Cheney Free Press carries immediate impact

One thing is certain — 2017 will be an interesting year for journalism. In fact, it will be interesting for media in general.

And, that might not be limited to just 2017, but 2018, 2019 and on.

Nationally, we are all aware of the challenges to news organizations. The term “fake news” has been kicked around so much, it’s beginning to take on other forms than what was originally referenced.

That early focus was on websites that were blatantly making things up, and could be disproved through facts of all shapes and sizes. Data and comments pulled out of context, information submitted without any attribution or mention of sources, all of these were often blown aside because the writer was writing something they knew readers, who wouldn’t take the time to sit down and think, let alone research, would accept because it conformed to their beliefs.

Now, fake news has morphed. Viable news organizations that take the time to research, provide context and list attribution, are being lumped into the fake news pile simply because those they write about don’t like what was written.

How we get around this, I don’t know. I do know this — it’s not a reason to be turned off by news altogether.

Quite the opposite. Now is the time to pay more attention to news. Now is the time to make sure we have a list of news sources we can rely on, even if we don’t always like what they report, or agree with what they opine.

It’s important. In fact, in my opinion, it’s un-American to think otherwise.

As a newspaper, we are a business, but we are a unique business because we have a protection hammered into this country’s founding document. The Constitution’s First Amendment prevents government from restricting freedom of the press — not just gathering information, but disseminating that information.

Our founders wanted it that way because they believed an informed public would be at least be informed in their thinking.

Prior to 1790, most newspapers were required to receive some sort of government approval before publication, and consequently that approval might only be given if some content was changed or omitted. That still takes place today in many countries around the world.

But when the Cheney Free Press, or other publications, go to print, no government tells us what to say or when and how to say it. That’s important, and one of the reasons why it’s difficult to hear about people who don’t read newspapers, whether in print or online.

In fact, it irritates me when some people wear this like a badge of honor — proudly proclaiming they get their information elsewhere and not from the mainstream media.

I heard something along these lines at a meeting a couple years ago when an angry individual showed up to protest a sudden increase in their electric bill. When it was pointed out that a story about the increase had appeared in the Cheney Free Press, the individual huffily proclaimed “I don’t read the Cheney Free Press!”

Too bad. Doing so might have saved them a trip into town, and possibly a prolonged increase in their blood pressure.

Granted, we don’t reach everything that happens in Cheney or the other cities we cover, Airway Heights and Medical Lake, nor what takes place in the county. We are a small editorial staff, and focus on specific sources for our information, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look elsewhere, if somebody takes the time to let us know where to look and how.

We also don’t have the sexy headlines that grace the pages of national publications or even larger regional ones. But I can guarantee you this — what gets published in the pages of the Cheney Free Press has more of a chance of affecting you and affecting you immediately than anything you might read regarding somebody’s tweets.

I know this piece is largely preaching to the choir; those who read newspapers have read newspapers for years and are our main subscribers. But that doesn’t mean others can’t also be like a couple who responded to a survey we ran in 2013.

When asked what they liked most about the Cheney Free Press, they wrote “Just being informed (about) what’s going on in the surrounding areas.”

I’d close with the question “How informed are you,” but the real question might be “How informed is your neighbor?”

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.