Free Speech editorial published in Pennsylvania Republican Herald

The Republican-Herald joins 200 other newspapers across the country, in an initiative launched by The Boston Globe, in rejecting that notion of enmity and reasserting the value of the free press — not in terms of individual journalists or certain news organizations, but as a crucial democratic institution.

EDITORIAL / PUBLISHED: AUGUST 16, 2018

An old adage holds that if you pitch, you also have to catch, and it applies especially to journalism. 

That is, journalists who report news events and columnists and editorialists who offer opinions on them, cannot consider themselves to be above criticism in response to their work.

That’s why newspapers offer readers space to respond to news stories, columns and editorials and include comment sections online, and why editors spend a fair amount of time dealing with complaints about coverage, sometimes publishing corrections.

All of that back-and-forth always has occurred within a commonly accepted context — that a free and independent press is fundamental to a successful representative democracy. That is embedded in the nation’s DNA through the First Amendment’s admonition that “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

Also as old as the republic, is tension between people in power and the press that covers them.

Thomas Jefferson, speaking to the importance of literacy and informed opinion in what was then the novelty of a self-governing nation, often is quoted as declaring: 

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”

But Jefferson, while in office as president, also lamented, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.”

So, if Jefferson was concerned about what he considered to be “fake news,” why should anyone be worried about President Donald Trump’s frequent citations of supposed “fake news,” including recently in Wilkes-Barre Township?

Trump, indeed, is not unique in lamenting his press coverage. All of his predecessors, beginning with George Washington, did so during or after their presidencies. The profound difference is that, unlike Trump, none of his predecessors questioned the validity of the free press as a bedrock of representative democracy by holding that journalists are “enemies of the American people.”

Today, The Republican-Herald joins 200 other newspapers across the country, in an initiative launched by The Boston Globe, in rejecting that notion of enmity and reasserting the value of the free press — not in terms of individual journalists or certain news organizations, but as a crucial democratic institution.

Enemies of the American people? Not the 48 journalists who died in the field in 2017 and not the 262 who were jailed by dictators who, perhaps, understand better than anyone that journalism is an invaluable instrument of democracy. Not the five reporters who were murdered in their newsroom June 28 at The Maryland Gazette. And not the journalists at The Republican-Herald, who strive to learn what politicians do with your tax money, hold powerful interests to account, feature the exploits of civic heroes, celebrate the academic and athletic prowess of your children and otherwise chronicle the life and culture of Schuylkill and surrounding counties.

It would indeed be “fake news” if anyone in any form of news media proclaimed perfection. But by commitment, training, experience and an understanding of the role of journalism in our free society, journalists at The Republican-Herald and industrywide strive to get it right.

There is no fake news regarding the truth as stated by Marty Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post: “We’re not at war with the administration, we’re at work. We’re doing our jobs.”