I have been taking photos of protests here in Chicago for a couple of years now. And I am addicted! One reason I love it is because the opportunity for creative, interesting photos is unlimited at these events. Another reason is that as someone who used to teach journalism, and assigned a book in my classes that was specifically about fake news (Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News by Bernard Goldberg) even over twenty years ago, long before Trump coined the term. I only bring that up because I have had people explain to me that there is no such thing as fake news, that Trump made it up because he didn’t like the coverage about him. I always try to explain that no, the news has always been “fake.” So I really love the opportunity to witness a newsworthy event in person and then compare it to the news coverage. I don’t think there has been a single time when I have felt that the coverage was objective and/or fair.

For those who think I’m exaggerating, I would ask you to think about a time you were involved in what became a news event. How did the media coverage compare to your experience? How accurate were the stories with basic facts? Knowing that the media struggle to report the stories that you actually know something about accurately, you have to ask yourself what evidence there is that would make you assume they get all of the other stories right. But I digress…