The Press Can be an Enemy of the People

President Trump has a knack of turning discussions into a street fight when you disagree with him.  However, when it comes to his comment that the press is an “enemy of the people” he is not alone in this assessment.

In our book, Vigilance The Price of Liberty, we quote from Patrick Caddell, a former Democratic Party public opinion pollster who worked for President Jimmy Carter and presidential candidate George McGovern.  In his lecture on September 29, 2012, at the Accuracy in Media conference, Caddell decried the media for its bias in elections as a threat to democracy and said:

The press’ job is to stand the ramparts and protect the people from organized government and governmental power, when they desert those ramparts and go to (one) side they decide to become active participants … to decide what truths you may know and what you may not … then they have made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy and made themselves an enemy to the American people.

The problem of the press – and why a majority of people surveyed say they distrust the press – is the underlying bias in their reporting.  The press largely operates by telling half the “truth”; i.e. that part that supports the feeling they seek to evoke from the voter.  Telling half the truth can be as much a lie as telling a whole lie.

The folly of the press, is based on a lack of vigilance by the voter that they seek to sway toward a preferred outcome.  Rather than “stand the ramparts” to scrutinize all politicians and public policies, the media is hypocritical in their claims that they are defending democracy.