Happy Independence Day! As we celebrate the
birth of our nation, on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia, let us thank the Founders
for their courage and wisdom in an act and a subsequent constitution unlike any previously seen that has guided a diverse people into 2017.
Let’s thank the
many good women and men who over the centuries have given selflessly – and, those
lost in war, their very selves – to their fellow citizens, often without great
financial reward or recognition: the teachers, healthcare professionals, social
workers, clergy, police, veterans, patriots of all stripes, and many more. The list is long; the final
result, a nation still united and still, despite inevitable flaws and divisions,
a remarkable example of democracy.
I would ask also that we reflect on the Bill
of Rights, ratified in 1791, specifically the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances. That Madison, et al, placed it first was no accident. The first
casualty of any repressive regime is the loss of the freedom to say and publish
what people will. King George III ruled just such a regime.
 |
| The Bill of Rights |
In Washington and beyond today, we are
witnessing an ugly attack against press freedom. It is not explicitly stated in
such terms, at least not frequently, but the message of “fake news” and of members
of the press being “the enemy of the people” and the dog-whistle suggestions
that harming a journalist would be heroic are unambiguous evidence of that
attack.
I have been a professional journalist my entire
adult life, through seven presidents: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W.
Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. And I remember
well presidents before that career: Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson
and John F. Kennedy. Every one of them, to varying degrees, faced the scrutiny
of the press. And while they may have disliked or hated it, with the exception of 45, they all understood (as
presidents before them did) why Madison, et al, made press freedom the first of
the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. Through the colonial
press, they had long experience with tyranny.
The New York Times and Washington Post, among
other practitioners of the First Amendment, are among those publications that
have been singularly targeted in this year’s attacks against the press. Just as
the Founders would have wished – if you know any of the history of the colonial
press, starting with journalist Benjamin Franklin, you can be sure of it –the
journalists at these contemporary publications have not been intimidated. They have
continued on their constitutionally enshrined mission despite the sort of hate,
threats, scorn and ignorance directed against not only the press, but other pillars
of our society, science among them.
We live in perilous times.
On Sunday, The Times’ Jim Rutenberg wrote a thoughtful essay on this subject. Whatever your politics, it is well worth
reading. In his column, Rutenberg quoted Franklin and several presidents on the
press; they are worth reading too, as we celebrate our independence, an independence
supported by the press of a long-ago era.
Here are a few of them:
“Power can be very addictive, and it can be
corrosive. And it’s important for the media to call to account people who abuse
their power, whether it be here or elsewhere.”
-- George W. Bush, 2017
“There is no more essential ingredient than a
free, strong and independent press to our continued success in what the
founding fathers called our ‘noble experiment’ in self-government.”
-- Ronald Reagan, 1983
“The freedom of speech may be taken away —
and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter.”
-- George Washington, 1783
“There is nothing so fretting and vexatious,
nothing so justly terrible to tyrants, and their tools and abettors, as a free
press.”
-- Samuel Adams, 1768
“Whoever
would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of
speech.”
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1722
Happy Independence Day! And as always, please subscribe to a newspaper.
