First Amendment under attack
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America guarantees the freedom of the press. The FIRST Amendment. The number one priority of our Founding Fathers was to guarantee the freedom of the press. Call it 1C if you want, but the press is still in the First Amendment.
The press is so important it has been called the Fourth Estate. It is a part of the checks and balances that keeps a democracy informed so the people can make intelligent decisions based on facts they do not have time to gather themselves. For example, the majority of Americans could not have gone to the Mall to fact check the photos comparing the Obama inauguration and the Trump inauguration, which means we have to accept what the news agencies told us based on the photos from a government agency, or we have to believe Trump’s press secretary, whose story is ultimately based on Trump’s imaginary numbers and vast ego.
Trump is eviscerating the rights of the press to operate freely. With his rapid fire Tweeting of policy announcements, press conferences where he and/or his team refuse to take questions, belittle and make fun of reporters and resort to outright lies, framed as alternative facts, Trump is doing everything in his power to make sure the public remains uninformed. As he says, he “loves the poorly educated,” and he has shown it in his nominations in his cabinets, who include unqualified, antagonistic shysters who think posting fake news is a good thing.
Let’s face it. It isn’t just Trump who is destroying the freedom of the press, nor is he the reason the press is under fire in the first place. It is the corporate interested news machine placing profits over stories that started the downfall of the press. When Disney first looked at buying ABC, a journalist broke the story that cigarette companies had long known about the harmful effects of their product on their consumers. The cigarette companies threatened a lawsuit, Disney told ABC there would be no deal if there was a lawsuit, and the reporter was made to apologize for the story. It was proven true six months after ABC had retracted it. Disney now owns ABC.
Corporations look at the news as a profit making machine. When they were family owned, newspapers were okay with making single digit percentage profits; corporations demand 20 to 30 percent profit or the paper gets shut down. Reporters are told to cover what the public wants – if the paper makes enough money covering puppy dogs then maybe it can cover the other stuff, like politics, corruption and polluters puffing waste into the air, dumping it onto the land and throwing it into the sea. Journalists are laid off and replaced with cut and paste selections from news agencies at best and social media at worst. What a random person posts on social media about a news story IS NOT news. It’s editorializing and possibly trolling; it does not add to the actual story.
There are still some good news agencies doing good reporting. In spite of Trump’s protests, The New York Times and The Washington Post are newspapers of record. They are legitimate, purposeful journalism sources recognized through years of journalism as newspapers documenting the news of the day. The BBC, CNN and NPR news all have integrity in reporting. Fox News and MSNBC stray into the fake news business as they report based on their own bias; worse than their news are the commentators who talk about the news. If O’Reilly comments on the news, it is not news. It is opinion. The same holds true for any other news agency.
Then there are the terrible, fake news sites making a mockery of the freedom of press. It is their misinformation destroying the fabric of democracy while feeding the egos and opinions of those who fall for their stories. These sites are filled with advertisements and headlined with click bait. It doesn’t matter whether or not the story is factual. If the site gets you to view the page, it gets revenue. If the site gets you to share it on social media, even better because now you have recommended the story to your friends, even if you do it to show how stupid the site is.
Just because a story sounds plausible or it can’t be proven that it isn’t true, does not make it true. There was no Democrat led sex ring at a pizza joint. Yet, this story actually meant people got injured as someone went in to investigate and decided to start shooting, all because the pizza place’s initials were C.P., which was represented as code for child pornography. (Never mind the actual initials were C.P.P.) When fake news gains traction, it is everyone’s responsibility to snuff it out.
You may think you are savvy enough not to get caught in fake news, or “it doesn’t hurt to share it.” You are wrong on both counts. Even intelligent people get caught up in Facebook scams everyone knows are fake. It doesn’t help to inform Facebook you have a copyright claim. It wastes your time and makes everyone else suspicious. When you share something that isn’t true, not only are you spreading disinformation and perpetuating a lie, you are enriching the liars. You are becoming untrustworthy yourself, and you are creating an atmosphere that is toxic to the truth, one where “alternative facts” can come from the Alt. Right and be accepted as if they were true. Fake news is usually built on the truth, and it depends on supporting your world view for you to fall for it.
It is up to each of us to combat fake news. For your part, we hope you will check and recheck the facts of every story you come across. It is important to use media with different opinions about the subject. Snopes.com is one place that does a great job of exposing fake news. If you are not sure if the news is real or fake, do not repost it. If all of the confirmations read like they come from the same source, do not repost it. If no major news organization is reporting on it, be sure you trust the source 100 percent. And every time someone posts a fake news article, tell them it is fake news and post the link to where you found out it was fake. Don’t get faked out by the mass of misinformation produced by Internet trolls and greedy money hogs.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America guarantees the freedom of the press. The FIRST Amendment. The number one priority of our Founding Fathers was to guarantee the freedom of the press. Call it 1C if you want, but the press is still in the First Amendment.
