PRINT AS PDF
In the face of an extraordinary and ongoing restructuring of the U.S. constitutional framework, the American press is voluntarily withdrawing from its basic public responsibility. It anticipates. Headlines are sanitized. Outdated arguments are recycled. The range of permissible opinion shrinks. Those who dare challenge this quiet conformity are silenced.
NPR reported a chilling example: Ruth Marcus, a top commentator and Deputy Editorial Page Editor for The Washington Post, resigned after publisher and CEO Will Lewis killed her column. Her offense? Criticizing owner Jeff Bezos’s efforts to reshape the paper’s opinion pages to align with his libertarian priorities at the expense of covering far bigger and more urgent developments.
This is the latest evidence that the American press is preemptively surrendering its own First Amendment freedoms. Worse, it is doing so without coercion, without protest, and without a fight. The institution tasked with holding power to account is in full retreat. It is abdicating its fundamental duty to the public.
In a letter to John Tyler dated June 28, 1804, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
I may err in my measures, but never shall deflect from the intention to fortify the public liberty by every possible means, and to put it out of the power of the few to riot on the labors of the many. No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, & which we trust will end in establishing the fact that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found is the freedom of the press. It is therefore the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions… I hold it therefore certain that to open the doors of truth, & to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason, are the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their manacling the people with their own consent.
Jefferson recognized that truth is the lifeblood of democracy. He understood that a free press is vital to the well-being of democracy. He knew that when the “doors of truth” are slammed shut, tyranny follows. First, truth is smothered by propaganda. Then, fear takes root, isolating individuals and silencing dissent. Apathy follows, draining the will to resist. Finally, tyranny takes hold.
Ruth Marcus’s resignation is the latest battle lost in the ongoing war between truth and propaganda. Today, propaganda has advanced, truth has retreated, and the forces of silence have gained more ground. As a result of this outcome, the danger to the U.S. constitutional framework has grown.
