General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA FREE PRESS NEEDS YOU - By The NYT Editorial Board (first of the 200 edits scheduled for tomorrow)
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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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/15/opinion/editorials/free-press-local-journalism-news-donald-trump.html
If you are able to go to the NYT, get past the pay-wall, scroll down to the bottom of the Editorial, you can pick a state you want to see an editorial from. All of the newspapers running this type editorial will be listed.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)elleng
(130,895 posts)Let me know what state you'd like to see, DUers.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/15/opinion/editorials/free-press-local-journalism-news-donald-trump.html?
Ron Green
(9,822 posts)That one?
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(49,001 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(49,001 posts)Everytime somebody says something good or does something good, there is always a naysayer who pops up and says "What about this awful thing that happened? They are forever tainted and I won't listen and they can do no good. Cover my ears. La-la-la-la-la"
Such what-about-ism is the suffocation and strangulation of important messages that need to be heard, such as the OP editorial.
hunter
(38,311 posts)...with a library card.
Check it out. You may not have to spend money you don't have on a subscription, or skulk around in incognito windows.
BigmanPigman
(51,590 posts)since they don't participate in "campaigns".