We are newspaperpeople. The Bradley Report staff includes me,  Michael Bradley, as the editor and publisher, together with  William F. Finucane, my longtime friend and professional associate, who serves The Bradley Report primarily as a columnist, but sometimes as a reporter and editorial writer, and Marcia Huyette, an extraordinarily talented cartoonist and graphic artist who is also an accomplished newspaper and magazine production manager. Ms. Huyette has, over the decades, worked with both Bill and myself in various newspaper operations. Our personal histories are available on another page.

All of us have been working newspaperpeople throughout our professional careers. And in our careers we have seen vast change in the newspaper industry. We are not that old – at least we don’t think we are ancient; but among us we have experience with hot lead and linotype machines in the composing shop and Royal and Underwood typewriters on the editorial desks.

We have witnessed the transformation from hot type, where lead was actually melted and turned into slugs that when cooled contained words, to cold type, where Compugraphic and similar ‘modern’ equipment systems moved the written word through a photographic process where it could be "pasted-up" on page dummies rather than "cast in stone" on a lead tablet.

And we also saw electric typewriters replace the old manual Royals and Underwood’s, which while certainly more clunky, could still be used when there was a power outage, and where old-line reporters could hammer out stories at 60 to 100 plus words per minute (wpm) in a cacophony that would do more than justice to the classic movie, The Front Page. But in those days it was still necessary for a compositor to retype what the reporter had written, being careful of course to follow the editor’s editing, which often involved scribbled comments and changes indicated by arrows (or carrots, as they were called), and the corrections were by no means definitive in terms of accurately spelled alterations to the original copy, but provided changes which usually made the copy more readable and, perhaps too often, more easily palatable and less challenging to the reader.

All of us working in the press then lived through, and of course accommodated the changeover to computerized printing, which eliminated the need for a series of compositors and has at this point largely eliminated the many ‘paste-up’ personnel by producing camera-ready pages directly. Now the process can move entire newspapers to the printing press through electronic disc, assuring that the current production staff is very computer literate, if nothing else.

There are few electric typewriters left, and those that remain are viewed by today’s journalists as relics that are only one small step ahead of the old manual style machine now found in museums. This is understandable since using a computer offers the capability of instant corrections without marking up the paper, and the computer is simultaneously a source of research and up to the minute information. And of course the changes continue.

In fact, if it weren’t for those changes, this type of publication wouldn’t be possible. And, in our view, the electronic window to the world that the Internet provides is a wonderful reversal of fortune for all journalists.

Today there is a common mantra in the print press, and with infinite variations it goes like this: "We’re losing circulation because people aren’t reading anymore…"

Of course why this is the case is no secret to experienced reporters and editors. Everyone in the industry knows that editorial is at the back of the publishing bus, with the exception of the dozen or so ‘national’ newspapers. And even there, much less is said than could be said. But in the rest of the press, both dailies and weeklies, the facts are simple: the editorial staff comes in dead last in the budgeting process.

The same publishers who have a staff of ten ad reps will think nothing of running an edit department with two or three people, and maybe a couple of part-timers, all being paid below professional standards. Then they will say, ‘We don’t know why we’re losing circulation.’ Maybe, possibly, it might be because they provide their local audience, their readers, with a newspaper that is a five-minute read. Bless the calendar items, school announcements and the obits, because otherwise there isn’t much to read - or make it worthwhile to pick up the local paper - even though people who live in a given area know that there is plenty of news and controversy. And of course the good reporters and editors know it too, but most often they can’t do anything about it unless it breaks into view in such a dramatic manner that it must be covered.

But now we have the Internet. This electronic window offers us the possibility to do just exactly what we have always wished to do in our professional hearts; that is, report what we observe and understand to our fellow citizens in the most direct manner possible.

Journalists are, after all, information craftsmen whose tools are the structures of language, which of course includes more than simply knowing the definition of words, although word files are among the basic equipment. To do the job correctly - by using training, experience, and natural communication skills – we can hope to provide the best of journalism to everyone around us.

Journalism is not objective, but interpretative; it is nothing more than the passing on of information developed and understood by one human to another, with only one defining codicil; journalists are charged with seeking the most comprehensive view of a given subject at a specific point in time, and recording that information with the least amount of personal prejudice while striving to understand and reveal its complexities..

But we are all human, and we have prejudices, known and unknown even to ourselves, so anyone listening to or reading the words of a journalist must gauge what is told to him or her the same exact way they would judge information provided by a trusted friend. In other words, all of the reader’s intelligence must also be brought to bear to judge what is said. If a good friend tells us something unusual or unexpected, or puts a different twist on an already accepted event, we bring to bear our critical thinking. We must also do this with any journalistic report.

Solid journalism will withstand the scrutiny, and in fact welcomes it! If there is something weak or unsupportable in what we have understood and conveyed, yet because of varying circumstances we have failed to perceive it, we should and must welcome the corrective insight, and we must act upon it.

If, however, we find that the initial information stands the test of critical review, we must also be willing to stand up and state that fact! And we must be willing to support the information despite attacks from those who would stand to benefit from the denigration of the facts. This is not easy.

Anyone in journalism who pontificates themselves or their enterprise as an oracle of truth is by definition fooling everyone, probably including themselves and their egos. But often, in our view too often, there are forces that would prefer certain subjects to either be sublimated or if discussed at all that they are done so in a controlled and maneuvered manner, usually to meet someone else’s unstated agenda.

Sometimes the criteria is the ‘public good,’ and sometimes it is a threat, emphatic or implied, that if something is printed it will result in ramifications to the writer and the publisher, and sometimes it is ‘security’ oriented. In all events it is the same; that is, a catchall designed to prevent the communication of information from one American to a group of other Americans. To the journalist, the final criteria is always the same; i.e., is the information able to be substantiated in a reasonable manner, is it fair and balanced as much as possible under the given circumstances and the exigencies of the story, and does the story impact enough people that it should be told.

These are the professional guidelines we will strive to uphold as we seek to tell stories as we find them, on virtually any and all subjects, whether local, regional or national. We will also comment upon issues, separately in our editorial and column formats, and we will encourage your comments on all of our work.

We hope you will enjoy The Bradley Report.