I can easily count up my college roommates. Eight.

Two at community college, six while attending E.W.U., where I majored in journalism.

Three I consider having attended school from K-16.

I’ve also been fortunate, blessed, honored that we all have kept in (relatively) close contact through the years.

The other day I was thinking of my first roommate’s parents, and called to see how they were getting along. We visited a half hour and got caught up on one another.

Conference called with two of the four-year school roomies today. One’s local, the other lives somewhere in the middle of the state. No preliminaries, just merged into conversation as if it hadn’t been months or years since we talked. Though exchanging thoughts and stories is the name of the game, we could easily watch a sunset with a cold beer in hand and not say a word.

One is a suburbanite in the more aromatic part of the state. I fear for him should some cataclysmic event shake up those excitable young people of western Washington. You remember how well they handled governing themselves last summer?

He was one of the two best pilots in our class. He taught me to ski smoothly and introduced me to scallops.

We talk a couple times a month. We pretty much steer clear of politics, mainly because aviation is our bag. I bought a car from him, complete with “I’d Rather Be Flying” license frame.

When George W. Bush was president, he made a comment or two, in conversation, about his negative feelings about the president. So I was surprised when he, with some reservations, was pleased with Donald Trump, especially because Trump had the “Deep State” all a-twitter. As a billionaire, Trump is beholden to no one, compared with past presidents who’ve made “deals with the devil” to achieve the Oval Office.

But he was concerned about a few of Trump’s behaviors, and made reference to a reporter for ABC News.

This underscored one of our major problems today. ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, to name the electronic sources, plus the New York Times and Washington Post, do not practice journalism any longer. Control of major media is in too few hands, and those hands pull the strings of their talking heads, who don’t practice sound journalism. Say this, or else.

I asked my roomie if he’s heard of the Dominion voting software? No. How about the vote counting being shut down around 11 p.m. (varies by state) on Election Night? No.

At least that explains why, although he admires Trump’s independence, he doesn’t understand what all the fuss over allegations–without proof–of voter fraud are about. (For four years, liberals could make any statement to the mainstream media and the reporter would hold the microphone and stare. Now, when the president’s people allege voting improprieties, reporters are suddenly, to a person, interjecting that phrase “without proof” whenever they report on Trump’s cases. Sheesh!)

I’m disappointed in the news industry, but not surprised. Years ago we studied the “post-literate society” and the perils of media ownership being in too-few hands.

Those prognosticators were correct.