Would it be completely inappropriate for me to brag about my editorial team for a few minutes?

When a young black mother was gunned down in the nation's capital Oct. 3, 2013, for making a wrong turn, only one news organization in the world zeroed in on the case of overwhelmingly unnecessary deadly force.

WorldNetDaily has investigated the brutal, firing squad-style killing of Miriam Carey ever since.

My news organization has grilled police and federal officials who have stonewalled efforts to shed light on the details and facts of the case. We have filed Freedom of Information Act requests, which have been ignored for months. We have asked for surveillance video of the killing, which we know exists, to no avail. And most recently, we have filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department, quite possibly the architect of this cover-up, with the assistance of Judicial Watch.

Quite honestly, the work we have done on the Carey case is the kind of work that once won Pulitzer Prizes. I know because I have been in the news business long enough to have been involved with some of those awards.

But apparently, there's a whole new climate in the news business today. There is not so much regard for good old-fashioned shoe-leather investigative reporting of this kind as there was 25 or 30 years ago. Today deadly police shootings are only big deals when political activists fan the flames of hatred and racism, which results in riots. That's the kind of media environment that permitted innocent Miriam Carey to be killed in a hail of police gunfire without so much as a whimper of protest.

The good news is WND is not letting this case drop.

And neither is Carey's family.

The family's savvy attorney, Eric Sanders, just filed a $200 million lawsuit against the Justice Department, the U.S. Secret Service and the Capitol Police. That's on top of a $150 million wrongful death lawsuit already filed.

I believe that between the work of the family and the work of WND, there is a good chance justice can still be served. It won't bring back Miriam Carey. But it will serve to protect future Miriam Careys from being gunned down in the streets of Washington by out-of-control, overzealous police who think American citizens driving on the streets they paid for in the nation's capital represent an existential threat to the gilded political princes who reside there.

Perhaps you wonder why this case has meant so much to me and the WND team.

I'm a husband and a father to five daughters. My wife and some of my daughters drive in the District of Columbia. I know how confusing it can be with the barricades that have been constructed and deployed to safeguard public officials. After all the work we've done on the Carey case, I am as convinced today as I was the day of her death that she was a completely innocent victim — just a confused motorist who panicked when police started pointing guns at her and her baby and soon after fired wildly, as if they were on some Wild West TV show from the 1950s.

That means that what happened to Carey could happen to anyone — including my wife and my daughters or, less importantly, me.

Therefore, I take this kind of thing very personally. I grieve for Carey's family, especially her daughter, who will never know her mom.

That's what motivates me. And I think it motivates the WND team that has worked so hard to get to the truth, especially WND news editor Garth Kant, a veteran of CNN and MSNBC — but don't judge him too harshly for that resume.

I write this today because I just don't think the public fully appreciates what good reporting takes, what it costs and what it means to the public interest.

It's a lot more than babbling about your opinions on TV or a blog. It's expensive. It's difficult. It's sometimes dangerous. But it's all worth it in the end in the defense of lives and liberty.

To find out more about Joseph Farah and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.