At the time my late wife, Charlotte and I met in 1989 I was struggling to find a path in the world. Charlotte was kind and smart and beautiful and I thought she might help steady me and help me get headed in the right direction.

When you're first dating someone you learn a lot about them. You learn about their family, their friends, their job and the kind of music they like. Charlotte was six years younger then me and liked a lot of punk and new wave from the late 70 and early 80s. My musical tastes skewed older. There was a lot of overlap in what we both enjoyed, especially The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, and The Small Faces.

We both liked singer-songwriter Warren Zevon. I was really happy to find out she liked him. Warren Zevon’s biggest hit was 1978’s quirky “Werewolves of London”. Some people dislike his songs because of his sometimes dark and strange lyrics but Charlotte and I instantly bonded over our love for his music. We have 5 CDs of his studio recordings and two anthology box sets. Maybe not everything he recorded but a lot.

Throughout the 1990s Zevon appeared numerous times on David Letterman’s show, even sitting in as bandleader once when Paul Shaffer was away on a movie shoot. Every time Zevon was on, we were sure to tune in.

On November 8, 2025 Letterman inducted Zevon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

After working as a part-time board operator for a number of years, I was hired as a full-time producer of fundraising spots and to help produce the on-air fundraising campaigns for public radio station 90.7 WMFE-FM in Orlando. I would produce 30 or 60 second audio spots to air during or outside of fundraising time to convince listeners to become subscribing members of the station. I was actually one of the first full-time, dedicated, public radio fundraising producers in the nation.

Let’s take a walk down memory lane and listen to some of my best productions from that era.

Trust is a the coin of the realm to an ethical media organization. Every good newspaper, TV newsroom, radio news station and now podcast or internet news outlet has a code of ethics that is strictly enforced. Strictly enforced. The Society of Professional Journalists (or SPJ) has a code of ethics that is followed by many news organizations or it’s used as a template to form custom ethics codes to serve an outlet’s specific needs.

I just watched a 2003 movie called Shattered Glass about journalist Stephen Glass and his scandal at the magazine “The New Republic”. Forbes started questioning the facts of some of Glass’s articles. It turns out he had completely or partially fabricated 27 out of 41 published stories. Glass was fired and never worked in journalism again. In fact, he attended law school, passed the bar but was not granted a law license because of his fabricated stories. I point this out to demonstrate how seriously good news outlets take ethics and to make you think about politicians and other professions with no such codes.

There’s a difference between journalism and news outlets. I’ve come to see for-profit news outlets like the New York Times and most network TV news as mostly serving their shareholders and not you. The Washington Post and CBS, both owned by a billionaires, appear to be serving the oligarch class and not you. Facebook, owned by another billionaire, is a horrible place to find your news. Think of the motivations behind each news outlet. Be vigilant for fabricated news and click bait. Look out for AI generated news. Look out for people with an axe to grind. Be a smart, skeptical news consumer.

I don’t know how to restore the public’s trust in mass media. Many outlets don’t deserve to be trusted. NPR and ProPublica rank high on my personal list because they’re non-profit. When you remove the profit motive there’s greater trust.

Journalists get things wrong. Journalists aren’t perfect. Doctors and engineers and other professionals also make mistakes. But unlike many professions, good journalists are trying to be fair and thorough and accurate. I’m tired of hearing people who have zero knowledge about the profession of journalism making wild claims and accusations with no proof. Seriously, screw those people.

Be aware that good journalists are operating by an enforceable code of ethics and bad journalists do not. I urge you to go read the SPJ Code of Ethics and think about the news you see, read and listen to.