Bill Barth

Things that really annoy me:
One, those confounded artificial intelligence robots pretending they exist to give me customer service.
Rotten liars, all of them.

What has become of our moral compass? Why are so many people enraged, ready to wage a war of words – hopefully, just words – at any opportunity? How has hateful rhetoric become the norm for political discourse?

With the approach of Father’s Day, and having reached a certain age, the occasion brings reflection. It’s remembering what Dad and Papaw entrusted to me.

If the kind of journalism practiced at 60 Minutes – and plenty of lesser-known outlets in cities and towns across America – dies or becomes hopelessly flaccid, America will be weaker.

What are the options when a government no longer reflects and represents the people?

Country folks know what empty political promises sound like, and they can still do arithmetic.

I’ve spent more than four decades covering news around Beloit and south-central Wisconsin, so I can say unequivocally that Wisconsin Policy Forum’s meaty “datatool” provides the kind of deep insights that withstand all the thin barstool rhetoric that usually befouls modern conversations.

Good journalism steps on toes. Indiscriminately. To the left. To the right. The best journalists do not want or need your love. They do want you to have facts, including the facts you might prefer not to see or read.

Digest the latest flailings of the notorious group known only as Forecasters Anonymous. Most of their names would be familiar to folks in south-central Wisconsin but are withheld here to spare embarrassment and save their reputations.

Author Scott Galloway says if, as a country, we want better young men, then we need better older men. And we need them to step up as mentors.