I’ve had a tough time processing the loss of The Interrobang. It’s not just about this paper—although I am sad to see it go—but rather how it represents a microcosm of the overall state of journalism today. Things aren’t looking too great.

The world around us is accelerating at a rapid pace and I do believe we’re living through a sequence of events not too dissimilar from those we studied in school—periods of global destabilization that became turning points for civilizations throughout history. We look back and study those events but, generally, we’re not well-equipped to recognize and make sense of those pivotal moments in real time. Things are happening around us too quickly, we’re not very good at separating the important stuff from the distractions, and all this new technology that was meant to advance humanity has only left us bogged down in a cesspool of misinformation, mistrust and division. However, we still have one crucial tool to help us stay informed: quality, independent journalism—but we have to fight harder to keep it.

Independent journalism—your voice, eyes and ears in this crazy world—is under threat. We’re seeing the President of the United States bar journalists from the White House if he doesn’t like their coverage. In Canada, we heard that one of the major parties running in this election will not allow journalists to travel with them on the campaign. Public broadcasters are facing threats to funding. We’ve already seen news outlets across our country bought by private corporations, allowing them to push their own agendas under the guise of journalism. And yes, even right here at Fanshawe, this very publication—meant to give students a voice and hold both the college and the student union accountable—is being shuttered to fund, of all things, a new social media team and another (well-paid) full-time management position. But no one seems to care as we descend full-speed into a real-world version of Idiocracy in which an ever-growing number of people are content to just ignore the world around them—or worse, to “do their own research” on YouTube and TikTok.

As one of the last writers for The Interrobang, here’s my final plea to you: start caring. There are too many people in this world who want nothing more than to see us ill-informed and apathetic. They are actively striving for it every single day and they have the resources to keep it up. Democracy dies in darkness, and they are shutting off the lights one by one. More than ever before we need news we can trust, presented with accuracy and integrity by qualified professionals—not TikTokkers or corporate mouthpieces. Independent journalism has long been the driving force in leading people through the swamp of bullshit that is spewed into the world each and every day—separating fact from falsehood with hard evidence and keeping people aware of what is really going on around them. We cannot lose that—because we don’t know exactly where the world is heading right now, but it is shaping up to be one hell of a bumpy ride.

If we let the lights go dark now, we will not like what we see when they come back on.