EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s Sentinel Colorado editorial is written in coordination with hundreds of newspapers across the nation in a concerted effort to shine a light on efforts by President Donald Trump and others to diminish the credibility of newspapers by disparaging them as “fake news” and dubbing journalists ‘enemies of the people.’
We are the people.
In the dangerous, mythical and deliberate alternate reality that President Donald Trump, his regime and supporters are trying to impose on America, the nation has one hope: the press.
Even before he was elected, Trump and his campaign turned to a strategy that has been tried and true by despots in the United States and all over the world by attacking and trying to undermine the messenger, this newspaper and thousands like it across the country.
Using media outlets like Fox News, a growing army of social media trolls and right-wing propaganda websites, the Trump regime is trying to groom Americans for their own nefarious purposes. The Trump regime has provenly and repeatedly outright lied about critical and trivial matters, nearly every day.
It is a treacherous and vile scheme that presents only danger to Aurora, to Colorado, to the nation, and to the world. Trump is trying to sow doubt and hatred for the American press for the sole purpose of controlling the message and manipulating truth, reality, Congress and you. It’s a scheme so fraught with peril that the framers of the Constitution and the nation installed free press rights unlike any in history.
The nation’s creators had seen despotism. They knew then just as enlightened Americans know now, only the press can keep America free from corruption and despotism by being allowed to keep citizens informed about what their government really does and what leaders really say.
Because the provable truth of what mainstream American press reveals about Trump, his supporters, his collaborators in Congress and his regime, he has labeled us “enemies of the people.”
Despite Trump’s marginal mastery of English and his tentative, corrupted grasp on reality, his message speaks loudly to a small but sizable group of Americans sympathetic to his message of selfishness, greed, intolerance and despair.
And so today, we’re speaking back not from the news pages of Sentinel Colorado, which every single day accurately, fairly and earnestly give a clear picture of what Trump and everyone else in the world says and does. We’re beseeching you from the part of our publication devoted to our editorial opinions and yours. The opinions of this newspaper and every American are protected by one of the most powerful parts of the constitution, because savvy founding fathers knew there would be people like Richard Nixon, Sen. Joe McCarthy, and President Donald Trump who would rise to power and attempt to use it against America and its citizens for their own specious purposes.
Reporters are not the enemies of the people. We are the people. We are Americans who willingly take stressful, low-paying jobs and face grueling hours. We make endless personal sacrifices for one purpose: to accurately, fairly and unabashedly tell you about your government, your community and your world.
Reporters, editors and photographers hold beliefs about politics, government, religion, culture and science as varied and disparate as everywhere else in the nation, because we are the nation. If there is one underlying motivation among every journalist that’s ever worked here, or at newspapers like ours across the country, it’s the demand for justice. Journalists are bound to ensure that our work promotes justice for the poor, the rich, Jews and Catholics, atheists and zealots, victims and criminals, the right and the left.
We strive to allow justice to flourish by telling America what we see, what we hear and what we reveal. Only truth can ensure justice in a society, and only a free and unfettered press can offer a society truth.
That’s what we do. Not as enemies of the people, but as the people.