In defense of the mainstream media

Democracy dies in darkness — the Washington Post

A good friend of mine, whom I have known for decades, told me they are leaving the news business. There are multiple reasons this veteran journalist is saying goodbye to the profession but one issue they told me about chilled me to the core. They stopped telling people what they do because too many Americans view the media as the enemy.

This reminded me of a comment then-President-Elect Donald Trump made in late 2016, that he would revoke the citizenship of any members of the press who were critical of his policies. Before that, and Alyson Hillary Chadwick was all in for Hillary, I had been hopeful that Trump would do ok. I am an American and wanting the American president to succeed shouldn’t be a radical idea. With that comment, I thought, this is not going to go well for America. The most American thing in the world is to criticize our leaders.

Thomas Jefferson was a big proponent of a free press.

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and 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 I should mean that every man should…