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Weekly Beat Special Edition: Our Favorite News Sources

  • Writer: Judy Stahl
    Judy Stahl
  • Mar 11
  • 4 min read

A Letter From Voice For Values Founder, Judy Stahl

 

In my last year of high school, I took a journalism class. My teacher, Rosie Randolph, was voted teacher of the year her first year teaching at Macomb High School in Illinois. When I met her ten years later in 1976, she was at the top of her game; a tough, smart lady who believed that Mike Royko walked on water.


You never know what you're gonna remember in life, but I never forgot the respect that she instilled in me for the profession of journalism. In the written words of her students, she expected impeccably fact-checked truth that captured and engaged the reader with sparse, elegant language that provided the most important information in the least amount of words; always with an underlying nod to basic human decency. The verbosity of my writing today is certainly not a reflection of what Rosie taught me but, at the very least, it is the truth as best I know it.


When Nixon resigned, everyone knew that our country had changed forever. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Washington Post journalists, were the overall heroes of that story. It is painful now to see how far the fourth estate has fallen in our country. The once vaulted New York Times and Washington Post now shill for the convicted felon sexual abuser in The White House. The strings of the Putin-loving trump are pulled by a South African apartheid-born racist who is currently gleefully destroying our federal government. The billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, has made it clear that the wannabe Emperor Trump shall not be offended on the pages of his paper. Journalism is no longer journalism in traditional big media. Everybody's in it to keep their job, and the money and power that go along with it.  With VERY few exceptions, cowards and grifters reign. Truth be damned.

With the emergence of the Internet, perhaps it was inevitable that journalism would become as corrupt as those it reported on. The loss of the Fairness Doctrine in the Reagan era was another dent in the guardrails of truth, ethics, and integrity in journalism. Walter Cronkite isn't going to come on the evening news and tell us in his incomparable voice that "That's the way it is." In all honesty, that interpretation of truth left much injustice in the dark that we now know to be true. So, the internet, and all that goes along with it, is indeed a double-edged sword. Truth is more elusive in the world of reporting and journalism. It becomes more and more important to seek out accurate information presented in a fair context. Yet, in an era of misinformation and disinformation that is a matter of life and death, as well as sanity, it is more important than ever that we actively search for truth and then stand for it.


In deference to the Oscar's ceremonies last weekend, here is Voice for Values’ list of the nominees for great independent reporting in 2025.

 

Main Story: Our Favorite News Sources

 

The Jim Acosta Show ~https://jimacosta.substack.com/

 

Jim Acosta is an American journalist, who spent the bulk of his career as the White House Correspondent during the Obama and first Trump Adminstrations for CNN. During the first Trump adminstration, Acosta gained a reputation for his criticism of Donald Trump. He departed CNN in January 2025, and launched his own substack, the Jim Acosta show.

Letters from an American ~ heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

 

Letters from an American is written by Heather Cox Richardson, an American history professor at Boston College, who specializes in the Civil War & Reconstruction eras. Her weekly "letters" place today's politics in the context of history and discuss how we got here.

 

Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin writes Fridays in Trumpland on weekly basis. A celebrated attorney and activist, Elizabeth McLaughlin is the CEO of the Gaia Leadership Project which helps organizations achieve equity and a positive work culture. Her substack provides expert analysis of the organization and leadership performance of the Trump adminstration.  

 

Written by Mark Jacob,  a veteran journalist and the former editor for the Chicago Tribune, Stop the Presses focuses on how right-wing extremism has exploited weaknesses in American journalism. He also provides avenues for action to return journalism back to its intended purpose: the truth. 

The View From Rural Missouri ~ https://jesspiper.substack.com/

 

In this weekly newsletter, Jess Piper speaks from the perspective of a "Dirt Road Democrat." The Executive Director for Blue Missouri, Jess Piper is an organizer by trade and brings forth her insight on how we can more effectively reach rural voters. 

 

 

ProPublica is a non-profit investigative journalism outfit focused on governement accountability. Their completely independent reporting has unveiled conflicts of interest unreported by Supreme Court members, methods the uber wealthy use to skip on taxes, and other forms of corruption across government and corporate America. 

 

Center for Budget & Policy Priorities ~ https://www.cbpp.org/

 

The Center for Budget & Policy Priorities (CBPP) is our go to resource on everything related to the federal budget. They are a nonpartisan research firm who works to develop evidence based budgetary policy for the benefit of everyone. Their completely independent research is conducted by experienced economists and policy analysts. 

 

Center for American Progress ~ https://www.americanprogress.org/

 

The Center for American Progress is a progressive, nonpartisan policy research firm, focused on developing a body of empirical research showing the positive impacts of progressive policymakings. They also conduct independent analysis of policies passing through Congress. 

 
 
 

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