The founders understood the role of the media but their message and warnings have been lost. The founders understood that the everyman, or woman, doesn’t have the time or patience to follow politics, not to mention back then the education was, well, bad, and they left the media the duty to be the ultimate watchdog over government. They believed so strongly in the media’s role of being the watchdog that they gave them complete freedom right in the first amendment, right there with freedom of speech and the right to congregate, all rights denied to us by the British.
Never in a million years would Benjamin Franklin, Jefferson or even Washington ever believe that the media would take sides in a political debate the way they do today. The fact that some news agencies literally go to bat for some presidents who have overreached their stated power whether through executive orders, signing statements or picking and choosing what laws to enforce and which to ignore. Not to mention they would never stand for reporters being indicted by the DOJ, in secret, or subpoena phone records from a major news organization. I am referring, of course, to Fox News AND MSNBC and the rest of the networks.
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