WAGGING THE DOG: THE MEDIA AND THE MASSES

So let’s turn our gaze now to the role of the so-called “Fourth Branch of Government”, the media. When the framers of our Constitution declared the need for ‘freedom of the press’, they were of course referring to the printing press. This is an important point to keep in mind. America in the late 1700’s was a rather wild land with poor roads and (obviously) no means of instant communication. The printing press was the only reliable means of communicating the same information to many people in diverse locations. Freedom of the press was meant to allow anyone the right and ability to express an opinion, no matter how unpopular. And, with that level of technology, it was easily done. Hiring a printer to print one’s views on a broadsheet (single, one-page newspapers of the day) was a relatively simple and easy matter – and very affordable. And even if one’s views were so noxious no printer would print them, a printing press itself was not an utterly, prohibitively expensive proposition; a small one cost about the equivalent of what a new, mid-range luxury car costs for us today. Pricey, but not impossible. Freedom of the press meant, in those days, that virtually anyone who wanted to make themselves heard could do so.