By LENA MITCHELL

Although I have always loved to write, my early career took me on a different path which wound its way through a degree in psychology and jobs in health care counseling, health care administration and deaf education, before landing in journalism.

In 1980, when I was working in Washington, D.C., I wrote a letter to the editor at the Washington Post, which ended up in the “feature box” on the editorial page.

The letter I wrote challenged the premise of an article written by a reporter whose reporting of her subject was not very deep. I thought the perspective she presented on the topic was skewed, and since it was a subject I knew extensively, I offered an alternative way of looking at the issue.
 
That may have been the moment I first thought to make a career change to journalism. After years of reading the Washington Post, I felt I could probably do as good a job of presenting information to readers for them to better understand societal issues.

I thought to also provide ordinary citizens – voters – with the information they need to be good consumers and elect the most effective representatives of their interests.

I grew up in a strongly political household – my mother, born in 1911, a lifelong Republican, and my dad , born in 1906, a die-hard Democrat. For many years before the height of the Civil Rights Era they had to run a gauntlet each time they went to the polls to vote, enduring literacy exams, poll taxes and whatever other barriers opponents of African American enfranchisement thrown in their way.

Racial integration in the South was in its infancy when I left Mississippi, and it was 25 years after I left that I returned. With a master’s degree in journalism and public affairs, I sought to make a difference through my reporting, hoping readers in turn would use the information to improve the quality of their lives, both in their households and in the voting booth.

I believe it was dedicated journalists and reporters in Alabama that gave voters the information they needed to defeat controversial candidate Roy Moore in a special election earlier this month for the state’s second senate seat.
 
The electorate was duly informed about both candidates, and came out in record numbers to choose the best representative of their interests.
During the past year we’ve seen numerous aspects of our democracy challenged by a presidential administration that seems intent on undermining the cornerstones of government and the fair and just society – the strong democracy – generations of Americans have worked to build.
But as the watchdog of government, journalism has held strong in all its permutations – print, broadcast, online, social media – to bolster an informed society and electorate.
As this tumultuous 2017 winds to a close, I think the strength and reach of good journalism is a factor well worth appreciating.
We’ll need more and more of it in the years to come.