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A Free Press Needs You
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/15/opinion/editorials/free-press-local-journalism-news-donald-trump.htmlA Free Press Needs You
By The Editorial Board
AUG. 15, 2018
In 1787, the year the Constitution was adopted, Thomas Jefferson famously wrote to a friend, Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
Thats how he felt before he became president, anyway. Twenty years later, after enduring the oversight of the press from inside the White House, he was less sure of its value. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper, he wrote. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.
Jeffersons discomfort was, and remains, understandable. Reporting the news in an open society is an enterprise laced with conflict. His discomfort also illustrates the need for the right he helped enshrine. As the founders believed from their own experience, a well-informed public is best equipped to root out corruption and, over the long haul, promote liberty and justice.
Public discussion is a political duty, the Supreme Court said in 1964. That discussion must be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.
In 2018, some of the most damaging attacks are coming from government officials. Criticizing the news media for underplaying or overplaying stories, for getting something wrong is entirely right. News reporters and editors are human, and make mistakes. Correcting them is core to our job. But insisting that truths you dont like are fake news is dangerous to the lifeblood of democracy. And calling journalists the enemy of the people is dangerous, period.
These attacks on the press are particularly threatening to journalists in nations with a less secure rule of law and to smaller publications in the United States, already buffeted by the industrys economic crisis. And yet the journalists at those papers continue to do the hard work of asking questions and telling the stories that you otherwise wouldnt hear. Consider The San Luis Obispo Tribune, which wrote about the death of a jail inmate who was restrained for 46 hours. The account forced the county to change how it treats mentally ill prisoners.
Answering a call last week from The Boston Globe, The Times is joining hundreds of newspapers, from large metro-area dailies to small local weeklies, to remind readers of the value of Americas free press. These editorials, some of which weve excerpted, together affirm a fundamental American institution.
If you havent already, please subscribe to your local papers. Praise them when you think theyve done a good job and criticize them when you think they could do better. Were all in this together.
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A Free Press Needs You (Original Post)
dalton99a
Aug 2018
OP
Grasswire2
(13,569 posts)1. we are collecting all these three hundred editorials in one thread.
Can you put the link to this there?
dalton99a
(81,486 posts)3. I see that you've done it - thanks!
Nitram
(22,801 posts)2. I've been a strong defender of responsible print media on DU.
I am always dismayed at the attacks here on the best reporting and journalism we have.