Our Free Press

President Trump’s recent musings about pulling the broadcast license of NBC (terribly ill-advised in my view) brings up the issue of a free press, something that we take great pride in and which is a cornerstone of any free democratic system of government. Few sensible Americans would deny that the American press must be free to criticize and question the government. Yet, we are also reminded of the necessity for the press to act responsibly and honestly especially when presenting what are purported to be facts-vs. mere opinion.

I have had my own personal experience living in a  country that did not enjoy a free press. From 1975 to 1978, I resided in Thailand and even lived through a couple of coups. One such attempted coup was short-lived, only a day or two before the government took power back from a group of rebellious generals.

One of the first tasks of any coup is to take control of the media. Thus, when the Thai prime minster was (briefly) overthrown by elements of the Thai military, the newspapers, radio and television media were quickly taken control of. At the time, we were subscribing to one of the major English-language papers, the Bangkok Post (still in existence). When the morning’s headlines blasted the news of the coup, it was described in glowing terms- how the military had swept out the corrupt leadership of the politicians in order to save the country from anarchy. However, within 48 hours, the group of rebellious generals had been defeated and other elements of the military restored the prime minister to office, arresting the rebels. Accordingly, the Post announced that the country had been saved from the unlawful coup-and by the way- explaining why they had heralded the coup in the first place. The reason was simple: The rebels had seized their offices and put guns to their heads.

Thankfully, the US has been spared such excesses, but our own press has often been called into question for their biases and inaccuracies over the years. More specifically, the present media is operating under an undeniable liberal and Democrat tilt. Thus, ever since the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, the mainstream media has been unrelenting in its criticism. I am referring to ABC, CBS, NBC (and its cable affiliate, MSNBC) as well as CNN. While bending over backwards to avoid covering the corruption and excesses of Hillary Clinton, every foible of Trump is covered in detail. To be fair, Fox News, which tilts decidedly right, has largely  (but not completely) favored Trump, most notably Sean Hannity. I would argue, however, that Fox features more liberal/Democrat voices and engages in more actual two-sided debate than its competitors.

But if we concede that Fox, MSNBC and CNN are more about commentary while ABC, NBC and CBS are supposed to be more about straight reporting, where does that leave the latter three? I would argue that under Trump, their role is more about questioning and criticizing (to put it mildly) while under Obama, they could have been accused of being little more than a state-run media, not because they were under the gun, rather because they supported the Obama/Democrat agenda. They may have been a free press, but they have hardly acted as an honest press either under Trump or Obama.

The American public is fully  aware of the liberal/Democrat bias of the media. Trust in the media is at an all time low. Hopefully, the average reader is becoming more adept at discerning fact from opinion when reading newspapers and listening to news people on the air. Journalists, of course, are very good at the art of implication and leading their audiences to make inferences even when writing outside of the editorial sections of their newspapers. The example I used to use to illustrate to my writing classes when I taught English as a second language was the soccer match between country A and country B, and that at the end of the match, country A’s fans went home sad. Who won the match? When the students answered country B in unison, I asked why they chose country B when I had not said who won the match. It was because Country A’s fans were sad.

It’s a rather elementary example, but the point is that for the rest of their lives, they should ask whether what they are reading is fact or opinion. Another example: “New York City is the greatest city in the US.” Is that a fact or an opinion? It is an opinion-even if many, if not most people, especially non-Americans, would agree with the statement.

All of this is not to argue for anything less than a free press. Trump’s idea expressed on  social media, is a bad idea which won’t go any farther than his saying it. In my view, it was just another example of the President sending the media and his political enemies down another rabbit hole and exhausting themselves on something inconsequential.

It is possible that Trump does not understand that a president cannot expect to have a perfect relationship with the press. Indeed, the press has the right to have an adversarial relationship with the administration in power. But where was the adversarial relationship during the Obama years or the Clinton years? Is it right for the press to investigate scandals by one political party while ignoring, downplaying, or burying scandals by the other?

The solution to me is to allow the press to be free, but allow others to yell and scram when they are inaccurate or unfair-just as we have now. The solution also includes a readership that can tell fact from opinion in the media. Already the results are being seen. More and more newspapers are ceasing printing newspapers and confining themselves to the online editions. The San Francisco Chronicle is just one example. The internet and blogosphere are pushing them out of the market.

In a 2012 Brazilian documentary, one of the people interviewed expressed the view that aside from the executive, legislative and judicial branches, the press should be considered as the 4th branch because its role ideally would be to expose the misdeeds of the others. Perhaps, but like the other three, it is crucial that the press be honest, fair and objective.