This evening, Colby College will bestow the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award on John Burns of The New York Times, the premier war correspondent of his generation.

The award honors the Lovejoy legacy, a story of which we all should be mindful. Lovejoy, a 1826 graduate of Waterville College, as Colby was then known, was killed two days short of his 35th birthday, defending his abolitionist press in Alton, Ill.

America's first martyr to freedom of the press was cut down for speaking truth to power, allowing his citizens to read his views on the most pressing issue of the day.

Our nation's First Amendment press freedom was added to the Constitution as part of the Bill of Rights so that our citizenry could learn about governmental policies that would affect their lives. The freedom is from governmental regulation, from governmental restriction on what can be communicated in our democracy. The press must be free to criticize the government or else citizens cannot be adequately informed.

Even before the American Revolution, journalists stood tall in order to get the news to their readers. Peter Zenger was jailed for more than eight months in 1734 for his role in criticizing the Crown's representative in New York.

That jailing started a movement that led to the inclusion of freedom of the press in the First Amendment.

Throughout our nation's history, journalists have fought to protect their right to voice the truth.

Previous Lovejoy Award recipients stand among the giants of the modern press. Some were honored for specific acts and specific series of articles -- such as Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham for confronting the White House on Watergate and Jerry Mitchell, last year's honoree, for reopening long dormant civil-rights-era murder cases in the South. Others, such as David Halberstam and Cynthia Tucker, were cited for careers of reporting in the courageous tradition of Lovejoy.

None has been more deserving than Burns. The nation owes a special debt to war correspondents. They bring to our breakfast tables and television screens the true stories of the combat in which our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers are engaged.

Covering a war entails difficulties different from those facing other journalists. Access to accurate information is especially difficult to obtain. The government and the commanders in the field have certain stories they want to tell, and they have certain information they must keep secret.

Journalists want to give accurate accounts, but they do not want to increase the risks that our troops face. To gather information and to reach an accurate assessment of an evolving conflict, they must of necessity put themselves in harm's way.

Since 2003, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 112 journalists have been killed in Iraq as a result of hostile action, either while carrying out a dangerous assignment or in reprisal for their work.

Reporters Without Borders puts the numbers at 203, including press assistants. Others have died as a result of health issues or accidents. And scores more have been seriously injured.

The majority of these have been Iraqi journalists, but nearly half have been working for international news organizations. Seven of those killed were embedded with troops that came under hostile fire.

Those of the World War II generation remember Edward R. Murrow's reports on the London Blitz as coverage that crystallized an image of the war in Europe for Americans.

Those of my generation know that the work of David Halberstam and Walter Cronkite and others brought the true story of Vietnam home to our living rooms. Unfiltered news by brave men and women allowed the American people to read and see for themselves that the story told by our government was not always accurate.

And so it is today. The story of the war in Iraq is complex. The bravery of our troops is beyond question, but the effectiveness of our strategy and the extent to which success in any commonly understood sense is possible, are both subject to debate.

The skill and the bravery of Burns -- and of other reporters such as photojournalist Andrea Bruce, Portland Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz, and Chicago Tribune reporter Christine Spolar, all of whom will discuss their Iraqi war experiences on a panel at Colby this afternoon -- are beyond doubt.

So too is the effect they have had on informing the debate in this country.

That is why we have press freedom. And it is why continuing the Lovejoy tradition is so vital to our democracy.

L. Sandy Maisel is director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Colby College.