28 THE QUEENS COURIER • FEBRUARY 23, 2017 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM THE QUEENS editorial PUBLISHER & EDITOR CO-PUBLISHER ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF VP, EVENTS, WEB & SOCIAL MEDIA ART DIRECTOR ARTIST SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER STAFF REPORTERS CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS ASSISTANT TO PUBLISHER CLASSIFIED MANAGER CONTROLLER PRESIDENT & CEO VICE PRESIDENT VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS BOB BRENNAN ROBERT POZARYCKI AMY AMATO-SANCHEZ NIRMAL SINGH RON TORINA EMILY DAVENPORT KATRINA MEDOFF, ANTHONY GIUDICE, ANGELA MATUA SUZANNE MONTEVERDI CLIFF KASDEN, SAMANTHA SOHMER, ELIZABETH ALONI DEBORAH CUSICK CELESTE ALAMIN MARIA VALENCIA VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS Schneps Communications, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361 718-224-5863 • Fax 718-224-5441 www.qns.com editorial e-mail: editorial@qns.com for advertising e-mail: ads@qns.com Entire Contents Copyright 2017 by The Queens Courier All letters sent to THE QUEENS COURIER should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and offi ce telephone numbers, where available, as well as affi liation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Name withheld on request. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, AS WELL AS OP-ED PIECES IN NO WAY REFLECT THE PAPER’S POSITION. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of THE QUEENS COURIER. The publishers will not be responsible for any error in advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Errors must be reported to THE QUEENS COURIER within fi ve days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. Schneps Communications assumes no liability for the content or reply to any ads. The advertiser assumes all liability for the content of and all replies. The advertiser agrees to hold THE QUEENS COURIER and its employees harmless from all cost, expenses, liabilities, and damages resulting from or caused by the publication or recording placed by the advertiser or any reply to any such advertisement. PURPLE MARTIN IN A FOREST HILLS SNOWSTORM // PHOTO BY FLOR ANGELA CASTRO Send us your photos of Queens and you could see them online or in our paper! To submit them to us tag @queenscourier on Instagram, visit our Facebook page, tweet @QNS or email editorial@qns.com (subject: Queens Snaps). STORY: ICE raids in East Elmhurst and across the city cause alarm and confusion SUMMARY: Hundreds of arrests have been made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents across the country in the past week, including 41 in the Greater New York area, that have left many worried and confused. REACH: 16,998 (as of 2/20/17) Defending the free press that defends you Whether it’s an international news organization or a community newspaper like ours, the free press plays an important role in the lifeblood and health of our democracy. Indeed, our democratic republic’s survival depends on a free press that can do its job independent of government and exempt from punishment for simply reporting the facts. Th is weekend, the president made a ridiculous and infl ammatory comment about the free press being, in his words, “the enemy of the American people.” Sadly, many of his true believers agree with that statement. Of all the things the president has said in his political life, this remark is perhaps the most dangerous, yet also the most inaccurate. Th ere are institutional checks and balances within the branches of our government, but an independent, free press is a check and balance on the government itself. It speaks for those who lack a voice, exposes wrongdoing where it is oft ignored, provides the public with facts that more powerful institutions would rather keep secret, and informs truths that those institutions would rather mold to their own liking. “In the nearly 300 years since the trial of John Peter Zenger set the precedent for a free and open press, journalists have stared down jail time, and in some cases, given their lives, while fulfi lling their duty to inform the public,” New York Press Club President Steve Scott wrote to the president in a perfect rebuttal of the president’s remarks this weekend. “We understand that you will not always agree with what is written or spoken about you. But the fact that you disagree with a story does not make it fake news. And it does not make the press the enemy.” Not everyone likes what they read in the papers or online, or see on television. Th at is to be expected. As the old adage goes, the truth oft en hurts. Th e free press isn’t here to tell you what you want to hear, or to be a mouthpiece for an institution of government. Th e free press is here to tell you what you need to know, and what you should know, about what’s going on in your world, your country, your state, your city, your community. Th is newspaper, as part of the free press, is also here for you, to hear your grievances about the issues that matter to you, and to help get those issues addressed. A republic without a free press won’t be a republic for very long. Let’s keep that in mind the next time the president sends out another embarrassing tweet about an article he doesn’t like.
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