Journalism is the first draft of history. On the printed page, on radio and TV airwaves are seized then frozen in time, indelible images of the human drama. Delivered “as is,” facts discourage revisionists from tampering with the truth. Alas, for many, fact has become calumny, reality a disgrace, truth is scandal. For those whose only loyalty is to the truth, it’s a lonely world as well. The price for such devotion is often steep and those who are willing to pay for it never lack enemies.
To the enemies of truth, newsmen make an especially appetizing quarry. Their accounts are never accurate enough, fair or broad or partisan enough to assuage the biases and sensitivities of all readers or to indulge their ulterior motives. If an article lacks focus or detail, we’re dismissed as shallow and irrelevant. If our exposés or commentaries are too graphic, irreverent or too close for comfort, we're accused of needlessly giving readers palpitations. No matter what we report, we are sure to be reviled by someone along the way -- as was recently witnessed in comments responding to Marco Cáceres’ editorial about Honduras’ mounting crime wave.
Of course, readers are not a homogeneous lot. They come in sundry stripes and hues and preferences. Mercifully, most seek to be informed. Most possess the mental elasticity to judge an article on its merits. It is to them that scrupulous journalists devote their columns. Others, like disoriented butterflies, skip chunks of text that do not pique their interest, that unsettle or intimidate them. Hasty or inattentive, they invariably take things out of context and misconstrue. Many see conspiracy in syntax: They scrutinize and dissect every utterance as if it concealed some subliminal code. They can't see the sentence from the words, the idea from the inflection, the message from the timbre. Others, yet, who rhapsodize Honduras' blood-soaked natural beauty or advocate censorship, are so jarred by the truth that they want it suppressed, obliterated, reduced to ashes (along with the reporters who unearth it... ) for fear that they might become infected by it.
Not all journalists rush in where angels fear to tread. Some are daunted by naked truth. Political correctness (the sacrifice of truth at the altar of hypocrisy) keeps subscribers and advertisers happy. Unlike open scandal, which peaks in an orgy of vitriol and reproof, then dies, self-censorship leaves a trail of speculations and a scent of putrefaction. It’s bad enough when governments hide behind a wall of secrecy and lies; it’s worse when the media -- the conscience of a free society -- sheepishly corrupt their mission by colluding to keep the public in the fog of ignorance. It is the height of obscenity when readers urge the press to look away.
Despite opinions to the contrary journalists do not get paid to generate solutions for the problems they uncover. Their job is to observe, chronicle and narrate the dynamics that cause or abet these problems. Solutions can only be found in the problems themselves.
What emerges from some readers’ comments is the contemptible suggestion that chronicling verifiable facts is an act of disloyalty. Analytical criticism is not unpatriotic. It’s a fundamental right and an obligation. Deploring the maelstrom of violence into which Honduras has descended is not unpatriotic but an exercise in rational citizenship. Silence is the real villain.