The press is so important it has been called the Fourth Estate. It is a part of the checks and balances that keeps a democracy informed so the people can make intelligent decisions based on facts they do not have time to gather themselves. For example, the majority of Americans could not have gone to the Mall to fact check the photos comparing the Obama inauguration and the Trump inauguration, which means we have to accept what the news agencies told us based on the photos from a government agency, or we have to believe Trump’s press secretary, whose story is ultimately based on Trump’s imaginary numbers and vast ego.
Trump is eviscerating the rights of the press to operate freely. With his rapid fire Tweeting of policy announcements, press conferences where he and/or his team refuse to take questions, belittle and make fun of reporters and resort to outright lies, framed as alternative facts, Trump is doing everything in his power to make sure the public remains uninformed. As he says, he “loves the poorly educated,” and he has shown it in his nominations in his cabinets, who include unqualified, antagonistic shysters who think posting fake news is a good thing.
Let’s face it. It isn’t just Trump who is destroying the freedom of the press, nor is he the reason the press is under fire in the first place. It is the corporate interested news machine placing profits over stories that started the downfall of the press. When Disney first looked at buying ABC, a journalist broke the story that cigarette companies had long known about the harmful effects of their product on their consumers. The cigarette companies threatened a lawsuit, Disney told ABC there would be no deal if there was a lawsuit, and the reporter was made to apologize for the story. It was proven true six months after ABC had retracted it. Disney now owns ABC.
Corporations look at the news as a profit making machine. When they were family owned, newspapers were okay with making single digit percentage profits; corporations demand 20 to 30 percent profit or the paper gets shut down. Reporters are told to cover what the public wants – if the paper makes enough money covering puppy dogs then maybe it can cover the other stuff, like politics, corruption and polluters puffing waste into the air, dumping it onto the land and throwing it into the sea. Journalists are laid off and replaced with cut and paste selections from news agencies at best and social media at worst. What a random person posts on social media about a news story IS NOT news. It’s editorializing and possibly trolling; it does not add to the actual story.
There are still some good news agencies doing good reporting. In spite of Trump’s protests, The New York Times and The Washington Post are newspapers of record. They are legitimate, purposeful journalism sources recognized through years of journalism as newspapers documenting the news of the day. The BBC, CNN and NPR news all have integrity in reporting. Fox News and MSNBC stray into the fake news business as they report based on their own bias; worse than their news are the commentators who talk about the news. If O’Reilly comments on the news, it is not news. It is opinion. The same holds true for any other news agency.
Then there are the terrible, fake news sites making a mockery of the freedom of press. It is their misinformation destroying the fabric of democracy while feeding the egos and opinions of those who fall for their stories. These sites are filled with advertisements and headlined with click bait. It doesn’t matter whether or not the story is factual. If the site gets you to view the page, it gets revenue. If the site gets you to share it on social media, even better because now you have recommended the story to your friends, even if you do it to show how stupid the site is.
Just because a story sounds plausible or it can’t be proven that it isn’t true, does not make it true. There was no Democrat led sex ring at a pizza joint. Yet, this story actually meant people got injured as someone went in to investigate and decided to start shooting, all because the pizza place’s initials were C.P., which was represented as code for child pornography. (Never mind the actual initials were C.P.P.) When fake news gains traction, it is everyone’s responsibility to snuff it out.
You may think you are savvy enough not to get caught in fake news, or “it doesn’t hurt to share it.” You are wrong on both counts. Even intelligent people get caught up in Facebook scams everyone knows are fake. It doesn’t help to inform Facebook you have a copyright claim. It wastes your time and makes everyone else suspicious. When you share something that isn’t true, not only are you spreading disinformation and perpetuating a lie, you are enriching the liars. You are becoming untrustworthy yourself, and you are creating an atmosphere that is toxic to the truth, one where “alternative facts” can come from the Alt. Right and be accepted as if they were true. Fake news is usually built on the truth, and it depends on supporting your world view for you to fall for it.
It is up to each of us to combat fake news. For your part, we hope you will check and recheck the facts of every story you come across. It is important to use media with different opinions about the subject. Snopes.com is one place that does a great job of exposing fake news. If you are not sure if the news is real or fake, do not repost it. If all of the confirmations read like they come from the same source, do not repost it. If no major news organization is reporting on it, be sure you trust the source 100 percent. And every time someone posts a fake news article, tell them it is fake news and post the link to where you found out it was fake. Don’t get faked out by the mass of misinformation produced by Internet trolls and greedy money hogs.