Despite the rise of fake news, facts still matter.

President-elect Donald Trump is ensconced in his penthouse at the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York, mulling over what should be done to Americans who burn the flag: “Perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” he tweets. This, despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared flag burning constitutionally protected free speech under the First Amendment.

On CNN, reporter Alisyn Camerota recently had a cringe-worthy discussion with a group of Trump supporters, one of whom declared that in California, at least 3 million “illegals” voted in the presidential election because President Barack Obama encouraged them to do so. Camerota, aghast at what she’s hearing, asks the group where they got their information; one woman tells her “It’s on Facebook.” A woman in the group insists California allows “illegals” to vote, prompting Camerota to slap her hand over her forehead in exasperation.

Closer to home, we have a sheriff’s press office that has abdicated any pretense of behaving responsibly toward the press; rather than emailing notices of press conferences or news releases to the few working journalists left in Monterey County, the department is slapping such information on Twitter and Facebook – and the press only found out about it when they started asking why they hadn’t been notified of a press conference. There are local government agencies that ignore California Public Records Act requests – I’m still waiting for a response to one I sent eight months ago, for example – and public employees and officials who don’t return phone calls. And in this last election cycle, we saw an unprecedented amount of money – $5.5 million – spent by Big Oil to oppose a ballot initiative, and the methods Big Oil employed were rife with lies about jobs, education and public services like policing and fire protection.

Gentle reader, this is more than just me, a media professional, whining. It’s our responsibility to keep the public informed with accurate and timely information and analysis. If the entities we’re tasked with covering have decided that it’s no longer important for the public to hear the truth, then the public can no longer make informed decisions about how they want their government to run.

That’s unacceptable.

That led to a discussion at the Weekly: How do we address the fact there’s a new landscape for the media, one in which it is under siege in a very public way, and in which the election of Trump has validated that?

From this point on, the paper should devote space each week to transparently cover its own reporting; to explain the issues of trying to get access to officials and public records; to spotlight locals exercising their First Amendment rights; and to cover the national media landscape. That space, called “Free Speech,” launched on the Buzz Page (p. 8) on Nov. 17.

Weekly founder and CEO Bradley Zeve points out that Trump’s anti-media rhetoric – using Twitter to bash critics, employing a campaign manager who suggested a New York Times editor should be jailed for publishing a portion of Trump’s tax returns, ridiculing reporters like NBC’s Katy Tur – could have drastic consequences for democracy. At the very least, the press serves as a check and balance to governmental action and keeping those in power accountable.

“We live in a country that is great because we have an open and mostly transparent governmental process, in contrast to any totalitarian regime,” Zeve says. “While the professional media is by no means perfect, there are hundreds of examples where the press has utilized its legal rights and diligent processes to uncover and report unethical or illegal actions, offering fair reporting that is a net gain for its community.”

Maybe the Weekly is an outlier in demanding public officials act in the public interest, and in demanding transparency in how government operates. The column exists so the Weekly can keep its readership informed about issues of free speech, and reveal examples of where it’s been impeded. (Email tips to freespeech@mcweekly.com.)

Regardless of political persuasion, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the California Public Records Act and state open meeting laws are things we should all be able to get behind.

MARY DUAN writes The Local Spin for the Monterey County Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com