Democracy and Freedom of the Press – Bureau County Republican

President Donald Trump recently professed, I love the First Amendment nobody loves it more than me. But last month, he took to Twitter to tar the news media with which he does not agree, as the enemy of the American People. A week later, he doubled down on that allegation.

It does not stop there though. The president has also argued that we should open up libel laws to enable more plaintiffs to sue the news media, prohibit the news media from using anonymous sources, and bar certain news organizations from press briefings.

Trumps stance on press freedom is a radical departure from this countrys long history of protecting the independence of the press.

Inseparable from the identity of the United States is our commitment from even before the founding to the freedom of speech and of the press. It was a British tax on newspapers, in fact, that so incensed the Founding Fathers that they organized the first gathering of representatives from the various colonies to protest the British Governments actions the First Congress of the American Colonies.

So two decades and a Revolutionary War later, when the Founders sat down to draft the Constitution, it was agreed the proposed Bill of Rights would include a provision protecting the press from interference by the government, so that the press could hold it to account. That provision became the First Amendment, which states in part, Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.

The Founders, who themselves had contentious relationships with the press, nevertheless understood the importance of this firewall in a democracy like ours. Thomas Jefferson, who President Trump has cited as support for his hostile views on press freedom, made clear his belief that however cantankerous the press can be, it is vital: 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.

But the First Amendment is not just the stuff of Founding Fathers and dusty history books. It is active in our lives every day we pick up a newspaper and read a critical account of the governments conduct. Indeed, the Supreme Court has consistently expanded the rights of the news media to report on, largely without fear of reprisal, those in positions of power. In doing so, it recognized that intrusion on the presss independence must be considered against the backdrop of what it called our profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.

Today, in a climate where everything is political, the First Amendments protections for freedom of speech and of the press are non-partisan issues on which everyone should be able to agree. The presidents calls to weaken those freedoms simply because he does not agree with critical coverage demands continued vigilance in preserving one of this countrys most cherished possessions.

Matthew L. Schafer grew up in Princeton and is a media lawyer practicing in New York City. His column is submitted by Voices From the Prairie, a local grassroots citizens movement that commits to upholding the values of tolerance, fairness, and inclusion in American Society and political life.

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Democracy and Freedom of the Press - Bureau County Republican