Editor’s Note
Back in the old days — that’s less than a decade and before there were such things as blogs and interactive conversations with readers — editors used to respond to their newspaper readers with an “editor’s note.” Sometimes it clarified a point made in a letter to the editor. Sometimes it offered a correction. Sometimes it was just a simple explanation. An editor’s note was a handful of sentences; maybe a four or five paragraphs. It was always a personal link between the editor and the reader. Only difference between it and today’s blog is the immediacy and the platform. Welcome to Editor’s Note.

Of cops, whistle blowers, journalists and the First Amendment

April 4th, 2009 at 06:26am Linda Grist Cunningham

Not everyone is rooting for the death of newspapers and the journalists who fill their news pages. Though their voices are whispers compared to the shouts of the rabble clamoring for a world in which no one can or will hold them accountable, those whispers are steadily increasing.

Tom Wartowski shared this Wall Street Journal link with me on Friday evening. Take a few minutes to read the opinion from a Maryland judge as he wrote about the case of a police officer-turned-whistle blower.

Then, come back here. You’ll understand the rest of this post a little better:

Anyone can be a secretary for the city council meeting. For the high school musical. For the criminal trial. For the school board. Anyone can fill the newspaper pages and the Web posts with information the recorder records and the secretary transcribes. Anyone can spout an opinion around that information. And it’s that information that fills our pages so successfully every day.

Only a journalist protected by the First Amendment and fortified with an obsession to keep asking “who, what when why and how” can make a difference. Maybe that happens once a day on the micro scale, once a career on the macro. But it happens. And it matters. We will only know how much when it is gone.

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1 Comment Add your own

  • 1. G. Kent  |  April 4th, 2009 at 11:18 am

    I read the link. Now answer this: who’s your investigative reporter? Who do you have working on a long leash, who can spend days or even weeks on a story that may or may not end up in the paper?

    Most of your reporters, alas, are sitting in village meetings or news conferences performing the secretarial tasks that you allegedly disdain.

    Honestly, when was the last time the Register Star printed a piece of journalism that took months to produce and blew the lid off this town?

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