As deputy managing editor of Herald Community Newspapers, I am privileged to work alongside a staff of honest and creative reporters and editors who deliver the local news that you’re used to receiving. They embody what it means to be a strong journalist, acting with integrity and passion, which is reflected in every story we write and share with the communities that we love to cover.
The ethos I’m describing embodies the pillars of American journalism — a press that thrives on freedom and a drive to seek the truth and report it.
Many of my former colleagues — my good friends — have moved on from their time with the Herald to apply that passion in other media circuits, delivering more, albeit different, news to readers close to home and nationally, too.
In a media climate so polarized, where it may feel difficult to decipher right from wrong and the truth from exaggerations, it’s important to remember that we are privileged to live in a country where we can ask questions.
We can challenge what we’re told. We can yearn for more than what appears in black and white.
A few weeks ago, I attended the 2026 Marie Colvin Distinguished Lecture at Stony Brook University, hosted by the school’s Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting. The center was established in memory of Colvin, a fearless war correspondent who was raised on Long Island and died on the front lines of the Syrian civil war in 2012.
The featured speaker was Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian politician and journalist who was arrested in Moscow in 2022 and sentenced to 25 years in prison for “high treason” for opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Kara-Murza spent over two years in prison, including 11 months in solitary confinement. His release in 2024 was orchestrated by the Biden administration, and part of the largest prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Russia since the Cold War.
For the writing he completed while in prison, Kara-Murza was awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
He was the type of speaker who drew you in from the start, painting a bleak picture of what it’s like to be a journalist in Russia, a place where independent media voices have been not only silenced but directly targeted for telling the truth. He named fellow writers — many of them friends — who were killed by the Russian government. Kara-Murza himself has survived two suspected poisonings in the past decade, marked for his relentless, fearless, truthful reporting.
His opening thoughts captivated me. “There’s nothing dictatorships hate more than the truth,” he said, “and the first targets in that quest for absolute power are usually, almost always, independent media voices.”
In Russia, the press is never protected.
In the U.S., by contrast, federal courts usually appear committed to upholding the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. Just two weeks ago, federal courts ruled that the Pentagon’s newly implemented press policy, which bars news outlets from reporting information not officially sanctioned for release, is a violation of the amendment.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman wrote in his ruling that it was “more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what the government is doing.” That, in essence, makes good journalism possible.
Kara-Murza made it clear that a democracy thrives only when its people put forth the effort to sustain it. He invoked Ben Franklin’s reminder that the United States was founded as “a republic, if you can keep it”— which resonates with renewed urgency.
I became a journalist because I love to write. I’m committed to upholding the values I believe in so strongly.
Like my Herald colleagues, I love telling your stories, and I love diving into the important topics I believe you, our readers, deserve to know about.
I can’t say that I’m as courageous as Vladimir Kara‑Murza, who embodies everything journalists should hope to be — fearless, principled, and unwavering in the pursuit of truth.
But his story reminds me why this work matters, and why we must never take our freedoms for granted. Every day that we can report honestly, ask challenging questions, and share your stories is a privilege — one I never intend to lose sight of.
Jordan Vallone, the deputy managing editor of Herald Community Newspapers, is a graduate student in Stony Brook University’s School of Communications and Journalism. Comments? jvallone@liherald.com.
