Free press essential to a healthy democracy

I knelt on the tile floor attempting to focus my Canon, its heavy 18-55mm lens pulling closer to the knees of the speaker than his face. On either side of me the gigantic lenses of the Associated Press and the New York Times dwarfed my equipment.

At the conclusion of the session, the first openly gay priest to be elected a bishop and the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church hurried down the corridor of the convention hall, surrounded by security guards and press officers. Both were wearing bulletproof vests under the vestments of their offices.

Protest groups waved their inflammatory signs just outside the Convention Center. The media scrambled beside the two leaders, thrusting questions, microphones and flashes in their faces, clamoring to get queries answered, meet deadlines, get the facts to the people.

Freedom of the press in America has long been the envy of countries who suffer under dictatorship and lack of information. Our journalists are, by and large, not simply technicians who know how to construct a sentence, turn a phrase, but individuals who have studied history, political science and other fields which give them context for the questions they ask.

My training as a journalist began early, while following my football coach father through the fanaticism of Southeastern Conference and NFL football. While not as critical to society as justice for all or world peace, interrogation and reporting treated each game and press conference with the intensity accorded significance.

I learned at a young age that as a public figure, my father had a responsibility to represent his team with professional presence, even when deeply disappointed or frustrated, or under pressure from unforgiving fans.

He was a favorite of the media, because he never ducked hard questions, and was direct and honest with them. “They have a job to do, too,” he would say. Whether he said it specifically, or I learned it environmentally, the message was clear: We can either do our jobs professionally, or make it difficult for all.

The 24/7 news and technology have added new dimensions to reporting the news. But one thing has not changed: the role of freedom of the press in a democracy. And the call to attention we must hear and respond to if that role is threatened by anyone.

Such threats include: calling the media “the enemy;” denying facts and referring to them as “ fake news,” denying access to journalists and feeding news “plants” to favored outlets.

Just imagine a press room cleared of all reporters who persist in asking hard questions. Imagine moving through life knowing only information that a select few people deem OK for you to know.

Check a history book if you’ve forgotten, or chosen, to deny the despair of life lived without access to information. Take time to check your experiences of the past week against the signs of threats to a free press.

And then remember the words of the late Henry Anatole Grunwald, former Time editor in chief: Journalism can never be silent.

That is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.

It is the kind of freedom we have today and could lose tomorrow, if we’re not paying attention. It’s a calling that requires the courage to speak up and out; to ask the questions that will not only inform the people, but will demand honesty and accountability from those in positions of leadership.

Freedom of the press. We cannot afford to lose it.