Reply #2: Freedom of the Press (part 2)

[H2O Man]

"The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments."
-- Thomas Jefferson; Article XIV of the Virginia Declaration of Rights

"None of the means of information are more sacred, or have been cherished with more tenderness and care by the settlers of America, than the press ... Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom whatever can be warrented by the laws of your country; nor suffer yourselves to be wheeled out of your liberty by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice."
-- John Adams; Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law; "Works" (Boston, 1856) III, pg 457.

"The more I consider the independence of the press in its principal consequences, the more am I convinced that in the modern world it is the chief and so to speak, the constitutive element of liberty."
--Alexis de Tocqueville; Democracy in America; Vol i, Ch. 12.

In our nation's past, a number of presidents had bitter relationships with the press. Lincoln temporarily suppressed newspapers, and JFK pressured editors to not print information in times of crisis. But I think that there is general agreement that the current administration represents the greatest threat to a free press. In large part, that is due to the corporate nature of the large "main stream" media sources. But it is also due to an abuse of the idea of self-restraint in times of crisis, as well as the under-handed manipulation of the news.

Yet older DUers who survived the Nixon years will agree that his administration had an open war on the free press. It was at times very ugly. I searched through Schlesinger's work (The Imperial Presidency) to find examples that readers may find interesting. I think that we should keep fresh the idea that the Bush2 administration is really the darkest parts of the Nixon administration back in power.

Here are a few examples:

1- In the case of the Pentagon Papers, they tried to impose prior restraint on the publication of news. This had never been tried before.

2-Nixon ordered the phones of reporters he deemed as "enemies" to be tapped.

3- His press secretary lied to reporters for months, and when exposed as a liar, "blandly declared his deceptions 'inoperative.'" (Schlesinger; pg 230).

4- VP Agnew topured the country in what Schlesinger called a "jihad" against the press and those reporters he found dangerous.

5-The Dept of justice attempted to subpoena the records of reporters.

6- Nixon's acting head of the FBI said that news reporters were "too much a part of the culture of disparagement which threatens to destroy all respect for established institutions."

7- The White House threatened to subject networks to antitrust prosecution if they didn't feature select conservatives as representing "mainstream America." One White House official actually denounced "ideological plugola," and threatened that, "Station managers and network officials who fail to correct the imbalance or consistent bias from the networks -- or who acquiesce by silence -- can only be considered willing participants, to be held fully accountable .... at license-renewal time."

Senator Sam Ervin commented, "The Administration assaulted the very integrity of the press and called into question its right to disagree with official views."

Sounds familiar, eh? We have a lot of history to learn from -- and to teach the public -- when we examine our nation's history from George Washington, who never told a lie, to George W. Bush, who seems incapable of doing much but lying.