After 2 decades with the Ledger-Enquirer, I know real journalism still exists

It was exactly 20 years ago today that I began working for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. Today, I’m no longer a full-time journalist, just another idiot with a newspaper column. Yet, I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud to have been associated with a field of service to the American public.

It boggles my mind that folks who report on city council meetings, murders, school issues, military moves, high school basketball games, Wall Street dealings, health care developments, environmental disasters and technological advances have become an enemy to so many people because someone said it was “fake.”

That 3-pointer Bobby hit to send the Eagles to the state semis? Fake. Those layoffs that will hit your next-door neighbor? Fake! The kid trying an experimental cancer drug because it’s the only hope his family has? Totally fake … believe me.

Yet, whether it’s the veteran fellow sitting through his 112th straight too-long commission meeting or the reporter risking her life to open a window into what’s happening in Syria, these purveyor of “fake news” just keep at. Why?

Why do they do this when sheeple jeer them and wear T-shirts that read “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required.”?

Why do they work long hours for lower pay than most folks of their educational level and communications skills?

Why do they keep trying to inform people who’d rather go looking instead for propaganda that confirms their preconceived notions or what their leader has spoon-fed them?

Because they feel a sense of responsibility to bring facts and truth to those who desperately need it today, even if they don’t want it. They know that they play an important role in holding those in power accountable.

Newspapers and perhaps local TV news stations, as well, have suffered collateral damage in the “fake news” wars. While they go about real journalism, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News instead have devolved into a state of perpetual punditry. Their idea of journalism now is having someone from the right and someone from the left comment on the news of the day.

“So, was this a good move for Trump?” the moderator asks.

“It was brilliant,” says the right-winger.

“It was ignorant,” says the left-winger.

“That’s all the time we have. After the break, we’ll ask them to predictably disagree about the latest economic data.”

While there is much fake news to be found on the internet and social media (I found it helpful in 2016 to read much of it with a Russian accent), newspapers are not purveyors of fake news. The closest they get to it is in the horoscope, letters to the editor, Sound Off, Beetle Bailey and some guy who claims to hail from a place called Possum Holler, even though there’s no official record of this community in Georgia.

I’ve been in the trenches with these folks. I know who they are and how much passion they have for conveying important information and uncovering the truth with verifiable facts. Sorry, but if you go around screaming “fake news” or advocating the lynchings of journalists because you have blind obedience to propagandists and con-artists, then you are the problem.

So, to those going about the real journalism today at the Ledger-Enquirer and the other real news outlets across this already great nation, thank you for your service. There’s much I miss about being in those trenches, but by working in the nonprofit world to help folks have better lives, I’ve got some good stuff going on here, too.

Meanwhile, I’ve still got my little toe in the newspaper waters with this weekly column, which fact-checkers have shown to be between 1 and 99.9 percent true every single week. Those numbers are not yet final, though.

One fact-checker got lost somewhere near Possum Holler and hasn’t been heard from since.

This story was originally published February 27, 2017 at 4:17 PM with the headline "After 2 decades with the Ledger-Enquirer, I know real journalism still exists."