Read your newspapers. You won’t regret it.
Editor’s note: In celebration of National Newspaper Week, The Saline Courier will be publishing editorials in honor of local newspapers.
Igot an email the other day from my editor, reminding me that this is Newspaper Appreciation Week. With all that’s going on these days, the celebration is indeed timely.
The idea of a free and independent press is grounded in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The Amendment is now applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Constitution was ratified in
1789, and part of the ratification process was a promise to submit a Bill of Rights for ratification. James Madison was the principal author of the text of the Constitution, so it made sense that he would be one of the authors of the Bill of Rights, consisting of 10 amendments.
Originally, the First Amendment was thought to protect only political speech and press. Early on, however, it became apparent that there were many shades of gray. A novel with a political theme came to be looked on as protected.
Even poetry came to be considered protected. Walt Whitman’s works, for example, are without question protected.
By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that issue had gone away. No one could seriously consider the writings of Sinclair Lewis nonprotected. The Supreme Court has given decades of attention to the question of what is protected speech and press.
Things often turn ugly, and it’s almost always an attack by an authoritarian regime against the news media. It will start with sloganeering. Most notably that the media, whether broadcast or print, is the “enemy of the people.”
This was a phrase popularized by Joseph Stalin. Pretty soon the authoritarian regimes of Europe, gradually becoming dictatorships, would go on the attack.
Even today, authoritarian regimes are on the attack. In Turkey, reporters are routinely arrested and jailed indefinitely. The same is true for the Philippines. These are supposedly our allies. Turkey is even a member of NATO.
Some of the problem stems from state-run media. Authoritarian governments have their own newspapers and anything published independently is considered “competition.”
But that’s a pretext. Those regimes simply do not want criticism.
In contrast, the United States has a rich and valuable tradition of the press’s independence and freedom. There are monumental events that have occurred even in our lifetime. Examples include publication by
and of the Pentagon Papers, a secret, voluminous series of writings regarding the history of our involvement in Vietnam.
Also, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the Watergate scandal for what it was. And currently,
and are daily exposing the authoritarianism of the Trump administration. That’s what newspapers and the broadcast media are supposed to do.
Newspapers, particularly local papers, have an important function in our society. First, they are utilitarian. They tell you when the Lion’s Club meets. Second, they are fact-based. How would we know what went on at the City Council were it not for reporting in the paper?
And third, newspapers are opinion makers. This page has a variety of views that can inform the reader of facts so that he or she can form an opinion based on available evidence.
Just imagine how life would be without newspapers, whether
or
Things would be really bad. So, read your newspapers. You won’t regret it.
New York Times Post Courier The The Washington The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal The Saline The New York Times. George D. Ellis is a Benton attorney. He can be contacted at gellisinbenton@swbell.net.