Lifetime of reading leads to appreciation of role of journalism
I have been a newspaper reader since I was 10. My father was blind and his intense interest in current events led to my service as his reader. You might say I was drafted to duty.
My father listened to public radio every day and relied on Walter Cronkite to report the news on CBS-TV each evening. It was his hunger to know the thoughts of his favorite newspaper columnists that required me to struggle through their complex writings.
As a refugee immigrant who fled Czarist Russia as a teenager, my father took his U.S. citizenship seriously. Of course, he voted in every election and implored others to follow his lead in all things relating to social justice advocacy.
He knew that while one voice can be powerful, multiplying into a chorus is all the more influential.
The murders of five journalists in Annapolis should bring our national consciousness to focus on the meaning of one of our fundamental rights: freedom of the press.
Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith, and Wendi Winters each died as innocent practitioners of one of the most important trades in a free nation.
The murderer who shortened the lives of these five Capital Gazette professionals impacted not only their loved ones, colleagues and community admirers, but in a larger sense wreaked havoc upon all responsible journalism.
Over my 40-year career as an advocate, I’ve had the opportunity to work with hundreds of news and investigative reporters and editorial opinion writers.
As individuals, I have found these men and women to be among the most intelligent, interesting and insightful people I know.
If we learn any lesson from the Annapolis massacre and any other attack on the right of journalists to exercise their freedom of inquiry and obligation to report, let us remember that all evil is served by hiding in the shadows.
Shining the light of truth on problems is always a first step in achieving fairness, justice, and the greater social good.
JACK LEVINE,