Newspaper editors, you've been sold out

Editor & Publisher recently reported on a meeting of newspaper editors who attempted to explain why the so-called "freedom of the press" has evaporated and so-called "reporter rights" have all but disappeared.

Among the comments were: "We have lost all three branches of government for the first time in history."

"There is not fraternity among us anymore."

“There are stories that are not being told because people are afraid of going to jail.”

“You’d be hard-pressed to find a time when the cloak [of government secrecy] was more tightly wound.”

Yeah. But worse than all that was the message of "Gene Policinski of the First Amendment Center (who) quoted recent surveys that said 42% of the public believes the press has too much freedom, and that 83% believe media bias exists in some way. 'It is a disturbing fact,' he said. 'It seems that the public has moved from criticism and through skepticism to cynicism. So free to distrust the press.'"

I wonder why the American Society of Newspaper Editors sits around and wonders aloud where their "rights" have gone, as though they, like welfare recipients, have some grand entitlement.

That newspapers have stopped fighting for truth and open government is an easy observation for anyone who's watching. There was a time when reporters didn't have to back down, when publishers were as concerned about responsible reportage - and all the aggravation and money required by responsible reportage - as they were about high profits. That was when the publishers were the owners and lived in the cities and states where their reporters worked.

Today's newspaper owners are a bunch of investors. They are not newspaper people. They don't give a damn about news, about skilled reportage, about hiring lawyers to break down closed government doors. They give a damn about one thing and that is more money - as much profit as it is possible to squeeze, no matter what has to be sacrificed.

These investors are businessmen and they own government and that completes the circle: business/media/government. That is precisely why there is no freedom of the press, no reporter rights, no fraternity, and no attack on government secrecy or power, and as a practical matter, no First Amendment.