The Irony of the Free Press

The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees to the people, among other things, a free press unencumbered and uncensored by government.  It is the ideal expressed by Thomas Jefferson that a self-governed people have a duty to be informed by independent sources, and these sources have a duty to Truth.  The trick today, however, seems to be finding reliable sources and discerning “fact” from “opinion”.

This perpetual battle between President Trump and the media may seem disturbing to some, perceived as an effort by the government to suppress or infringe upon a free press.  So I find profound irony in the idea that a free press calls government to account and yet balks at being called to account not only by the president but by the people as well.

News used to be restricted only to a daily newspaper and the six o’clock television news.  There was a clear distinction between “fact” and “opinion”.  The so-called “fourth estate”, once held in high regard, maintained a high and necessary standard of responsible journalism, keeping the public informed, and protecting its reputation as reliable.

Today, in the age of unfettered opinion and an Internet that has made “journalists” of most everyone with an opinion (including myself), there is not only no longer a clear distinction between “fact” and “opinion”; there seems also lacking any measure of accountability.  The government is held to account by a free press, but who can call a free press to account?

It is impossible not to have some measure of bias, whether in politics, philosophy, or religion.  Those who believe themselves to be completely free of bias only kid themselves.  Bias is part of our human nature, but this bias can serve us well when we understand and learn to appreciate its usefulness.  What “I” may feel strongly about is tempered by “your” own passions and beliefs.  It is the acknowledgment that “I” alone cannot know all things but must have “your” perspective to draw a reasonable conclusion.  Sometimes (perhaps often) our biases can run away with us, and this is the foundation of the ongoing conflict.

The president seems to be at war with the media, and the media seem slanted against this president (depending on the source).  A recent effort was proposed by the Boston Globe to get all news outlets to write editorials defending a free press against a perceived effort by the president to suppress.  As was written in The Globe’s editorial, “The whole project is not anti-Trump; it is really pro-press” (https://apps.bostonglobe.com/opinion/graphics/2018/08/freepress/).

I will agree, at least in part, with some of the editorials insisting the press is not “the enemy; it is the people”.  What I do not agree with is the press’s seeming insistence that it cannot – or should not - be held accountable by some other than itself.  The president and many of his supporters (yes, including Fox News as well as others) have called out certain news sources as not only unreliable but just this side of libelous, reporting “facts” not clearly established.  There are suspicions, there are opinions, there are perceptions, but “facts” seem to be mere speculation of what could be rather than what actually is.

I think of so many cases in which those accused of crimes, whose names and faces are splashed across front pages around the country pretty much seal the doom of the accused.  Not only are these determined to be guilty before they’ve had the benefit of a trial, but often their lives are completely upended and ultimately ruined.  If they are exonerated and vindicated, the damage has already been done.  The passion of a people is stirred to the point of irrationality, and the guaranteed right of a fair trial is rendered impossible.  In some cases, a perverted sense of vigilante justice puts not only the accused but those charged to protect them in very real danger.

The public has a right to know, and a free press is a necessary instrument of that right.  Yet any “right” exercised without a profound sense of duty and social responsibility can only become anarchy, the evidence of such found all around us today. 

What drives so much of the cynicism, suspicions, and frustrations of the masses is the reality that the press (and independent “journalists”) have collectively muddied the waters and blurred the line between “fact” and “opinion”, especially citing “sources not authorized to speak”.  It seems a clever way to insert an “opinion” without accountability because we can never know the true source.

It is little wonder the press is struggling for its character.  It is not solely because of President Trump’s accusations.  He has only said what so many have suspected for so long: a free press is necessary to a free people, but an unencumbered press not held to account by an independent source is as dangerous and as volatile as an armed mob.

Yet just as surely as Thomas Jefferson defended the necessity of a free press, he also maintained the responsibility of a public to read and to discern.  For if it can truly be said that if “the press is the people”, given the uncertainty of reliable sources, it does not speak well of what we have become.