Another media milestone
Journalists around the world are under attack just when they are needed the most
Most of the time, the media does yeoman service. We give readers and viewers useful information that helps them understand the world around them and guide their daily lives.
Often, many journalists go above and beyond, investigating corruption, shining a spotlight where none shone before, and bringing hidden issues before the public.
And sometimes, we simply highlight obvious wrongs and help effect change for the better.
There is no better example, among many, than developments this week along the southern United States border.
What role did the media play in United States’ president Donald Trump’s reversal on the separation of children from migrant families?
Journalists gave voice to the people. We were not the only ones appalled, saddened and enraged by Trump’s inhumane decision. That group includes religious leaders, social agencies, industry captains, regular voters, politicians across the land and members of Trump’s own party.
But the media was key. Without news organizations, without the articles, photographs, film clips, sound bites, and widely disseminated commentary, the outrage would have been muffled, the breadth of the injustice concealed, the need for action unrealized — and the ability of politicians simply to ignore the issue reinforced.
Never mind that Trump himself assailed the media as usual throughout, blaming the Democrats, saying there was nothing he could do because it was the law, and then finally capitulating.
The same news organizations the increasingly authoritarian U.S. president would apparently like to smother, the ones he has labelled “fake news” and the “enemy of the people,” and those he himself tries (with some success) to manipulate daily, were crucial.
If ever there was ever a time to celebrate a free press, certainly it is now. The media in America has done heroic work over the past half century, including (too often belatedly) during the McCarthy era; the civil rights movement; the Vietnam War; the Pentagon Papers; Watergate; abuse and corruption in the church, in business, and in government ...
And that’s only in America. Equally important work has been done by journalists across the globe.
Journalism has not been without its low points. Meanwhile, all of it should have come to public notice even without a free press (and even with one, it all should have come out sooner), but that’s not realistic, unfortunately.
Without a free press, history would undoubtedly have been different, and probably for the worse. Without a free press, border officials in Texas would still be placing terrified children in caged rooms far from their parents.
No journalist takes this lightly. Even when working on what appear to be small matters, we know each one can change the lives or our readers, and change the world.
The tragic irony is that just as it appears there has never been a greater need for journalism, it is under unprecedented attack from all sides, including the very people who need it the most.