The news is the news

In indicting Larry Ray for the extortion, sex trafficking and forced labor of his daughter’s classmates from Sarah Lawrence College, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said that the investigation and criminal charges stemmed from last year’s New York magazine cover story about the creepy, brainwashing dad.

We salute Berman and we salute New York magazine. Both were needed to bring this very bad guy down. And the magazine did it without subpoena power, just doggedly poring over court records and conducting dozens of interviews.

Berman’s predecessor Preet Bharara said that his 2010 busting of the largest fraud ever against New York City, the CityTime municipal payroll scandal — which produced a half-billion dollars in restitution and fines — started with Juan

Gonzalez’s stellar reporting in the Daily News. Bharara also said that prosecutors (federal and state) read the newspapers when looking for cases, something that’s gone on since the beginning of the republic.

Read the case Berman and his Southern District prosecutors brought against the city’s Housing Authority: It’s brimming with references to the Daily News reporting that exposed rank incompetence and wrongdoing.

Raking muck is just one of the many essential roles of the press. Way back in the beginning, the Federalist Papers were a series of 85 op-ed articles in New York City newspapers.

That guy who keeps shouting about “fake news” and “enemies of the people” could use a reeducation about how vital a vigorous, free, independent press is — if, that is, he were capable of listening and learning.