Journalism Doesn’t Stop
A LONG TIME AGO, IN A LIFE FAR, FAR AWAY, I WAS BANNED FROM A PRESS CONFERENCE.
It was held by then California Republican State Assemblyman Tom McClintock, who didn’t like my coverage of his re-election campaign. So when he held a press event at his Ventura County headquarters, I wasn’t on the list.
I complained for a little while, but then I left and did what any good reporter would do. I wrote a story not about his latest initiative, but about how a state representative kept a credentialed reporter from covering his campaign.
Two days later McClintock, facing public pressure, came to the newsroom and apologized to my editor and me. And I was never banned again.
Those were the days.
If that had happened today, McClintock would tell me to go fuck myself, and his supporters would applaud. I would be worried about my car or home being vandalized or myself getting physically attacked.
But I’m also sure of this: I wouldn’t stop reporting. Not for a second.
Ban journalists from your press briefings, you spineless and scared rich old white men. Suppress the news you don’t like and spread your propaganda, you extremist fear-loving supremacists. Discredit our institutions and distract us from the real issues, you ignorant excuses for sentient life (“sentience,” it’s a real word, look it up.)
Go ahead, demonize the media and celebrate at your hate rallies. But when you’ve pulled your pointy-heads out of Breitbart’s ass you will find that journalism didn’t stop.
The next Pulitzer Prize winning story that comes out of a press briefing will be the first. Those stories come from intelligent investigative reporting and cultivating trusted sources, not from press releases.
I would urge my brothers and sisters in journalism to double-down on the truth and keep digging, keep working and, most of all, stop putting lying administration officials on television, including the orange one at the top.
They want the media to be an enemy? So be one. Be Big Bad Motherfuckers of Honesty. Don’t complain about being kept out of briefings like I did — just go report the shit out of important topics that truly matter. And keep our government accountable to all of the people it represents, not just the ones moved to orgasm every time the President or one of his sycophants tosses them another piece of divisive red meat.
The First Amendment has always protected journalism. Now it’s time for journalism to return the favor and defend those inalienable rights for us all.
