(RNS) Let’s say you run an enterprise. Your usual constituency is dwindling, your revenues are down, your ways of doing business seem outmoded, and all around you paradigms are shifting and less nimble competitors are going under.
Yet the need for what you do is stronger than ever. You and a few others are standing in the gap as forces of darkness press an unrelenting assault.
What do you do?
I am talking about The New York Times, the vaunted “Gray Lady,” which is arguably the most important newspaper in the world, one of a dwindling handful of newspapers that dare to keep exercising the freedom that is the cornerstone of all freedoms.
One by one, that courageous handful shrinks. I have watched my former employer, The Wall Street Journal, become a tool of the Republican Party and no longer trustworthy. NPR is the latest target of those who would muzzle the press.
The Times recently unveiled a pay-to-read plan for its online editions. It was a bold move. Outsiders called it a “paywall,” an act of aggression.
I admire The Times for taking the risk. I anticipate a lively encounter with social ethics. The Internet, after all, is a cheater’s paradise. Within days, the clever will find ways around The Times’ plan.
But should they? I don’t want to set up The Times as a charity case. But I also think that, as citizens, we have an obligation to pay for what matters.
The sneaky ways that the rich dodge taxes is despicable. The ways children of privilege rarely seem to accept military duty is despicable. Manipulating information is despicable.
If you wonder what is at stake, watch Japanese government officials manage the news about nuclear disaster, while electric utility officials protect their own flanks. Watch citizens lose confidence and go into panic.
Government and business can’t help themselves. Truth is never their friend. Their concern is retaining power and wealth, not serving the public interest. Left to their own devices, people in power won’t hesitate to shade the truth, fudge the numbers, deny the obvious, condemn their critics and evade accountability.
Someone must speak truth to power. Someone must expose the scoundrels. Someone must assemble honest statistics. Someone must “follow the money” and see who’s cheating the American people. Someone must reveal when products aren’t safe, when politicians are taking bribes, when companies are closer to bankruptcy than they admit, and when landfills are leeching toxic waste into drinking water.
That someone is a free press. For most of American history, the only effective guarantor of accurate information has been newspapers like The New York Times and occasional broadcast heroes like Edward R. Murrow.
I wonder if we realize how much we depend on The Times and a few other newspapers to make democracy work. Politicians and their corporate benefactors certainly understand it — that’s why they inevitably attack the press. They threaten to withdraw advertising. They file costly lawsuits. They buy honest press outlets and turn them dishonest. They flood the airwaves with phony news and shock commentators, until people get confused and tune out.
Without The Times and other courageous news enterprises, our nation would succumb to lies and distortions and, eventually, to strong-armed ideologues promising certainty.
The survival of The New York Times isn’t just a concern for New Yorkers seeking honest restaurant reviews. It’s a vital concern for an entire nation under assault from power-hungry cheats and liars.
(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter (at)tomehrich.)
