The question I wish toddlers might ask less and journalists ask more

Anyone who has ever spent any time in the presence of a toddler knows the question to which I refer: Why?

Toddlers ask it about everything: Why?

You patiently provide an explanation that you are certain is both accurate and sufficient. The toddler does not accept the sufficiency of your answer: But why? The responses to this repeated question last about as long as your patience, thus potentially growing briefer and more terse with each repeated inquiry.

But the question becomes ever more insistent until, finally,

Why?

And the answer becomes: Because I said so.

There is nothing more to add. The explanatory cup has been drained dry. And, sometimes, surely, this is right and proper: There really is nothing more to say.

In contrast, modern journalism: The public official says something, either on the record, from a podium, behind a screen of microphones, or surreptitiously, at a meeting in a coffeehouse or in a hushed and hurried telephone call. The journalist reports it -- whatever it is -- unquestioningly.

Well... not necessarily uncritically: If the public official has a different political allegiance than the journalist, there will be no surreptitious contact, unless the surreptitious contact is a "leaker" who professes one allegiance, or at least neutrality, in order to maintain his or her position, but practices another. The journalist may report what the public official states from the podium, at least to some extent, before assuring his or her readers or listeners that the official is wrong, or has no evidence to support a claim made, or before reporting about others who disagree with the public official, but agree with the journalist's point of view.

But the one thing seldom asked, by journalists, is "why?" Why is that?

Oh, sometimes, on an interview show perhaps, one may respond to a statement from a public official with a refutation. Something like, most experts say your position is a heaping pile of rubbish, and brand you as a lunatic for making this assertion -- how do you respond to that? This kind of response avoids discussion of the merits of the underlying assertion, focusing instead on the official's competence, and maybe his or her faculties, and establishes the interviewer's bona fides as an unwavering opponent of the public official in question. A win-win in some circles.

But not a win for journalism.

Journalism should be about the satisfaction of curiosity. Not just the curiosity of the journalist, but the anticipated curiosity of the citizen-reader. Journalism should be about asking why. Why isn't it?

Part of the reason is historical: We profess a devotion to a free press -- indeed, the Founding Fathers specifically included freedom of the press in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. One of the Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, famously said, "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." He also proclaimed, "were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

But -- and this is why history is so darn interesting -- Jefferson also surreptitiously sponsored, and financed with public funds (he gave the editor a part-time job with the State Department), an anti-Washington newspaper, the National Gazette, while still serving as Washington's Secretary of State. Jefferson and Madison and their supporters would go on to found, and fund, others after the National Gazette folded. Don't worry: The Federalists had their own papers, too. The New York Post was originally founded by Alexander Hamilton.

So -- historically -- from the earliest days of the Republic -- we have had a free press, but not an independent one; rather, we have traditionally had a press that is free to follow the political bent of the editor and publisher, or the person pulling the strings of the editor and publisher. When there were lots of papers -- think of all the different phones in the press room in The Front Page (or its best remake, His Girl Friday) -- a reader could consume several versions of an event and perhaps triangulate the truth. It is not true that Mark Twain said a person who does not read a newspaper is uninformed, but a person who reads only one is misinformed.

But he could have. It's certainly true today. And the saying should be updated: A person who gets their news from only one media outlet (think Fox News or MS NOW) is certain to be misinformed... or, at best, partially informed. (Do you realize your kids or grandkids are more likely to look to TikTok for news than CNN?)

I am not certain where the idea that we have, or should have, an independent free press came from. It's a kind of romantic notion, fueled perhaps by movies like Deadline - U.S.A. I do know I was raised on this notion. Perhaps you were, too.

This doesn't mean that we always thought the press got things right. Hardly! It was common, once, to regard newspapers as the rough first draft of history. And what did your English teachers say about rough first drafts? The 24-hour cable news cycle has not improved things one iota either.

But maybe a little independence -- actual independence -- not implacable opposition to one side, or slavish devotion to the other -- might improve the quality of journalism immensely. And journalists can start by simply asking everyone "why?"