It's time to say it. Journalism is the most important yet increasingly dangerous occupation.
By now, many of you have heard about the tragic shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland. FIrst, may G-d protect and comfort the mourners. Second, why are journalists targets?
It's no secret that in many foreign countries today the media is the first thing governments and power-hungry individuals seek to control, suppress or eliminate upon their usurping of power. Many countries, like Somalia, Rwanda, Turkey and China, force all journalists to publish only state-approved propaganda. What's worse, they'll jail or kill journalists who stand by their convictions and insist on a free press.
I look at the person who gunned down the five Capital Gazette journalists, two of whom I recognized immediately, as less than this. I see him as nothing more than a spoiled coward. He didn't have the decency to let the court ruling in his failed defamation lawsuit stand. He couldn't put on his big boy pants and deal with his own personal demons. Instead, he took out his anger on people who were hired to do one thing: Write stories about people in their community. Which they did, ethically, efficaciously and timely.
It's been around 225 years since journalists have been targets on these shores to the increasing frequency in the first few decades of this century.
During that turbulent colonial period, dozens of brave souls, including the famous Thomas Payne, journalism was a truly dangerous profession. Those courageous men and women put their lives on the line to expose the abuses of the British monarchy and neighboring business owners who exploited fellow colonists. Like any other authoritarian regime, the British Crown then would go to extreme lengths, including hanging journalists for treason for publishing the truth as they saw it.
In this young century, journalists have to fend off not just a narcissistic president who compares them to a great evil. They also battle one another over the most trivial of political trivialities on a daily basis. Print journalists, in particular, have to carry over their heads the specter of a business a great number of experts say is gasping for monetary air.
This horrific attack on respected and honored defenders of print journalism, in addition, resurrects the age-old question of how free should the press be? Where is the dividing line between keeping journalists safe from harm and leaving our society open to scrutiny and debate? What topics, if any, are to be mandated as "off limits" to journalism?
As I reflect back on the articles written by the Captial Gazette team and many other journalists throughout this country, some of whom I have profound disagreements with for their political rhetoric, my answers are simple. Completely free. Eliminate the dividing line. And, none.
That may sound simple but it's not.
Despite the obvious downside of having a press free to investigate and report on literally anything, it is a necessity. The good outweighs the harm. The knowledge and support their information provides their community, our nation, and the world grants us the freedom to check and balance our government in ways not conceived two-and-a-quarter centuries ago.
On the other hand, as journalists, we must be ever conscious that our world has changed. That, like our foreign counterparts, we have domestic enemies who seek to stop us by every mean at their disposal. Including, may G-d save us, murder.
Carrying these ideas forward, we must also recognize that we must leave no stone unturned. Investigate the new Watergate. Espouse our insane political opinion. Use every fact to our selfish advantage. Or, just as bad, ignore every fact to our selfish advantage.
All of the above force our fellow journalists to keep us honest, ethical and efficacious. But above all, it brings honor to those who are unwittingly thrown into that literal line of fire. It forces us, the survivors and the living, to create a legacy built from their memory. In this way, we can move forward, resolute that we have done our real job: Preserving our history as we live it.
This article is dedicated in memory to the courageous Capital Gazette team who fell in the line of their duty of telling the story. May their work be a source of endless information and inspiration.
In memory of:
Robert Hiaasen
Wendi Winters
John McNamara
Rebecca Smith
Gerald Fischman
