Every year in March, the United States News Media Association sponsors a Sunshine Week to highlight the importance of transparency in our government at all levels, be it national, state, county, or even local school boards, township supervisor, or city council meetings. At the Lycoming County Commissioners Meeting on Tuesday, March 16th, the commissioners read a resolution supporting Sunshine Week. They specifically mentioned Webb Weekly along with several other outlets in our area for covering county government and, in the words of Commissioner Rick Mirabito, “asking the tough questions.”

The Sunshine Laws and Right-to-Know Laws are very important to hold government entities to be transparent in their official actions. Freedom to report these were secured in the very first amendment to the US Constitution in 1789. There was a reason why this freedom held such priority to our Founding Fathers. Before the thirteen colonies declared independence from Great Britain, the British government attempted to censor the American media by prohibiting newspapers from publishing unfavorable information and opinions.

The classic case for freedom of the press occurred in 1733. A German immigrant named John Peter Zenger had a publication called the New York Weekly Journal. One of the main targets of the paper was the corrupt royal governor, William S. Cosby, who had rigged elections and committed several different crimes. In reporting these activities, Zenger was accused of libel, which at that time did not mean just defamation of character but publishing information that was opposed to the government. Zenger did not deny publishing these articles, so it would seem that the case would have been open and shut according to the law of the land.

But then something remarkable happened. First, Zenger’s wife took over publishing the Journal and exposed that the jury panel were all on Cosby’s payroll, which shamed the authorities into replacing them with a true jury of Zenger’s peers. Then, the most famous lawyer in the colonies at the time, Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia (no relation to the more famous Alexander Hamilton), stepped in to defend Zenger. Hamilton had served as Pennsylvania’s Attorney General and was Speaker of the House at the time of the trial. (In fact, the phrase “Philadelphia lawyer” supposedly originated with this man.)

Hamilton challenged the law itself and demanded the prosecution to prove the controversial articles false. In a stirring appeal to the jury, he claimed, “It is not the cause of one poor printer, but the cause of liberty.” He added that the press has “a liberty both of exposing and opposing tyrannical power by speaking and writing truth.” Cheers filled the courtroom, but the judge ordered the jury to convict Zenger if they believed he printed the stories. Instead, in less than ten minutes, they came with a verdict of “not guilty.”

This is why freedom of the press was enshrined into that first amendment, and why ever since that time, Americans have valued the fact that media sources bring them the news of current events, especially as it concerns their government. They expected this news to be factual and objective. Opinions were to be regulated to the editorial pages. Fortunately, in Lycoming County, this pattern is generally followed. In this column, I write it as I see it and try to provide significant context to appreciate what is going on.

However, our national media has taken a different turn. Just recently, it was revealed from a tape recording of the actual conversation that the Washington Post literally made-up quotes about former President Trump’s supposed “find the fraud” telephone conversation to a Georgia election official. Even worse, other media outlets such as CNN, PBS, NBC, ABC, USA Today, and others ‘confirmed’ these fabricated quotes from the Post.

Space does not allow listing the multitude of other cases of national media malpractice. Still, the greatest injustice is that these are seen as truth, evidenced by the fact that this ‘fact’ was included in the impeachment charges against former President Trump in February. It is sad that the basis for the previous impeachment trial over ‘Russian collusion’ likewise turned out to be a media hoax.

So, may I say that I celebrate Sunshine Week for what it stands for, but I am not standing for the press and also social media using liberty as a license to present a lie as the truth. As the saying goes about commerce, “Buyer Beware,” I will echo with those who are trying to filter through news information, especially about our government, “Reader Beware.” Reading today’s news, we should remember the words of Ronald Reagan in dealing with the Russians during the nuclear arms treaties, “Trust…but verify.”