I’m signing off, but readers need to stay on. Democracy depends on it | Opinion

“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.” — Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father and co-publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette

After editing and writing at The News & Observer since 1991, including writing about sports for eight years and writing for the opinion section since 2013, this is my last column and my last day is Friday.

What an honor to do this work in a state so rich with wise and dedicated people.

I’m grateful to all those who took my calls and who were willing to contribute their knowledge and expertise to the public.

I’m particularly grateful to those readers who called or sent supportive emails. It takes time and intention to do that, and it can help keep a writer going.

I also value those who disagreed with me. It’s good to have your opinions contested; it’s how you learn.

I tried to write about a variety of issues and to bring independent reporting to what I wrote. A reader shouldn’t just read an opinion, they should learn something from it.

I got into this business in the wake of Watergate. It was a time when reporters, briefly, were heroes. When they made a movie about Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, they were played by the movie stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

Now, of course, mainstream reporters are battered by the White House as purveyors of “fake news” and “horrible people.” But the denigration only demonstrates how important it is that journalists continue to report the truth and hold the powerful to account.

The last decade or so brought a radical shift in state and national politics. When Republicans took full control of the General Assembly following the 2010 election, it was more significant for what it ended than for what it began.

What ended was a long run of moderate but progressive leadership that had sparked the creation of the Research Triangle and the University of North Carolina System, two engines that have pulled the state forward and ahead of most of the South. Now we have legislative leaders obsessed with tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy at the expense of education and public services.

The election of Donald Trump as president in 2016 and his bewildering return brought a national sweep to what lawmakers were already doing in North Carolina: stifling voting rights, punishing the poor, serving the rich, polarizing the courts, attacking immigrants and intimidating universities.

For all that, there are signs that the people of North Carolina and in the U.S. may yet bring the state and the nation back to pursuing its ideals, to being what we are as one nation and what that nation needs to be to the world.

Consider the huge No Kings crowds, the resistance to ICE’s brutal tactics by the people of the Twin Cities, the flowering of independent online news sites, Trump’s sinking approval rating and the thousands of teachers who will converge on Raleigh this week to demand better pay and improved schools.

To travel a better path, the people of North Carolina and the nation need to be informed. That depends on readers as much as writers. Reporters and editors at The News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer are doing their best to keep the public aware and the powerful under scrutiny. I hope you will continue to support their efforts.

All Americans, to whom this 250-year-old democracy is entrusted, have a responsibility to pay attention, to question authority and to take action, whether it be demonstrating, contributing, volunteering, voting or supporting a free press.

Thanks to each of you for continuing to take this responsibility seriously.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@newsobserver.com

This story was originally published April 30, 2026 at 9:51 AM.