Slammed? Journalists deserve better

It’s a tough time to be a journalist.

We’re under fire for allegedly being the bearers of what has been labeled fake news and pushing liberal agendas while disregarding conservative views.

Regardless as to how anyone may feel about that, since I sit in a newsroom and know what is going on, I am more concerned about the depths of disrespect being lobbied at our profession.

As a journalist, I am really having a hard time with the fact that another journalist was body slammed and punched in the face so hard, his glasses broke.

By now, what happened is no secret.

This was done by a politician — and it is nothing short of disturbing that this has been stamped with approval by many people, and sadly, many politicians.

For our leaders in Congress to treat this so tepidly, is not only unbelievable to me, but shows how far we have sunk as a civilized society when brutality like this is accepted from the people who are — or want to be — our leaders.

And they wonder what is wrong with the country.

If you’re a journalist, that body slam of our fellow tradesman is a tough one to swallow because there is absolutely no doubt, it was a journalist that gave Greg Gianforte, the then-Republican House candidate in Montana who allegedly committed the act, the opportunity to get his message to the people and get him elected.

This is as it is with every single member of Congress.

Every single man and woman walking the halls of Congress or into state Capitols, the mayor’s or governor’s office made a call to a journalist to announce his or her candidacy.

Every single one of them calls a journalist when they need a story told — good or bad.

On a daily basis, every single one of them flood newsrooms with faxes and press releases asking for our help to get the word out about whatever their agenda is.

So just when did journalists suddenly become such monsters? We know when. It’s when the questions get tough and their answers make no sense or they have no answers and we don’t stop asking. It’s when they realize we’re not their constituents but the people delivering their job performance to their constituents.

And one thing as journalists we have learned and is timetested and found true: when they start getting mad, we are getting closer to the truth.

These days they like to cry fake news — turning their “they’re after me” into a cause celebre. And there are many Americans who believe it. Maybe they have amnesia. Maybe people have forgotten the many, many, many cries of “it’s not true” before a journalist exposed the truth that in many cases has led to massive changes that improved the lives of Americans and people worldwide.

That’s because journalist have a long history of overcoming the cries of what is now labeled fake news to get at the truth.

Some of our accomplishments are so buried into the mainstream, people just take them for granted now.

That meat in your refrigerator? You might want to thank the journalist who exposed conditions so unsanitary in Chicago’s meatpacking plants that it led to federal food safety acts. That was 1906.

Fake news cries from Washington? Remember the lies of Vietnam? My Lai massacre? Pentagon Papers? Monica Lewinsky?

And I haven’t mentioned Watergate. Remember “Let me make this perfectly clear?”

Let’s come up to the 2000s. Hundreds of young boys were being molested by priests in a massive cover up by the Catholic church. Remember those cries of fake?

You read it every day in your daily newspaper — no matter the size. We tell the story, they cry, deny and decry it’s fake, fake, fake, until their untruths hit the wall.

You can holler fake news all you want, but history cannot be denied. And neither can the role journalists have played in it.

I don’t say the media doesn’t have its problems. We’re not perfect. Like any profession, we do have those who “fake it” and those who use unethical means to further their careers.

Jayson Blair from the New York Times and Jack Kelly from USA Today come to mind as the fakers.

And we have those that sell out — like Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus who President George W. Bush paid huge sums to write favorably on issues.

But those are the stars, so to speak, not the everyday journalists in newsrooms across the United States who are busting their butts covering city hall, police, government, boards of education and other matters important to the communities they cover.

That is what’s going on as I look around the Register newsroom — journalists getting the information they need (including from politicians from both camps and even the wannabes) to get the information to the public. I don’t see any fake news.

Legitimate media does not create fake news, nor do we chase it and very seldom are we lured into it. Believe me, folks, we don’t have to.

Journalists are getting a bad rap these days — and based on our overall performance, we don’t deserve it.

And we certainly don’t deserve to be body slammed to the ground and have our glasses broken because we are asking questions. That’s our job. And if you can’t stand the heat, then get the hell out of the kitchen.