Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe

April 22, 1989.

That’s when I began my career in journalism.

Thirty years. More than half of my life.

I was 24 then, finishing my last month of college. I was raw but ready to change the world.

Well, maybe not the world but at least make a difference locally.

Writing was only part of my desire to become a journalist. I loved the history of journalism, from the first broadsheets tacked to trees to the penny tabloids of the early 20th century to the Old Gray Lady that is the New York Times and everything in between.

Journalism, real journalism, has changed the world.

There is good reason why our Founding Fathers gave us the First Amendment to the Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

A free press, they knew, was the key to our Democracy, the key to our freedom. Our country could not survive without it. Where free speech and a free press thrived in the world, freedom lived. Where there was no free press, there was no freedom.

Think about the history of the world, the ruthless dictators and kings and despots whose first order of business was to suppress free speech.

A free press is always the first to go, replaced by a government-operated media.

It’s called “state media.” Think the old Soviet Union, North Korea, the mouthpiece of any regime that aims to brutalize its citizens and suppress truth.

Sometimes the suppression comes slowly. We give up a freedom here, a freedom there and before we know it we are “subjects.” We miss the signs. We ignore the signs. Then, it’s too late.

From day one of the founding of our country, our leaders knew this.

“The only security of all is in a free press,” Thomas Jefferson said.

This, he said, even as he was the subject of lies and gossip at the hands of a free press.

The truth, he knew, was out there and it was up to America’s citizens to “receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” In other words, search for the truth. It is there, amongst the yellow journalism and gossip and outright lies. Today, 30 years after I began my career, I feel we are losing and if we lose our free press and the respect that it deserves, we all lose. We are done as a free nation.

We are being suppressed and it’s not being done in secret, or by a slow death.

No. Our suppressors are bold. Maybe they aren’t beheading journalists as they do in other countries but do not think for one second that we are not being beat down day by day, night after night until eventually, before you realize it, our freedom will all but disappear.

The cries of “Fake news” and “Lies!” has done more harm than any dictator brandishing a sword and throwing journalists in a cell. “Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press…” Jefferson also said.

And our liberty is fading and we don’t care. We fall into line and cry “Fake News.” We cower to those who can out-shout us. We are losing. Think our country is great?

We have poverty and murder and crime and jails that are filled and a drug epidemic the likes of which we have never seen. Our life expectancies have dropped and life is a struggle for so man. We have a child mortality rate of many third-world countries.

Yet, we have enormous wealth in this country. For a select few.

While we stare vacantly at our phones and dismiss newspapers as dead and wear our MAGA hats and shout down those who disagree, we are missing what is really happening.

This isn’t about politics. This is about corruption and tyranny.

This isn’t about being a Democrat or a Republican.

This is about the loss of our freedom.

Do you want to substitute a thriving economy for freedom? Do you want to substitute a system of checks and balances for a madman who screams and kicks his feet like a child while suppressing free speech and a free press and creates his own “state media” that is Twitter?

Trust us, they say. We know what’s right for you. Ignore the media. They lie. Fake news. We will tell you the truth. And the dumb and downtrodden follow like a pack of goose-stepping sheep, trading freedom for a hint of prosperity. See where that has gotten other countries.

History repeats.

Let’s hope its not too late to learn from it.

Scott DeSmit is a general assignment reporter for the Daily Iberian. He can be reached at desmitmail@yahoo.com