Atrocities in Ukraine show the importance of a free press reporting facts

Look at the pictures of the massacres in Ukraine, bodies strewn on the streets of Bucha, hands tied behind their backs, bullet holes in the back of their heads execution-style, and thank God for the journalists who risk their lives every day to bring you the truth in its rawest and ugliest form.

“Fake news” is what Russian President Vladimir Putin would call it, and any journalist who dared report it would be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

Fortunately, American journalists do not risk jail time for telling the truth. Instead, they face an onslaught of verbal and often physical attacks and are labeled “enemies of the people” by American politicians and commentators, using terms favored by Soviet and Nazi dictators.

Now, consider for a moment the damage wrought by those who would have you believe journalists make up “fake news,” when what they do is expose inconvenient truths and outright lies with facts.

Facts are not opinions. They can’t be faked. Like good science, facts must be verifiable and withstand the scrutiny of others repeating the same discovery process. This is what journalism is: reporters ask tough questions or take painful pictures and videos, verify information through multiple sources and experts, and tell/show readers what they have learned and what questions can’t be answered.

That is what is happening in Ukraine. Brave journalists from all over the world are documenting and verifying each other’s reporting–some at the cost of their own lives–so we know for a fact that atrocities were committed in areas once occupied by the Russians. As a result, we don’t have to take any government’s word for what is happening; we can see it in real-time and make our own judgments.

We may find fault with some of the reporting. Unfortunately, mistakes and misinterpretations can always happen in the middle of such dangerous events. It’s like taking a snapshot of a fast-moving train: you don’t know where it came from or even where it is going. All you can do is report what you observe at the moment.

As details get fleshed in, errors may come to light. Real news organizations own up to their mistakes and correct them. Not so for many TV talking heads, who distort, take out of context, or flat out make stuff up to boost ratings with no sense of shame or accountability.

Those commentators and some politicians have no shame in parroting Russian propaganda about Ukrainian “thugs”, or praising Putin and other dictators, or questioning why we support Ukraine and NATO, or even suggesting that we should re-elect a would-be-dictator with Putin-envy for president.

See the irony? If we let those who besmirch hard-working journalists as purveyors of “fake news” get away with it, we will end up living in their fantasy world for real, a gulag of our own making.

The only thing standing between us and that dystopian future is the free press. Thank God for journalists, every day.

John Winn Miller of Lexington is a former foreign correspondent, editor, publisher and indie movie producer whose first novel, “The Hunt for the Peggy C,” comes out in November.

This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 9:47 AM.