Why we still need the real news, real reporters
Trump’s “fake news,” is the “free press”
“Get the people by the b---s and their hearts and minds will follow.”
Sounds like a quote by Donald Trump, aka the President, doesn’t it? But no, it’s actually a quote from the Pentagon Papers, written over 50 years ago. In case you have forgotten, or are too young to know, the Pentagon Papers were a series of classified documents detailing how our government lied to the American people for decades about the real reasons for our involvement in the Vietnam war and why it continued for so many years killing so many of our brave, loyal, dedicated military personnel men and women .
Who was it that alerted the people of this country to the disgraceful acts of government officials?
It was the “Fake News.” Newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post; newspapers in Chicago, LA and Boston. Think about this the next time Trump complains about the “Fake News.” They’re also known as the “Free Press” – and they’re doing a job protected by our Constitution.
Reporting the news of our country, our government and the world to you and I – aka the people.
Complain about the news media all you want. It’s your right, after all. But without a free press, who can say what the United States of America would be. Many different things to be sure, but certainly not free.
William Parkhurst, Modesto
Resist the dying of the light
Re “Trump must end his war on journalists” (Page 6A, Aug. 16): On Aug. 16, something unprecedented occurred. Over 100 national newspapers, including The Modesto Bee, defended themselves against the President of the United States for using their First Amendment rights to uphold the pillars of our democracy. It is sadly ironic that this president uses his own free speech rights to viciously attack the very institution, the Fourth Estate, that helps assure our own citizens’ rights to free speech and their right to know. Autocrat wannabes like Trump have done this throughout history. The first casualty of their rule is the destruction of a free press.
President Trump’s serial lying and boorish belligerence toward the press is profoundly disturbing and dangerous. He is amazingly ignorant about how our republic actually functions. With his false charges of fake news and his stoking of irrationality, he has planted the seeds for the destruction of one of our most cherished institutions whose function is to seek the truth and provide transparency to counter the ever-present tendencies of those in power to conceal what they are doing from the public.
Even with its inadequacies, our form of government, an historic miracle, can be destroyed from within. Resist the dying of the light!
James Costello, Ceres
This story was originally published August 23, 2018 at 7:09 PM.