We need to wake up. There is a threat to our freedom of the press. It is unrelenting and getting more dangerous every day. The news media is under attack by the current president as never before in modern history. Some editors and media owners are rolling over out of fear. Once respected organizations like the Washington Post, the LA Times, and CBS are cowering instead of fighting back. They need to find courage by looking back at their own history. I get more furious everyday as I see the cowardice and acceptance of the unacceptable.
Take the stunning shift in policy by Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post. He is changing the paper’s editorial policy. “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: liberties and free markets…but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to others.” That means they won’t be taking political stands. The Post’s Opinion Editor has resigned.
Bezos couldn’t get down to Mar-a-Logo fast enough after Trump was elected. He also contributed two million dollars to Trump’s inauguration and campaign. And, the Post didn’t endorse any candidate in the presidential race. Which brings us to the Los Angeles Times. The editorial board was set to endorse Kamala Harris for president. The owner, Soon-Shiong a South African doctor billionaire, said no. He couldn’t be reached for comment.
CBS News has given in to a threat of a multi-billion dollar law suit over the way 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris which Trump didn’t like. CBS has turned over transcripts of the interview as part of settlements talks. Why would CBS do such a thing? Paramount, which owns CBS, is in talks to be taken over by Skydance Media. That would have to be approved by Trump’s new FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. Instead of fighting this violation of freedom of the press, CBS is caving over fear the Skydance deal won’t be approved.
Here’s a reminder of the history of these once respected defenders of a free press. The Washington Post uncovered Watergate which lead to the resignation of a president. It also picked up publication of the Pentagon Papers about our involvement in the Vietnam War after the courts stopped the New York Times from continuing to publish them. Publisher Katherine Graham and Editor Ben Bradlee resisted tremendous pressure not to publish. The Post risked a criminal charge that would have imperiled its thirty-five million dollar stock offering that would have put the paper’s future in real jeopardy. Graham’s famous quote, “Let’s go. Let’s publish.”
I worked for CBS at two owned stations. This is the place Edward R. Murrow stood up to Senator Joe McCarthy in the fifties as he terrorized the government over alleged Communist infiltrations in the State Department. Walter Cronkite who said, “Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.” Cronkite went to Vietnam in 1968 at the height of the war. He came back and reported that we were “mired in stalemate” and a negotiated peace was the only solution. He wasn’t afraid to take a stand on the issue that was tearing the country apart and helped force Lyndon Johnson not to run for re-election. Dan Rather stood up to Nixon during the height of the Watergate scandal. Rather got up to ask a question, when the audience applauded and jeered, Nixon clearly not happy said, “Are you running for something?” The audience laughed and cheered. Rather answered, “No, Mr. President are you?” Nixon would resign months later.
The list of Trump’s attacks goes on. The AP is being denied access to the Oval Office and Air Force One because it won’t refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America as Trump had dictated. AP is suing saying it will “continue to stand for the right of the press and the public to speak freely without government retaliation.” A glimmer of hope for press freedom.
That U.S.A.I.D. funds that are being slashed for food and medical supplies around the world are also affecting freedom of the press. Millions of those dollars go to news organizations that do important investigative journalism. They can’t survive these cuts. Nine out of ten media organizations in Ukraine receive some of these funds.
Trump called the press “the enemy of the people”. He’s now back in power to carry out this terror campaign against a basic constitutional freedom. I spent my whole career covering news and trying to bring truth and understanding to our viewers. We can not be bullied. The business has to stand up for itself. We cannot allow this basic freedom to be eroded. It’s time to wake up before it’s too late. Once we lose freedom of the press, we lose freedom.
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