The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, of prohibiting free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” That amendment, quoted above, is justly held to provide the basis for America’s tradition of a free press.

In drafting the amendment, America’s founding fathers affirmed the fundamental right of citizens to be informed about all sides of an issue without government interference. Thomas Jefferson even went so far as to write: “If it were left to me to decide whether we should have a government without a free press or a freed press without a government, I would refer the latter.” And African-American News&Issues is in complete accord with Jefferson, insofar as our publication exists for the sole purpose of reporting all the news, without fear of favor from an uncompromising Black perspective.

Popular credos notwithstanding, the fact that we have been awarded two consecutive “Tell It Like It Is” Awards from no less a watcher on the wall than Cleo Johnson Mc Laughlin, the dynamic leader of Texas Black United Fund and we have received accolades from a grateful public, e.g., Godfrey Eta, Harris County Sheriff’s Department’s first native African detective and Jim Marshall, president of Afro-American Legal Defense League, who will readily testify that we practice what we preach. And as a result, we have become a forum of last resort for citizens whose issues are often ignored by the only daily newspaper and system friendly mainstream media, in America’s fourth largest city.

For that reason, AAN&I would be remiss to allow a publication that claims to be, “Houston’s Leading Black Newspaper,” to go unchallenged after refusing to recognize the efforts of New Black Panther Party’s Quanell X, because the publisher deemed his actions inappropriate.

“I went to the sister, thinking perhaps, I was unintentionally left out of an article reporting our town hall meeting at S.H.A.P.E. Center, although I was the primary facilitator,” Quanell told AAN&I, the day (Oct. 4. 2002) following the controversial meeting that called for a boycott of the Houston Chronicle. As it turned out, Sonceria Messiah-Jiles, publisher of The Houston Defender, allegedly resented the fact that Quanell had “embarrassed” HAUL’s president, Sylvia Brooks.

Brooks had seized an opportunity to berate AAN&I for a series of articles that we had written about Texas Southern University’s President Priscilla Slade, when Quanell quickly stepped forward and condemned her for attacking a brother without first seeking counsel with him. When Roy Douglas Malonson, who founded AAN&I in February 1996, responded to Brook’s criticism in an article (“We stand accused!”), in our Oct. 16-22, 2002 edition, he concluded that the controversy started by Brooks was actually a “female thing,” insofar as Houston has a coalition of “Super Sisters” that have each others’ back.

While it’s commendable our Super Sisters have such a strong bond, personal positions have no place in a free press that is obligated to report all news without fear or favor. James Madison, another founding father reasoned: “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a travesty.” Translation: When a free press can be compromised by fear of losing advertising contracts, or the favor of prestigious contacts, it leaves a powerless or disenfranchised citizen without a voice.

AAN&I can cite a litany of lonely battles we’ve been forced to fight, in this one-daily newspaper metropolis (which in itself is a travesty), that was also completely ignored by a system- friendly mainstream media, including most of Houston’s leading Black newspapers. We speak of the TAAS test scandal, that literally destroyed the life of an educator who was doing nothing more than what Dr. Rod Paige had ordered her to do. In hindsight, we well understand why Terry Abbot became HISD’s media spin master, who used his favor with the mainstream media to steer them away from the controversy that very well could have kept President George W. Bush out of the White House.

We also challenged the ongoing racism in the Sheriff’s Department long before other media were forced to grudgingly report it and that it is business as usual in the Harris County Commissioner’s Court, that should be kicking itself for dooming the Harris County Hospital District to fail, when it forced Lois Moore out as CEO. Nevertheless, we have no need to remind our readers how many articles we reported that other media flatly refused to touch. Although there is no official oath journalists takes, there, indeed, is a code that we are obligated to adhere to.
We at AAN&I simply can’t afford the luxury or picking and choosing what we report and still consider ourselves an objective, creditable free press. John Milton, in his Areopagitica, written over 340 years ago, put it this way: “Truth indeed came into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when He ascended, and His apostles after Him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who…took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds.”

Apparently, Milton was preparing us for disenchantment with 2002 America’s media. Indeed, today there are complaints from all segments of society about news media incompetence, about over-hyping and trivializing the news, of strong and incessant ideological bias in the reporting of the news and outright political propaganda being packaged and disseminated as the bona fide news of the day (and week). The foregoing addresses, “The Oath They Never Took,” a book of codes for journalist that continues: “The untenable track record, suggests that our news media needs a Hippocratic Oath more than our doctors do.”

Thus, the following is the outline of American Society of Newspaper Editors (founded in 1922) “Canons of Journalism.” I. Responsibility (of newspaper and journalist); II, Freedom of Press (“a vital right of mankind”); III. Independence (fidelity to the public interest); IV. Sincerity, Truthfulness, Accuracy (good faith with readers); V. Impartiality (news reports free from opinions or bias) and VI. Fair Play, Decency (recognition of private rights, prompt correction of errors). There is much more, but, in essence, a creditable journalist is obligated to report all news without fear or favor.