David Montgomery: Amidst threats to democracy, journalism is as important as it has ever been

(Click here to read the king saying that newspapers underpin democracy)

I still have a vivid recollection of the colours of the hallway I entered, the words uttered and the feeling of disbelief, emptiness. There was no doubt who ‘that man’ was. JFK, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, the most famous man in the world at the time.

He had faced down Russia over positioning its missiles in Cuba a year before his assassination by sniper attack on his motorcade in Dallas.

In those more innocent days, the fresh faced Kennedy – first Catholic President and from Irish heritage – was admired by people of all backgrounds and across the globe.

Only a few times in life does a seismic event mean instant recall of exactly where you were and what you were doing when the news breaks.

Another was the assassination of JFK’s brother Bobby, just five years later, as he campaigned to be president.

On that occasion I was on a train travelling to a summer job in the north of England from the overnight ferry to Liverpool so had not been in reach of radio or TV.

As a wannabe journalist I had hurriedly bought the folded up broadsheets newspapers before boarding the train.

I spread out the Daily Telegraph on the carriage table and saw the shock news and the graphic youthful image of Bobby Kennedy lying mortally wounded. The Mirror headline ‘God Not Again’ of the same day dramatically captured the emotion.

The obvious more recent event was 9/11 when I heard the news flying around London in circles as all planes were prevented making the final approach as a defence against further attacks.

We remember what we were doing the instant we hear devastating news of a more personal nature, of course.

But news that shocks the world in this way is rare.

The attempt to assassinate Trump failed, but it took other lives and the impact of a shooter getting through all the spooks, all the advanced technology and security, lives up to that shock moment.

In the JFK era I aspired to become an American correspondent bringing its news to an audience this side of the Atlantic.

I was convinced that the messenger of great and not so great events was a calling and would represent a worthwhile career.

I did not quite achieve that ambition but today I am more than ever convinced that journalism is a branch of democracy that has never been more important.

Within months of Bobby Kennedy’s death I was back in Belfast and as a student began to freelance report on what became the routine but shocking news on our own doorstep, shootings, bombings and rioting.

The News Letter carried my work and my association with the title now spans half a century.

Today we see shock events live, as they happen, teatime in Pennsylvania and midnight in Belfast for news addicts. But these events, from JFK’s assassination to 9/11, are never quite as they appear.

Without the writing journalists that dig and probe and challenge the circumstances, the full story will not be told.

The politicians spin, interpreting events no matter how upsetting, to their own advantage.

It is for journalists, motivated in part by doing a public service, to get to the truth and emblazon it across media platforms that the readers and users trust.

The Trump assassination attempt has many complex angles.

The full story is yet to be exposed, just as the full narrative of Kennedy’s less than perfect life and his death is still constantly picked over by the journalistic archaeologists – that is, historians.

News organisations can but do their best to get the ‘real story’ and many journalists operate independently in pursuit of that, uninhibited by the culture or brand they serve.

It is that skilled individual that the public must depend on. The attempt to regulate news providers to make them impartial is futile.

The only real means of maintaining energetic scrutiny by journalists is to promote competition in news media – and this will not happen until there are curbs on the technology platforms and tax funded institutions in the UK and Ireland that control or manipulate the gateway for news provision.

Journalistic leadership has never been as important in interpreting and analysing shock events – rising above the noise and also above the apathy of those who prefer to avoid grim or shocking news.

The independent, diligent and expert messenger interpreting shock events – and their freedom of expression – remain essential to the democratic process.​​

• David Montgomery is executive chairman of Nationalworld, owner of the News Letter and other newspapers including The Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post