Our nation’s first president, George Washington, said “truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.”

In today’s world, though, we are often left wondering — will it really be brought to light? Can it be?

Thanks to Covid and social media, bringing the truth to light has become far more difficult to do. Why? one might ask. Because everyone has a different version of the truth — their own. And few really want to know the actual truth; instead they only prefer the version of truth that best fits their lifestyle or their politics.

It’s why many folks have a problem with the Bible. With parts of it written over 2,000 years ago (or longer), people often scoff at the truths that lie within it, believing the writings and teachings of the Old and New testaments cannot reflect the truth in today’s society. Of course, those writings, God’s word, are the most prevalent truths we will ever hope to find. It’s why ministers continue to bring it to light.

On a different level, newspapers also continue to shed light on the truth. Newspapers have always been beacons of truth, particularly local ones whose focus is on keeping local leaders honest and working fairly for the communities in which they live.

But the onslaught of social media platforms coupled with the restrictions Covid placed on society for a period of time has changed the dynamics of where some people look for their news and how, in many cases, news is dispersed to a public apparently eager to lap it up.

Covid restrictions prevented local reporters, for example, from attending meetings, where they were able to listen to school board members, county commissioners and city councils talk about issues, watching their body language and the way they reacted to the matters being discussed, and then report that to the reading public, offering all sides of an issue for the public to digest and then use to form their own opinions.

During that same time, the public was prevented from attending meetings on their own, in person.

That, in turn, brought on the influx of press releases — glorified one-sided information put out by any and all government entities to supposedly inform the public. The problem with those releases are the fact that they tell “the truth” from one perspective and one perspective only — that of the person or agency releasing it. There is no vetting of information, and those providing it are offering the public their version of the truth, and, unfortunately, more and more people are accepting it without digging deeper, seeking answers to questions that should arise.

The same is true of politicians who use social media as their bully pulpit, providing readers their one-sided version of an issue with hopes that you will take it as the gospel, without vetting, without ever considering there is more to the story than is being providing.

While there is nothing wrong, generally, with press releases and social media posts, the danger lies in accepting either on face value, without the history, without the pieces being left out that make a partial truth the actual truth.

You see truth has somehow become synonymous with opinion, much like the words on this page. People often confuse our Opinion page with the stories written on our front page, not completely understanding the difference. Newspapers, as beacons of the truth, are supposed to provide fair and equal coverage of any subject. That is what front page stories and those within the paper are meant to do with each publication, with the exception of the Opinion page. This page is just as it says — space devoted to editorial thought, a newspaper’s or a columnists, their opinions for issues. Like the social media post and the press release, this page offers the way we see things. Readers are meant to review it, vet it and then decide for themselves how to feel and respond.

It is our hope that those who read social media posts or re-shared press releases will stop long enough to do the same thing we ask when reading this page — absorb it, vet it, research and research some more, finding the truth.

Truth, an old quote says, is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away. All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.