Oct. 6 was News Engagement Day, when journalists share the importance of their work and how necessary it is that citizens remain engaged with the media.

According to the News Engagement Day website, “Everyone is encouraged to read, watch, like, tweet, post, listen to, or comment on news and learn news reporting principles.”

As a staff, we encourage everyone to read and watch a wide sample of news sources to become informed about relevant societal and political issues. At every turn, there are politicians, stores, marketers, advertisers and even some journalists who manipulate people through false information. It is crucial to use education and reason to combat this.

The news can be difficult to look at sometimes, but those moments are perhaps when we need the news the most.

Through everything our country has experienced this year — a pandemic, racial activism, calls for intense and effective police reform and a presidential election — journalists have been there, distributing messages to the larger community. 

Without journalists, the true state of our country would be a mystery – a question mark looked upon with vague disappointment and casual disinterest.

This is not an America we want to live in.

The Carroll News supports broad engagement and civic responsibility. We support holding people accountable. We support reckoning a broken system. We support education, no matter a person’s political affiliation. We support voting.

We support taking one day out of the year to emphasize the value of objective news media and the impact they incur. Thank you to all of the hard-working reporters and editors who have been with us through this crazy time. Happy Belated News Engagement Day.