Journal-Advocate (Sterling): Journalists are well aware, from the time we first pick up a pen and paper, that someone, somewhere is probably going to take issue with the way we report. Whether we’ve earned multiple university degrees and work for the nation’s most influential news organizations or started at a small-town newspaper right out of high school, we all know that reporting accurately and objectively will eventually cause us to step on someone’s toes, no matter how thoroughly we’ve checked the facts.
Most of the criticism tends to come from those on whom we report, especially when the reporting — accurate and objective though it may be — presents them in an unflattering light. Our experience over time has been that the loudest complaints have usually come from those most deserving of the unflattering portrait.
And no one, in our memory, has complained louder or more vociferously about being presented in an unflattering light that our current president. Donald Trump is so frustrated over the constant drumbeat of “bad news” being reported about his presidency that he has labeled the entire journalism profession in America “the enemy of the people.” We’d point out that this particular president has been caught in lies, big and small, more than 3,250 times in the 19 months he’s been president. This is not our opinion, this is a verified fact presented by numerous news outlets, all of them recipients over the years of the highest accolades in journalism for their accuracy, courage and depth of reporting.
The president sees this reporting as an attack on him personally. In fact, the mission of our profession is not to damage or attack anyone, but to inform our readers so they can make decisions based on the best information possible. If a public official does wrong and gets caught at it, we believe we best serve the people of our community by reporting on it in as much detail as possible. That’s why this newspaper didn’t flinch when a former fire chief and a nearby county sheriff were arrested and prosecuted for crimes against the People of Colorado. It wasn’t fun reporting those stories; it was grueling, sometimes heartbreaking work, but we did it because that’s what people expect us to do.
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