Independent Press Is Under Siege as Freedom Rings – New York Times

(Where have we seen that sort of thing before Russia maybe?)

Or when the White House plays so many games with its press briefings, taking them off camera and placing conditions on how and when they can run or, in the case of its rare, unrestricted live briefings, using them to falsely accuse the news media of dishonesty?

For those who cherish a robust free press, its hard to feel much like partying after witnessing how some cheered Representative Greg Gianforte, Republican of Montana, for body slamming a reporter for The Guardian, Ben Jacobs. His sin: asking unwelcome questions.

The he had it coming camps celebration of the violence against a reporter seemed out of step with Mr. Gianfortes own response. He ultimately apologized, pleaded guilty to assault and pledged a $50,000 donation to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Then again, it wasnt out of step with President Trump, whose weekend tweet appeared to promote violence against CNN which, some argued, violated Twitters harassment policies certainly undercut Mr. Gianfortes message of contrition.

Yes, America, all of the attacks against something so central to your identity must have you in quite the birthday funk.

The likely reaction in anti-press precincts to a column like this one will be that mainstream journalists think theyre above reproach, which is nonsense.

When a real news organization makes a mistake, it takes action, as CNN recently did when it retracted an article about the Russia investigation, saying the article had not received the proper vetting. Three people lost their jobs.

The Trump administration torqued it into supposed proof that CNN and much of the rest of the news media including The New York Times and The Washington Post are fake news.

It was a powerful reminder to journalists everywhere to take the extra time to get it right, to make sure that the processes that ensure editorial quality and accuracy remain intact and strong.

The stakes are higher now, as the anti-press sentiment veers into calls for more action against journalists, if not against journalism itself.

Look no further than the new National Rifle Association advertisement. In it, the conservative radio and television star Dana Loesch angrily describes how they whoever they are use their media to assassinate real news, contributing to a violence of lies that needs to be combated with the clenched fist of truth.

Given that the ad was for a pro-gun group, this sort of thing tends toward incitement, Charles P. Pierce wrote in Esquire. (Added context: The N.R.A. chief Wayne LaPierre recently called academic elites, political elites and media elites Americas greatest domestic threats.)

The Fox News host Sean Hannity has urged the Trump administration to force reporters to submit written requests in advance of the daily White House press briefing, which, he said, should be narrowly tailored to specific topics the administration wants to talk about.

Mr. Hannitys good buddy Newt Gingrich went one better, suggesting that administration officials fully close the briefing room to the news media, which he has called a danger to the country right now.

Whats most extraordinary in all of this is how many people calling for curtailments on the free press are such professed constitutionalists and admirers of the founders.

The founders didnt view the press as particularly enlightened, and from the earliest days of the republic it certainly wasnt. (To wit, a passage in The Aurora, an early publication, described George Washington as the source of all the misfortunes of our country.)

But they drafted the founding documents to enshrine press freedom for good reason. As the Stanford University history professor Jack Rakove said in an interview last week, James Madison was most concerned about a misinformed publics acting on misplaced passions, and saw the press as an antidote. Were he alive now, Mr. Rakove said, Madison would be worried by the idea of government whipping up or exploiting what he called badly formed passions.

Sure, there were the occasional stumbles, like the short-lived Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which banned false, scandalous and malicious writing about the government, but they led to stronger free speech protections.

So this, our 241st birthday, seems just the time to invite some of our forebears to remind us including those at the top of the government why a free press is so important.

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. Benjamin Franklin, 1722

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

The freedom of speech may be taken away and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter. George Washington, to officers of the Army, 1783

Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power, and to withhold from them information without which power is abused. A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both. James Madison, 1822

There is a terrific disadvantage not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily, to an administration. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didnt write it, and even though we disapprove, there still isnt any doubt that we couldnt do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press. John F. Kennedy, 1962

Since the founding of this nation, freedom of the press has been a fundamental tenet of American life. 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

Power can be very addictive, and it can be corrosive. And its important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere. George W. Bush, 2017

Jaclyn Peiser contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on July 3, 2017, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Celebrating Independence As Free Press Is Besieged.

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Independent Press Is Under Siege as Freedom Rings - New York Times