Guy Rocha cared deeply about the truth.

Oh, how we need more like him now.

Rocha, the state archivist for nearly three decades, died last week. But we can only hope his spirit, dedicated to ensuring misconceptions about Nevada history were corrected, lives on in government and in journalism.

Never have the values Rocha stood for been more salient, never have fact-checking and the search for truth been more important. It’s rare that anyone reveals their core beliefs in the epigrams they append to emails as clearly as Rocha did in his eclectic collection. To wit:

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”  – William James

“I shall only say that the repetition of an error does not make it true.” – Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Senate Confirmation Hearing for Supreme Court Justice, January 12, 1939

“At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice.” – Gore Vidal

I have dozens of emails from Rocha in my archived inbox, filled with assistance in my research for a column or my TV show, corrections on something I wrote or was about to write and always-pithy commentary about recent events contextualized with the rich history of our quirky state.

Rocha was always concerned — as we should all be — with what Frankfurter said so long ago and has been amplified by the advent of social media. Rocha hated when mistakes became embedded as fact in media coverage or history books; he strived to correct them, to chasten reporters who repeated them. He was firm but kind, a gentle teacher who knew most journalists mean well but don’t always get the facts right.

The 2020 election was stolen. Joe Biden was of sound mind and body throughout his term.

Just saying it over and over doesn’t make it so, and it is our job to do what Rocha always did: Ferret out the truth and publish it, say it — scream it if necessary — as many times as needed.

As the great journalist Frank X. Mullen told The Indy’s Kate Reynolds in her beautiful obituary, Rocha was “like an evangelist for Nevada history.” If journalism, as the cliché goes, is the first draft of history, our job is to make sure that first draft is not riddled with errors or replete with non-fact-checked statements from the powers that be. We should be evangelists for getting the story right and shaking off the torrent of criticism that comes toward anyone who dares defy the left or the right, who lets the chips fall where they may.

This is not easy, with all the pressure to conform or pull punches, nor was what Rocha did a walk in the park. He was painstaking and patient, finding original sources to quote to make his case for what really happened. He was a debunking artist, a marvel of truth-seeking.

Rocha also knew how impressionable the public is, how the superstition, misinformation and prejudice Vidal spoke of can result in a confused, malleable populace. People are not dumb, but they have lives to live, kids to raise, mortgages to pay. It’s our job to give them what they need amid that chaos, to cut through it, to provide clarity.

We try to do that every day at The Indy, and so do many others in Nevada and elsewhere. Surrendering to the geyser of lies, the hordes of trolls, is not an option.

Rocha had retreated from public life for many years, but he would not have let us retreat from finding out the facts and presenting them to the public. It seems Sisyphean at times, but so many Fourth Estaters out there are fighting the good fight.

The truth is more elusive than when Rocha and I started in our respective businesses. The world is less black and white than we thought when we were young, and the gray is real and often foggy. But we have to be the beacon shining the light, undeterred and unbowed.

Rocha would have wanted it that way. And oh, how we need more Guy Rochas now.