Thank you Tom, and greetings to our distinguished guests. I’d like to talk a few minutes about the role and responsibility of the press and the theme of the conference, the pursuit of peace in a time of global crisis. That’s quite a role and quite a responsibility. We live in interesting times; we live in dangerous times. Martin Luther King reminded us a quarter of a century ago that there can be no peace without justice, and we live in a world where there often is no justice. I cite North Korea, Cuba, and certain nations of the Middle East where justice is denied and genuine peace is a stranger to those who live there.

Like it or not, we are at war, a war not between civilizations – but something worse, a war between civilization itself and the forces of barbarism. President Bush has been criticized in certain quarters by taking the war on terror into Iraq, but I call your attention to the fact that only yesterday, John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, made a point of saying that he disagreed with President Bush only on the means, not on the ultimate goal. No matter who wins the presidency in November, the war on terror is not likely to change very much. Many years ago I was assigned to go to Vietnam to cover a war. Being a war correspondent is a very glamorous and sought-after assignment. Now many of our reporters often deal with the dangers faced by war correspondents without the glamour of reporting from exotic locales.

This charges the press with a very particular responsibility. We have a responsibility to be a responsible tribune. First of all we must report the news without fear, obtaining as much information as we can about as many things that we can and reporting it quickly and, above all, to get it right. Further, we have the responsibility to make sure that all legitimate voices are heard in the debate, to give these legitimate voices a turn at the bully pulpit. We take that responsibility very seriously here at The Times. We try to have all points of view represented on our editorial and commentary pages and on our worldwide website, which by the way you can read every morning at www.washingtontimes.com.

When The Times was founded in 1982 we were given only one charge by Rev. Moon: to be fair to all; never to spread propaganda but to be faithful in all the large and small things to the greater cause of freedom, faith and family. The Times was to be a newspaper to hold high the values of freedom, faith and family when those values are under assault from the forces of vulgarity, little faith, and a lot of skepticism. Readers of The Times quickly notice that we do not print vulgarity; we never allow profanity in our news columns. Even if a president says something off-color, we might clean it up a bit, because we are visitors in our readers’ homes. Just as we would not go into your home and use vulgar and profane language, we will not allow that in our newspaper, either.

Although the founding vision was that of a religious figure, a man of another country and even another culture, The Times has never championed one religious denomination or doctrine above any other, and The Times will never mock faith and belief. Our editorial pages will proselytize only for the principles that liberate men and women from the tyranny of closed minds. We call ourselves “America’s Newspaper” not because we think we’re the most important newspaper in America— although if you want to think that, I’m not going to argue with you— but because we uphold the founding values of this country.

None of this would have been possible without the patient generosity of Rev. Moon and his colleagues, and the autonomy and the editorial independence that he has guaranteed to the men and women who produce a newspaper that speaks to the world every morning in a loud and independent voice. We’ve never been told to put anything in the newspaper, and we’ve never been told to keep anything out of the newspaper. This is an unlikely enterprise. There is the cultural divide to overcome, not only between East and West but between a founder and his colleagues, all devout and religious men, and in the newsroom an eccentric collection of rogues and scamps and vagabonds, the kind of people you will always find in a newsroom, some of us barely respectable enough to be invited into polite parlors. We are by nature and training skeptical of nearly everything, as good newspaper men and women must be. We live by the famous newsroom axiom: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

American newspapers have a special place in our society. A free press is guaranteed in our Constitution. The First Amendment is plain and direct: “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech . . . or of the press.” That’s unique in the world. You’ll note that our Constitution does not say anything about guaranteeing a responsible press, only a guarantee of a free press. Those of us of the press have the responsibility to make it responsible.

Peace is a word that is often abused, both by despots and small-d democrats. There can be no peace without freedom for the mind, because as long as there are men and women with a yearning in their hearts to breathe free — in the words on our Statue of Liberty— there will be agitation for liberty. Such men and women will always be disturbers of that false peace.

There is peace this morning North Korea. There is peace in Cuba. But it is not the peace that any of us here could tolerate. The ultimate responsibility of a free press is to give heart and hand to disturbers of the false peace, because as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King reminded us, until all men are free, none of us are free. This is the responsibility that we here at The Washington Times accept cheerfully and are determined to discharge to the best of our abilities as God gives us the wisdom and ability to do so.

We’re proud of our newspaper, and while we take what we do very seriously, we try not to take ourselves seriously. In this town that puts us in the ranks of the unusual. Thank you for coming to see us, and come back soon.