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This reads like satire. The clueless Chronicle jumps on the "noble media" bandwagon, clearly unaware of its own irony. The turns and twists of illogic in this editorial is why according to Gallup the public trust of the media has fallen to 32%:
Editor’s note: Many newspapers around the country are today publishing the following editorial, authored by Judy Patrick of the New York Press Association. The Chronicle wholeheartedly embraces its message.
We’ve been complacent. (No, you've been activist.)
We thought everybody knew how important a free press was to our world (Non sequitur. They do. But the criticism is media bias and fake news, not the importance of a free press.)
and that all this talk about us being the enemy of the people (Trump identified fake news as the issue. If the Chronicle doesn't publish fake news, then Trump's criticism doesn't apply to the Chronicle.)
would be dismissed for the silliness that it is. (Unsupported assertion. If it's silly, then ignore it. However, the media's problem isn't Trump.)
But the reckless attacks (Reckless? Criticizing the media is reckless?)
have continued, instigated and encouraged by our president.
When the leader of the free world works to erode the public’s trust in the media, (As noted above, trust in media has been in freefall for many years. The media has done a fine job of eroding its own trust, thank you.)
the potential for damage is enormous, both here and abroad. We once set an example of free and open government for the world to follow. (That is, "we" being the media, which has largely abandoned its dedication to facts and now presents us with opinion disguised as news. If there's anyone to blame it's the media themselves.)
Now those who seek to suppress the free flow of information are doing so with impunity. (Who has suppressed the free flow of information? Name one instance!)
The time has come for us to stand up to the bullying. The role journalism plays in our free society is too crucial to allow this degradation to continue. (If only the media was interested in actual journalism...)
We aren’t the enemy of the people. (Bare denial.)
We are the people. (No you are not. You are six mega corporations, none of which are owned or controlled by Americans.)
We aren’t fake news. (Bare denial.)
We are your news and we struggle night and day to get the facts right. (Indeed. You certainly do struggle. And too often you fail. But that is not the criticism being leveled at you. Frankly, you don't bother with the facts, preferring The Narrative.)
On bitter cold January nights, we’re the people’s eyes and ears at town, village and school board meetings. (Oh how noble! The sacrifice! Like the postal service, apparently.)
We tell the stories of our communities, from the fun of a county fair to the despair a family faces when a loved one is killed. (Misdirection. It's not about the county fair or publishing an obituary. The fake news is the problem, which is the presentation of The Narrative, designed to advance a political agenda while pretending to be news. This is known as agitprop.)
We are always by your side. (That's creepy.)
We shop the same stores, attend the same churches and hike the same trails. We struggle with daycare and worry about paying for retirement. (Yes, you're people. No one is denying that. Can we stay on topic?)
In our work as journalists, our first loyalty is to you. (Wouldn't it be better to be loyal to the facts?)
Our work is guided by a set of principles that demand objectivity, independence, open-mindedness and the pursuit of the truth. (Indeed. Again, could we stay on topic? No one is disputing the principles, we are questioning your ability to adhere to them.)
We make mistakes, we know. There’s nothing we hate more than errors but we acknowledge them, correct them and learn from them. (Yes, yes. But it isn't your mistakes we object to, it's your deliberate misrepresentation of the facts in pursuit of a partisan political agenda.)
Our work is a labor of love (Laying it on thick...)
because we love our country (Thicker...)
and believe we are playing a vital role in our democracy. (Which no one has questioned. Again, can we stay on topic?)
Self-governance demands that our citizens need to be well-informed and that’s what we’re here to do. (The authors just can't stay on the topic at hand...)
We go beyond the government issued press release or briefing and ask tough questions. We hold people in power accountable for their actions. (Actually, some people are held to account, while others are given a pass.)
Some think we’re rude to question and challenge. We know it’s our obligation.
People have been criticizing the press for generations. (Waaait. Didn't the authors just assert, "instigated and encouraged by our president."? But apparently this criticism has been going on for decades.
So why are their feathers all ruffled now? Why is it a problem now?)
We are not perfect. But we’re striving every day to be a better version of ourselves than we were the day before. (Thicker...)
That’s why we welcome criticism. (No you don't! That's the whole purpose of this editorial! You're bristling at the criticism! You hate criticism because you hate the consumers of your product.)
But unwarranted attacks that undermine your trust in us cannot stand. (Who gets to decide what is unwarranted?)
The problem has become so serious that newspapers across the nation are speaking out against these attacks in one voice today on their editorial pages. (It never bothered them when Fox News was regularly attacked...)
As women’s rights pioneer and investigative journalist Ida B. Wells wrote in 1892: “The people must know before they can act and there is no educator to compare with the press.”
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