The Fourth Estate is important in New Mexico

THE CERRO Grande fire was started by the U.S. Forest Service. The Calf Canyon fire was started by the Forest Service. The Hermits Peak fire was started by the Forest Service. A 2-yearold Rio Rancho child was killed after his brother found and discharged the service revolver of their police office father. Local journalists were repeatedly denied information via the Inspection of Public Records Act by the city of Rio Rancho and the police department, to disclose how this horrific loss of life of a toddler happened.

Investigative journalists have to file Freedom Of Information Act paperwork on Sandoval Regional Medical Center and UNM Hospital to expose how many perforated colons, severed spinal cords and other medical mistakes were done by their doctors, and the amounts of settlements paid out by the State Risk Management fund to cover these events — tens of millions every year you the taxpayer pay for.

What does all of this have in common? Government employees, whose salaries are paid by you, the taxpayer, through incompetence, nefarious or perfidious acts, abdication of duties and a lack of ethics engage in acts they then try to shroud in secrecy to protect their jobs. Qualified immunity in the state of New Mexico is gone, thankfully. Beyond the fact these employees should be held accountable, fired, prosecuted and perhaps incarcerated if convicted, it shows the value of the Fourth Estate in exposing what some of your employees get up to and then try to conceal.

Real journalism is not cable TV people; that’s infotainment. Real journalism is actual reporters, investigating and exposing government corruption, which is what separates a free democracy from authoritarian dictatorships. If your elected officials or government employees are trying to hide information, they are not supporting an open and free democracy, nor are they doing the jobs you elected them to do. BRUCE HUTCHINSON

Rio Rancho