and I get even more bogged down and lost on the journey. As I say, most times, after stumbling over the lede, I plunge into the body of the article, spending way too much time and energy riding through the journalistic landscape of disconnected, out-of-sequence presentations and chopped-up “quotes” from “those in the know” — journalists and their experts just “talking shop” to each other in their own esoteric vernacular while not breaking down anything and not enlightening anybody. In many stories reported in the news, I have even had the prior experience of researching and writing about the very same subject and, despite that head start, I hardly recognize what the journalist is saying, and there is, too many times, limited (if any) enlightenment to be gotten.
Please journalists… understand and implemented…
- The general concept of… chronology and logical “sequencing.”
- The “logical sequency” found in in the phrase “don’t get the cart before the horse,” and
- The “logical sequency” of sentence-structure diagraming that the Nuns taught many of us in our, parochial grade schools… Introductory phrases, Subjects with (or without) adjective modifiers, with (or without) prepositional phrases, verbs, adverb modifiers, direct objects, with (or without) adjective modifiers, with (or without) prepositional phrases, compound sentences, etc.
Thank heaven for sentence-structure diagramming and for my Mathematics Degree. It helped much more than I would have ever thought… to understand logic and the structuring of language with sequencing and chronologies… those very same strengths I drew upon for decades as a Trial Lawyer in my quest to get Jurors to understand even the most mentally-challenging of complex subjects… psychiatry, neuroscience, medicine, law, engineering, accounting, economics, meteorology, construction, future lost wages, monetary evaluations of “ongoing concerns,” Jury Instructions and a host of other esoteric and complex subjects. The Jury either understands what I have scripted for them or not. And, if not, my client and my case are destined for the trash bin of history with “no chance” of winning the Courtroom battle. As all Trial Lawyers know… a trial is a battle of words, phrases and articulated concepts, and, in that verbal battle, the inarticulate come to the Courtroom “unarmed” and destined to lose.
Reading a newspaper should be informative entertainment and an educational delight, not a time-consuming chore, And, in the newspaper battles of today… where are the “Editors” ??? Where are the Max Perkins (Editor for Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolf) ??? Why don’t the Editors edit and stop the journalists from churning out second-rate communications that should be left on the editing room floor ??? “Editors” (if they still exist) don’t seem to be taking a good look at or insisting on a final product that flows with good communication rather than confuses. I “suspect” most editors have been dispensed with and laid off due to budget constraints and, when newspapers and journalism stumble and falter, so does the Democracy… as We the People’s “right to know” is slowly eroded and, eventually, sidelined for good (and that’s bad).
THE GOOD… . See Good Journalism
Detroit Free Press Husband & Wife Combo
- Tresa Baldas’ 12/19/2025 article in the Detroit Free Press entitled
How ‘victim-shaming’ backfired in police brutality case
- M.L. Elrick’s 12/21/2025 article in the Detroit Free Press entitled Detroit’s next mayor is stubborn and strong-willed.Wow. What a week for the Baldas-Elrick household. See Good Journalism
THE BAD… See Bad Journalism 2025
Washington Post, Detroit News Article of 12/23/2025
See Bad Journalism 2025 re Unaired Story on Trump Policy Stirs ’60 minutes’ Spat
THE UGLY…
Stay Tuned for the Eventual Comeuppance of Democracies that die when Newspapers fail to inform.
Fred Lauck
Copyrighted 2026