An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The relationship between press and politician - protected by the Constitution and designed to be happily adversarial - becomes sour, raw and confrontational.
You convey something that the public either trusts or it does not trust, and it has to do with the content and how you handle the news, but it also just has something to do with your persona.
As Americans, we rightfully place tremendous value on having a free and independent press. Our role as journalists is to give voice to the voiceless, and hold our leaders and institutions accountable. But the circle is only completed when that information is consumed by a free-thinking and engaged audience.
Its attitude, which it has preached and practiced, is skepticism. Now, it finds, the public is applying that skepticism to the press.
In essence, I see the value of journalism as resting in a twofold mission: informing the public of accurate and vital information, and its unique ability to provide a truly adversarial check on those in power.
Journalism still, in a democracy, is the essential force to get the public educated and mobilized to take action on behalf of our ancient ideals.
I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy.
A public role endures for the literary high-command, as sages and seers, speaking out on social and political issues.
The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing.
It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.