Gruner reminds journalists their mission matters more than ever

George F. Gruner, a journalist whose 46-year career included 33 years at The Fresno Bee, spoke Thursday at the presentation of awards named in his honor. Below is the text of a speech he delivered to the group of journalists and supporters at the Fresno Art Museum:

Like you see in other exhibit rooms here, I am a museum piece. Like a Revolutionary War musket or a medieval work of art, I evoke the way things used to be at the turn of the century. I mean closer to the 19th Century.

I remember the good old days — pencil and paper, typewriters, upright phones, telephone booths — “hello sweetheart, get me rewrite.”

Those days are gone. Times have changed. But what has not changed is you. The key tool in newsrooms is not the computer. It still is the human element—the desire to get the facts, whatever they tell us. All the examples of outstanding work exhibited here tonight are products of that essential element — the reporter, man or woman, who has that burning desire, no matter how successfully concealed, to serve the public interest by laying out the facts.

Robert Reich, professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, recently said that today your job is bigger than ever, that under present conditions our democracy will depend on an independent press discovering the Truth and holding someone accountable. That was true in my era but today you — the indispensable tool in the American news industry — have an even more vital duty to deliver the Truth wherever it takes you.

In this time of assaults on the media, cries of bias, allegations of fake news and alternate facts, and even charges the press is an enemy of the American people, your job is the same now as it was then: the pursuit of the Truth.

I remember on the day of President Kennedy’s assassination, a newscaster had mixed reports on the president’s condition. Obviously upset by the lack of information, he turned away from the camera and shouted: “GO FIND OUT.”

I never forgot that moment, nor should you, whatever tools of the trade become standard or whatever manifestation the news business takes.

My advice as an old hand in the news gathering game is this: When you get that call to deliver facts for a story, big or small, remember you are the essential tool in the delivery of truth.

And GO FIND OUT!

This story was originally published February 24, 2017 at 3:47 PM with the headline "Gruner reminds journalists their mission matters more than ever."