Editorial voices from across the country
Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States:
There’s a section in the nearly 600-page 2016 edition of the Associated Press Stylebook – a journalist’s bible to all things writing and reporting – that warns against mistaking the internet for an encyclopedia.
The excerpt reads:
“The internet is a sprawling information repository. Anything you find should be assessed and vetted with the same care that you use for everything else … Be especially careful about websites and social networks that allow anyone to contribute text, photos and other information.”
We encourage – better yet, challenge – you to employ the same pause in thinking in your daily life.
In the world of social media and online commenting, fiction and fact are often blended, generating a fast-moving flow of news that works like the age-old game of “telephone” on a much larger level.
In news stories, we do our best to deal in facts by verifying information with highly reliable sources. If it doesn’t come on the record from a trusted source, it isn’t reported.
In a time where nearly everyone has a social media voice, it’s up to you what kind of information you want to spread. And to those reading social media for updates, please heed the Associated Press’ advice.
India is the world’s second biggest country, with nearly 1.3 billion people. It has also boasted the fastest-growing economy on the planet over the last two years – thanks, in part, to recent reductions in energy costs. It seems to be poised economically to become the next China.
But even the world’s largest democratic nation (by population) still has plenty of room for improvement. The country has been hurt badly by political corruption, judicial activism, and unhelpful regulations. Businesses have had to pay off bureaucrats to operate. Individuals lack the strong rights they enjoy in Western democracies.
Some had hoped that all this would change under the watchful eye of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the pro-free market, fiscally conservative Bharatiya Janata Party, who were elected in May 2014 with a huge majority government.
But they’re still waiting.
The World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, released this October, ranked India 66th out of 113 countries. Six different factors, including “absence of corruption,” “open government” and “order and security,” are used as measuring sticks.
There were improvements in the areas of “open government” and “constraints on government powers.” But India did poorly in “order and security,” thanks to high levels of crime and political violence, and a failure to protect “fundamental rights.”
Since the rule of law, individual rights and robust market economies tend to alleviate poverty and lift the world, we hope Modi finds success in his quest to transform India.
How long until Islamic State gets lucky in Asia? ISIS and its followers haven’t hit the region with their worst terrorist horrors, but recent arrests in several countries show this isn’t for lack of trying. Much of Asia is increasingly fertile ground for terrorist recruitment, and ISIS setbacks in Syria and Iraq could bring hardened foreign fighters back to sow terror at home.
Days after the ISIS truck attack at a Christmas market in Berlin killed 12, authorities in Australia arrested seven men allegedly planning to plant bombs in central Melbourne over the holidays.
Indonesia also had a tense Christmas. Police raids to disrupt suspected holiday terror plots led to several shootouts in which five militants were killed and 20 arrested.
Defeating ISIS in Asia will require toppling its caliphate in the Middle East and deepening the cooperation exemplified by Indonesia’s counterterror squad, Detachment 88, which works closely with the U.S. and Australia. As important is limiting the oxygen that jihadists draw from Islamist politics and anti-Muslim repression. That’s a project for nearly every government in Asia to take up.