In an era of bloviating bloggers, professional journalism remains vital

It

is undeniable that new information technology, which is bestowing on us amazing communication tools like Twitter and Facebook, can promote democracy. But when cyberspace starts buzzing pejoratively abouthowa free and open society no longer needs a news media to tell it what the news is, democracy is endangered.

The bloggerswhodisparage Brian Williams or Diane Sawyerfor choosing what fits in a half hour of news orwhosay editors shouldn’t be the arbiters of what news is, can happily join the marketplace of ideas; but they can’t pretend to know the tenets of journalism as they blithely opine into a computer screen.

It is the job of journalists to decide what is news. It’s not the job of anyone else. Editors cannot let thosewhowould denigrate the fundamental role of a free press in a democracy get away with such demagoguery. Aprofessional press, printed, broadcast or cyberspaced, means a staff of dedicated news menandwomenwith ethics codes, standards, education and training.

There cannot be democracy without a free press because a James H. Smith is president of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information. This article is adapted from his induction speech Feb. 10 in Boston into the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame. He is the author of “A Passion for Journalism, A Newspaper Editorwrites to His Readers.” Smith was managing editor of The Day 1985-86. He retired last year after 42 years in journalism. democracy depends on an informed electorate, and on a watchdog fourth estate. Wein the press know besthowto inform the electorate andhowto keep watch over thosewhogovern. Reporters have been doing it since the beginning.

Whenthe Founding Fathers were wrestling with whether to adopt a Bill of Rights, Thomas Jefferson was our envoy in Paris. He reminded his younger ally James Madison in a letter July 31, 1788 that a guarantee for press freedom is necessary so that the “government will never restrain the presses from printing anything they please.”

And so they begat the First Amendment, which distinguishes between free speech — anyone can say anything; and free press— men, and even somewomenback then, empowered with a printing press. The diverse colonial press was a bastion of enlightened thought guiding us to independent statehood. Newspapering in America was never monolithic. Competing newspapers in the major cities vociferously reflected the diverging political camps of a young nation.

Long beforeweeven became the United States, Franklin’s alter ego, Silence Dogood, set the standard in 1722 in Boston’s Newengland Courant: “Iam. . . a mortal Enemy to arbitrary Government and unlimited Power. I amnaturally very jealous for the Rights and Liberties ofmycountry; and the least appearance of an Incroachment on those invaluable Priviledges, is apt to makemyblood boil exceedingly.”

It was 100 years ago that the American diplomat and statesmanelihu Rootwonthe Nobel Peace Prize. Alittle more than a decade later, with the advent of radio as newspapers’ first technological competition, Root told the Associated Press: “With the extraordinary growth of news service in recent years, the public has been acquiring the habit of being informed from day to day about what is going on in the world and this habit has greatly changed the basis of political action in this self-governing democracy. . .

“This means that the news gatherer and the disseminator has passed into a position of greater consequences and power and it means (they have) greater responsibility for sincerity in the pursuit of truth and accuracy and fidelity in its presentation.”

Whoknows better than journalists the wisdom in his statement?

The First Amendment gave the people the right to free expression, the right to worship freely, to petition the government and to assemble peacefully. And it gave the people a free press.

If journalists allow naysayers, for whatever reason, to erode our sacred trust, the very nature of our republic is imperiled.