The free press is for you

The old saw – cliche – is that freedom of the press is limited to those who own one. Like all cliches, there is some truth there. Communities do better when the local newspaper has ethical journalistic stewardship, but publishing a paper is half the equation, at most. The people holding the paper in their hands, reading the news, absorbing it, discussing the going ons in the community and then – vitally – participating to move the community forward creates the whole process entailed in the phrase “freedom of the press.”

Press freedom is not for journalists or politicians, corporate bad actors, sports stars or other celebrities making the news. Freedom of the press exists to protect you, the common citizen, yes, but more, it exists to empower you. It is citizens processing information they gain from reading newspapers that makes newspapers important. That is why the Constitution’s First Amendment includes the press in one sentence, woven in with the freedoms of speech, the right to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Newspapers are a tool you use to protect and advance your freedom.

Journalists, then, are servants of the people.

So when demigods attack journalists their goal is to cut the flow of information to you, to cut off at the knees your learning the facts you need to protect and advance your freedoms.

The free press is a phrase probably originating in the English American colonies in the 1770s. It is older than the Constitution and just as fragile as the copies of our country’s foundational document preserved in the National Archives.

Consider how 13 colonies of settlers united to defeat Great Britain. This was before public schools. Most men were illiterate and females were their property. But the community gathered in coffee houses, taverns and the public square to hear those who could read, read the day’s news.

Like social media today, people got riled up. Unlike today, people were up close and in person in their much more close-knit communities. Arguments could evolve into discussions and people could reason the facts out and cohere and, over time, unite together. Their communications tool was not the internet but the newspaper. Their community boundaries were limited by the distance the sound of voices traveled.

Today our mass culture beats its chest that America is the greatest, number one, the best country on earth. If only it were so. Research the internet for measuring the vitality of press freedom. While you are at it, search for our ranking in the world for democracy, health, wellbeing and happiness. The facts do not line up with our patriotic finger waving.

The 2024 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters ­Without Borders shows the U.S. has dropped 10 places, to 55. ­Canada, at 14, is first in North America. Thirteen European countries top the list. The index compares the level of freedom enjoyed by journalists and media in 180 countries and territories.

America is broken. We are not very literate or well educated. That may be why we have squandered our vaunted press freedom and compare so poorly on critical measures among nations.

And, for a generation, communities large and small have been losing their newspapers. As many as 2,500 daily or weekly newspapers have closed since 2000. The rate this year is 2.5 per week, 130 a year.

Now one more newspaper is going dark, the news desert expanding over La Conner and its rich agricultural community.

Is it possible that the loss of the press in communities opens the possibility to the loss of other First Amendment freedoms? Who will be covering and reporting a process that may slowly erode life as we know it?

The press is different from all other businesses, even vital local services such as a bank or drugstore. Newspapers peddle facts and truths both large and small. Readers can share their beliefs on the letters page. The staff’s words, on every page of the paper, report what is known and analyzed to provide information useful for its readers.

This issue is the 389th I have published in that many weeks over seven-and-a-half years. It is Volume 17, No. 35, since April 30, 2008. For your sake, this community’s sake and our collective democratic future, I sincerely hope that No. 36 is published in January under new ownership. — Ken Stern