Today’s New York Times, included an insert, “Truth. It’s more important now than ever.” How true!

All the discussion about “fake news” and attacks on the news media infuriates me. In law school I edited CONSCIENCE, an award winning publication. I regularly wrote a column, “The Public Ought to Know,” from ‘03 to ‘05 and resurrected it as “The Public Ought To Know” for The Labor Press since January 2015. I regularly shared information with reporters to help them do their jobs and depended on the media to get the word out on issues that matter. Many I dealt with in and out of City government moved on to significant reporting roles on the national scene.  One gets parodied (rather well) on Saturday Night Live. These men and women care. They do their job responsibly and objectively and leave any bias to the editorial and op-ed pages.

In my final CONSCIENCE editorial, titled the same as this blog, I wrote, “Our Founding Fathers recognized the importance of a free an unencumbered press to a representative democracy or to any nation. The news media not only checks abuses by government and other social institutions, but historically has done so most effectively. Short of libel considerations, society must minimize, if not eliminate, restraints on the press.”

These words matter even more today when we need to make sure respect for truth and facts predominates.

Later in the editorial, I wrote, “Our free and responsible press guarantees the continued existence of our representative democracy.” These words ring true today.

Here’s a Buffalo Springfield song a pros pro for this discussion.