“Democracy dies in darkness,” they tell us, the implication being that it is only the torch held aloft by the nation’s brave media folk that keeps the light of freedom glowing in the gathering dusk of an authoritarian age. It’s true that in the absence of independent, trusted sources of information, power accrues without accountability. But there’s no hint in this declaration of their own indispensability or the role journalists themselves have played in undermining the public trust.