In this great nation, freedom of the press hinges on our particular form of government, a democratic republic. A loose interpretation of the term government can include even the most local institutions, such as Boards of Education, where the people in charge hold their positions by dint of free elections where the people vote their conscience, their pocketbook, and whatever else moves them to cast a ballot.

It is to be expected that a free press and governments of, by and for the people will regularly lock horns over such matters as published reports a newspaper like this believes it is an obligation to publish, and which certain stakeholders in those published reports may believe otherwise.

Sensitive, or potentially controversial, information that originates within the confines of governmental bodies is kept under virtual lock and key until such time that the gatekeepers of those institutions deem it useful to release that information, if at all. When they do release the information, it is under heavy guard, which is to say, it still is protected, this time by “spin.”
That way, even so-called bad news can be spun to seem not so bad or, in the extreme, even spun to sound like good news. It is the job – and constant challenge – of a free and independent press to unspin such information by digging for facts from differing sources and presenting the facts as objectively and coherently as possible.

At a recent convention of community newspapers, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo exhorted several hundred journalists to “expose, investigate and communicate to people, and the politicians will listen.

“They have very good ears. If they don't (listen), they are not politicians for a very long time. It's a very simple formula. That's the synthesis that has brought change -- press exposes, government responds. You have to arouse the citizenry. If you don't arouse, nothing changes. The politicians come second. The people come first. Politicians follow the people, or they won't be politicians.”

People with vested interests in a particular story are highly prone to accuse newspapers of bias. The truth of that matter lies elsewhere: If the report aligns with their interests, it is not biased. If it doesn’t align, it is biased. End of story.
In the forest of citizens who elect their representatives in government and schools, there are many types of trees, including the media. Local officials, and others, who mistake the media as their personal channel of communications are barking up the wrong tree. We don’t report to them any more than they report to us.

Town governments, school districts and newspapers each report to the same infinitely diverse forest of trees who read newspapers and vote in elections. The media is meant to serve all the many trees in that forest, not merely the few elected by the many.
Elected agents of the people who lash out at the media tree when it does not bend to their will are nearsighted: they can’t see the forest for the trees.
If the truth doesn’t set them free, the voters surely will.

Golf in full swing
You know golf is back in full swing when two of our area’s most prominent organizations host major tournaments on the same day. That happened Tuesday, May 6, when Yorktown Chamber of Commerce and Hudson Valley Hospital Center each hosted highly successful events, the former at Hollowbrook Golf Club in Cortlandt and the latter a fundraiser at Hudson National Golf Club in Croton.

At Hollowbrook, Police Officer Larry Eidelman used a lob wedge to score a hole-in-one on No. 5, an under-100 yard Par 3, with a whimsical design that resembles a training ground for Acapulco cliff divers. Just add water. On another of the Par 3s, Officer Eidelman, whose playing partner was Town of Yorktown Planning Department Director John Tegeder, would have walked away with a car after acing the hole. On this Par 3, the hole-in-one prize was an iPod Nano, which at least comes with some “Auto” features.

To read Bruce Apar’s blog, start at home page of NCNlocal.com and click on Blogs button.