Pruitt's right. No matter what action is taken, or not taken, journalists will continue to clog the corridors of the Capitol and crowd into White House press briefings. The question is whether those journalists will be present to challenge the status quo or as mere stenographers to power.
That's a distinction that members of Congress who take seriously their oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States understand. Indeed, it is the distinction that James Madison, the essential player in the drafting of the core document and of the Bill of Rights, was getting at when he said, "A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
Justin Amash and Jared Polis are not going to agree on most issues. Neither are Mick Mulvaney and Zoe Lofgren.
But they can agree on the basic outlines of the American experiment and how it must operate.
This is as the founders of that experiment intended: a free press providing a free people with the information they need to be their own governors.
John Nichols is the author (with Robert w. McChesney) of the upcoming book Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America. Hailed by Publisher's Weekly as "a fervent call to action for reformers," it details how the collapse of journalism and the rise of big-money politics threatens to turn our democracy into a dollarocracy.
Why trade happiness for anti-government malcontent? Read Tom Tomorrow's scoop.
Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/174450/our-liberty-cannot-be-guarded-freedom-press#ixzz2U3ss5GiF(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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