Hypothetical Future
Imagine it is ten years in the future. America is no longer what it used to be. The education system is different. The government is different. The title of president is no more, and it has been gone for four years. The ruling position of America is now “King Elect.” The person who is in position is voted in and they hold the title till they pass or are deemed “unfit to rule.”
The King Elect has complete control over everything. In the past seven years, the freedoms for the press and of the press have been severely cut. America has been completely removed from lists about having free press. It has been made so the press can only publish what the government tells them and when the government tells them to, with all articles being pre-approved by a government official.
Opinion pieces are rare as people are not allowed to voice against something. There are rarely any articles about the government anymore. The government has no watchdog anymore. The people are uninformed and unaware of the government’s decisions until they are made. The government is no longer held accountable. The people have no voice.
How would you feel if you had no voice in the decisions that affected you and your loved ones the most? How would you feel if you did not know what was going to happen to your future? What would it be like if you did not know what the government was up to, and they were not being held accountable for their actions?
We do not currently have to worry about these questions because of the rights within the First Amendment. One of them guaranteeing the Freedom of the Press. The informer to the people and the watchdog of the government.
What is freedom of the press and what role does it have?
The Freedom of Press is the protection of the right to spread thoughts, ideas, news, and views by publishing them. It means that the government cannot prevent information from being published in most cases. This freedom is tied closely to the freedom of speech.
Having free press means our government answers to the people. Being the only profession that it mentioned within the Constitution, the press is used as a watchdog for the government, meaning that it is the role of the press to investigate and report on government outreach and wrongdoing and to hold the people in power accountable for their actions.
History and current day events
The freedoms of America, including the ones listed in the First Amendment, have been through countless interpretations and changes. These are some prominent examples of cases that have changed the way the freedom of press is seen or used:
Recently the Associated Press has been banned from the press pool in the White House as well as from Air Force One. The news agency being banned due to them not using words that the government has demanded – refusing to us the new title for the Gulf of Mexico. It is an attack on free speech and the freedom of the press.
“Yeah, it definitely affects the First Amendment a lot because it’s going against the freedom of the press, but I think it’s also limiting voices. And in government, obviously we want a lot of different like messages and voices from both sides. You never want to give one side a voice more than the other,” stated Carter Soyer, Editor-in-Chief of The Tack and a senior in the Digital Media major at Buena Vista University.
People like social media influencers, podcasters, and content creators are now able to apply and get access to White House credentials. The Pentagon has also begun an “annual media rotation program” for the in-house press corps, which will mean removing major news outlets to make space for other outlets.
“I mean, I think it’s just a nightmare. I think it would be, I don’t think you’re going to get the real facts. You are going to get all opinion news. If you’re going to do news and press it should be, you should start out facts, and it should be backed up with facts,” said Judge Mary Timko, an adjunct professor at BVU.
The future of the press
The future of the press is in question. Will there still be a press later in the future? Will the press still be allowed to be the watchdogs of the government? How much will the press even be able to be trusted?
The freedom of the press might be overlooked daily, but it is something our nation cannot live without. The press holds the people in power accountable and serves as a watchdog to the government. Journalists are the informers of the people. The United States would look vastly different without journalist and the freedom of the press.
