Not really a joiner

Is this what unity in the name of a free press looks like?

Thursday morning brought a few notes of criticism to our inbox. That’s not all that unusual. We offer criticism on our editorial page, so it’s only fair we would get some of it back for whatever it was we did that concerned or offended.

What was intriguing about Thursday’s reaction, though, was this: It was all about what this newspaper didn’t do. We didn’t join the

Boston Globe-led effort to coordinate a response among editorial pages (reportedly 350 of them!) across the country in defense of the First Amendment and critical of the president’s attacks on a free press. Gasp! That must mean the Democrat-Gazette doesn’t believe in a free press, they say.

We’re so disappointed our newspaper does not sufficiently stand firm in advocacy for the First Amendment, they offer. Really?

We give thanks for our critics, for they help us to see the wisdom of our decision.

The critics were right. This newspaper did not become part of what was designed to be a united front of newspapers devoting a day to bashing the president. And that was no accident.

Oh, rest assured the president has earned far more than one day’s worth of ink with his advancement of the wrongheaded idea that the press is the “enemy of the people.”

Yes, Donald Trump’s comments and behaviors regarding a free press are incongruous with a deep love of American freedoms.

Yes, his constant effort to diminish the value of a free press — and more critically, his fellow Americans’ willingness to believe his unAmerican stance on the matter — is damaging to a core value of our nation’s great history.

Yes, the president’s strategy to fan flames of distrust and anger toward the media, whatever that term means, is a self-serving play to undermine Americans’ faith in reporting and make them question anything negative they might read about The Donald.

And, finally, yes, participation or a lack of it in Thursday’s mass demonstration by newspaper editorial writers is not an accurate measure of any newspaper’s regard for our sacred First Amendment.

Our critics used our lack of participation effort as some sort of litmus test to determine who the true believers are. It goes like this: Create a call for action. Establish the collective cause. Then attack those who don’t join the contrived program as traitors to the cause.

Litmus-test thinking actually stands in the way of unity, for a nation that reveres the individual can hardly govern itself if everyone determines ally or enemy based on a single act. It leads to ludicrous, contrived expectations, such as, “Give to the United Way and it shows your compassion. If you don’t, it’s clear you want children to starve.”

Call us contrarians — the shoe often fits — but here’s a suggestion: Maybe one’s decision not to join a mob is rooted in something other than a lack of passion for the nation’s Bill of Rights. Maybe there are some other important values at play.

Maybe, just maybe, groupthink isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The free press is not, and never has been, a monolithic entity. That’s why we cringe every time someone says “the media” and paints all journalists with a broad brush. And a primary reason we decided against joining in Thursday’s coordinated confrontation with the president stems from this idea that the First Amendment protects a free and independent press. Emphasis on “independent.” Indeed, the very strength of a free press is found in the independence of its varied voices.

Donald Trump struggles to understand the value of anything he, as president, cannot control for his own purposes. He’s so focused on “making America (Trump Version) great again” that he cannot grasp that the greatness of this nation’s foundational principals never waned. A population free to think and speak for themselves is the foundation of the nation’s greatness. A free and independent press, unrestrained by government, is crucial to maintaining the freedoms that population enjoys.

Today, we do not diminish any effort that embraces and sustains freedom and defends against attacks on it. But it sure plays into the hands of those who condemn “the media” as though its opinions and coverage are part of some vast whatever-wing conspiracy. Trust us: We’re lucky to get one newspaper for Northwest Arkansas out every day; conspiring with hundreds of other news outlets across the country is beyond our capacity.

So let the joiners join. But it’s wrong to assume those who didn’t are unsupportive of the cause or that they’re not part of the daily fight to preserve those freedoms. Such an attitude creates enemies of the free press where they don’t exist and diminishes the valiant and continuous fight to preserve freedoms. A free press fights back by being a free press and taking the responsibility seriously.

The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette believes wholeheartedly in the freedom of the press and all those other rights detailed in the Constitution. Just because someone built a new members-only clubhouse for free press advocacy doesn’t mean everyone who refuses to join hates the cause.

Sign us, “independently yours.”