All of us who are parents know we find ourselves saying things we never thought we'd say.
Things like, "Why does the cat smell like Johnson's Baby Shampoo?" Things like, No, you can't light votive candles in the attic." Things like, "Dying your hair green for St. Patrick's Day is fine if you use something that washes out. In one shampooing."
But I really never thought I would find myself saying, "Journalists deal in facts. Our currency is the truth."
I thought everyone understood Daniel Patrick Moynihan's famous admonition, "You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts."
Silly me.
We now live in a world where people think they are entitled to their own "facts," except those are not facts.
I never thought I would have to admonish alleged adults that just because someone says something doesn't mean it's true. That our job as journalists is to seek out primary sources and confirm the truth of what someone says. That the bloated bloviators of radio ranting are not telling the truth, are not doing any research, are not talking to experts.
And, I never thought I would see the day when the President of this great country (and it is a great country, it doesn't have to be made great "again.") calls what we work day in and day out to research and write "fake news." Or repeat that Stalinst phrase used by dictators to remove those who didn't agree with them, "enemy of the people," against the watchdogs of our freedoms.
I think what sickens me the most is that so many people believe, or say they believe, that what Trump says is true.
Just because you don't want to hear something doens't mean it isn't real. Climate change is real. There is no dissension among scientists. It's real and human activity has exacerbated it. There is no time for useless debate. We need to do whatever we can to remediate it. That's not a political statement. It's a fact. And that's only one example of the public descending into the mire of politically-motivated rhetoric. The press keeps reporting this because it is information the public needs.
You trust your doctor to live by his or her code. Well, journalists have a code as well. And we take it very seriously. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics admonishes us to "seek truth and report it." That's what we do.
That's what we do. Foolishly, I thought people understood that. But now it's become something I'm saying that I never thought I'd have to say that.
