The latest episode of the reality version of the Netflix production House of Cards pits U.S. President Donald Trump against the Democrat Party-affiliated CNN after the president tried to ban CNN’s Jim Acosta from the White House press briefings.
Bellowing foul play and pleading for reinstatement as a U.S. constitutional first amendment right, CNN, with the full-throated support of the White House press corps, convinced a Trump-appointed federal judge to reinstate Acosta’s press credentials. Hallelujah, and God bless America!
And now a break for a commercial.
The degree of freedom to be allowed to the press to publish its ideas and thoughts on governments and politicians has been a longstanding issue in Western civilizations.
In England, following the introduction of the Claxton printing press in the 1400s, a series of parliamentary licensing arrangements were enacted to control what the press could publish. This lasted until the Bill of Rights was passed in 1689. Freedom of the press has since been a matter of British common law.
Sweden was the first country in the world to adopt freedom of the press into its constitution with the Freedom of the Press Act of 1766. In this instance, freedom of the press was determined to be part of the concept of freedom of speech. Canada adopted the same approach in Section 2 b) of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982.
Meanwhile, back In the American colonies, newspaper editors found that readerships increased when they criticized local governors. In 1734, the governor of New York charged one John Peter Zengero with criminal libel after he published a series of satirical attacks. He was acquitted by jury trial and became the first American hero for freedom of the press. The first amendment of the U.S. constitution then incorporated freedom of the press under its Bill of Rights in 1791.
The U.S. press has since become an unofficial fourth branch of the federal government separate, until recently, from the Legislative (Congress), Executive (President and his administration) and Judicial (Supreme Court) branches. There is much to be admired by this arrangement as an independent media is important for democracy because it can present the real and complete information on events and actions of the other three, without being influenced by partisan political attachments.
Unhappily, the major American media organizations have become affiliated with the two main political parties, and are no longer independent. It is partly because of this that Reporters Without Borders 2018 World Press Freedom Index ranks the U.S. as 45th of 180 countries, just below Romania and ahead of Italy. (Canada is 18th).
Want to know what’s really happening in the U.S.? Try returning to Canada’s Mother Corp. – government-created and subsidized CBC.
Alan Murdock is a local pediatrician.
