Reconsidering a Free Press

Commentary for Sunday 12/03/2006 Have the Press Abused Their Privileges

Democracy, and the 'free press': An idea whose time has come to be reconsidered. What a wonderful concept; that people, free and independent choose their leaders. But this is only image. Oh, to be sure, the voting public is voting for the people they want. The question is: How can a voter be assured that the image he voted for is real, or just hype? Candidates can say anything to get a vote, whether they mean it or not.

An open and free press should be the winnower producing factual information about the different candidates. Editorially, a newspaper or TV station can back any candidate of their choosing, but news items and campaign coverage should be neutral. Ideally, campaigns should be a contest over ideas, not a contest to see who is willing to strip the most from national treasury to win voters.

An ideologically monolithic press hurts everyone: The nature of political enthusiasm is such that the press has to be especially vigilant to not let the fervor of politics intrude on factual reporting. The use of phony documents to bolster a story on CBS comes to mind. Bear in mind that I completely exclude the opinion pages. That is where opinion belongs. When the news is slanted to favor a particular candidate, everyone loses. Bad images can be cast on anyone, and that skews the voter's decision when casting his vote.

And that reminds me of an old example of 'news skewing': The Republican and Democrats had a race, the Republicans won. The liberal Democrat paper headline read, "Democrats take second place, the Republicans came in next to last!" Truthful, but misleading. The point is, that our main sources of information need accuracy without the skewing of information. Leave the skewing and political fervor to the punditry, and opinion pages.

Again I ask: Do you feel comfortable in your democracy knowing that you are being manipulated by those entrusted with constitutional protection? How can the instituion of the 'free press' be strengthened so that you are not having to endure partizan politics in the news that you get? Is it even possible to prevent those in the press from spewing out venomous political rot that is masquerading as news?

Robert welcomes your comment to this or any other of my commentaries.