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The Death of the Free Press….
….and the Death of Democracy
If something goes wrong with our free press, the country will go straight to hell. — I.F. Stone
Newspapers are gossip printed on the backs of advertisements. — Donald E. Koch
Arguably, the most important of Americans’ rights is embodied in the First Amendment, which includes the right to a free press. Without a free press, the ability publicly examine, analyze, and, if necessary, criticize the words and deeds of our leaders would not exist, thus leading us into the abyss of kakistocracy. Such is what we had during the Trump Administration.
During the 1890s to the 1920s, in the so-called “Progressive Era,” there was a tradition of muckraking, in which investigative journalists such as Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, Jacob Riis, Upon Sinclair, Charles Edward Russell, and many others took aim at corrupt practices in government, business, labor, health, housing, education, and the military, and eventually led to reforms leading to safer working conditions, lower working hours, better health care, the child labor laws, the right to unionize, safer housing, and many other improvements to American life.
The staid, upper-crust journalist, Walter Lippman, the New York-born son of transplanted German Jews who hid his background, was…
