Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette, July 8, 2018, p. D3
“Watch out for the mayor. He has a gun and he’s telling everyone he’s going to shoot you. Watch your back,” warned the caller.
My friend, then a small-town Iowa newspaper reporter, thanked the anonymous source, told his editor, and was assigned a different beat.
The mayor died many years ago. My friend still is reporting.
Other reporters are not so lucky. Reporters Without Borders reports the number deliberately killed for their journalism content (as distinguished from their location, such as a battlefield) totaled 1035 during the past 15 years. (Last year there also were 326 journalists detained, and 54 held hostage.)
On June 28 the U.S. added five to that number after an armed and angry reader in Annapolis, Md., entered the Capital Gazette newsroom, shotgun blazing.
President Donald Trump did nothing for five days, though he’d ordered flags to fly half-mast following other shootings the day they occurred. He affirmatively rejected an appeal by the Annapolis mayor that he do so – until backlash required Trump to relent.
Pew reports many Americans would consider a substitute for democracy, such as government by strongman or military. But most would not. A democracy’s existence requires many institutions – independent judiciary, ease of voting, free public education and libraries. But central is a free, independent, and respected mass media. Assassinating reporters is one form of attack. Disparaging reporters and their “failing” papers as “unpatriotic” purveyors of “fake news” and “enemies of the people” is another. Both can diminish then destroy a democracy.
The newspaper industry nationally is operating with about half the subscribers and advertising revenue it once had. There are still multiple sources of global and national news. My iPhone has apps for a couple dozen.
But local news is another story. None of those hundreds of quality papers carry news of Cedar Rapids and the Corridor. It’s said, “all politics is local.” So is democracy.
The Gazette has dozens of features, sections, platforms, events, even magazines and books. But it’s the Gazette’s news and opinion about local politics, agencies of government, nonprofits and businesses, public policy issues, local challenges, opportunities and accomplishments that make our local democracy possible. There is no alternative source for all it provides. No way to have a democracy without it.
Happily, for reporters working in the U.S. assassinations are rare. Sadly, attacks on the media are not.
For those Americans fighting against forces destroying our democracy here’s a variant of President John F. Kennedy’s advice: “Ask not what your newspaper can do for you – ask what you can do for your newspaper.” You know what to do.
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Nicholas Johnson, a former FCC commissioner and media law professor, maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org and FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com
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