Freedom of the Press's Internal Threat

Yahoo

06-06-2025

Americas biggest threat to freedom of the press is its establishment media. This is the inescapable conclusion coming from the medias flurry of apologies over their response during the last four years two biggest events: the administrations manipulation of the public during the COVID pandemic and Bidens incapacitation in office. Through both, the establishment media were at least derelict in their duty; at worst they were accessories.
On Feb. 26, the New York Times printed David Wallace-Wells opinion piece, "The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else." It was a confession not just for a paper but for an industry. Following hot on the heels of pandemic apologies, confessions have cascaded from Biden administration insiders and mainstream reporters about what they saw of the presidents declining performance and the administrations increasingly aggressive compensation for it.
There is a push, particularly on the part of the establishment media and the elites on whom they depend, to let bygones be bygones and reputations return to what they were.
Not so fast, it must not be so easy.
The pandemic response struck at the core of how American society operated; the presidents inability to function struck at the core of American constitutional government. The establishment medias response to both struck at the core of the First Amendments freedom of the press. Beyond consequential, these issues are constitutional.
Throughout the COVID crisis, the establishment media failed to report objectively. On issue after issue -the Wuhan lab leak theory, vaccine efficacy, social distancing, herd immunity, school closures, and refusal to reevaluate positions as new data emerged - the establishment media locked arms with the administration around an enforced consensus. Missouri v. Biden confirmed that the administration was censoring dissenters and pressuring social media platforms to do likewise. Recalling administration efforts to dictate Metas content, Mark Zuckerberg stated: "Basically, these people from the Biden administration would call up our team and, like, scream at them and curse."
Questioners of the enforced COVID consensus - including experts such as those who signed the Great Barrington Declaration - were censored and vilified. For the most part, the establishment media stood silently by or joined the chorus against them. What they didnt do was investigate and ask the questions that informed dissenters were raising: they did not report; they did not do their job.
Listening to revelations from administration staff, celebrity Biden supporters, and establishment media members, virtually everyone in Washington was in on the "secret" of Bidens incapacity. Far from a technical, or even a political, point, presidential incapacity undermines constitutional government. Federal power was purposely placed in a single head - not a cabinet, not the legislative branch, and certainly not unelected staff - to execute our laws. To have the executive branch function otherwise is a violation of the Constitution itself.
For how long was Bidens presidential capacity questioned? Who was running the country during these periods? Why was the 25th Amendment not invoked? All these questions and more are still valid, but even more: Why was the establishment media not asking these questions at the time - when they now confirm that they suspected or knew.
Clearly more than just friendly to the administration, the establishment media had unparalleled access to the president and his staff. This means unparalleled opportunities to know and ask and investigate. If they suspected, it was their job to investigate; if they knew, it was their job to report. They did neither, as their mea culpas now implicitly confirm.
Through the two biggest stories of the last four years, the establishment media were little more than the three monkeys, sitting without hearing, seeing, or speaking. Their stance then and exculpatory attempts now call into question freedom of the presss value if the press decide to not use it.
For freedom of the press to work, to have meaning, it must be a two-way street. Certainly, it must be protected, as under the First Amendment. However, to be truly free it must also be exercised.
This free exercise was the reason the right was enshrined in the Constitution. All the Constitutions provisions, both directly or through their representatives and the states, ultimately exist to protect the citizenry. Without the presss exercise of its right, this freedom becomes worse than a dead letter: It becomes a ruse. Citizens are not simply uninformed; they are left with the mistaken impression that they have been informed.
It was an informed citizenry on which the Constitutions designers rested the government; if the establishment media fails to inform - as they did - the government on which it rests is also threatened. As it was.
J.T. Young is the author of the recent book 'Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America's Socialist Left' from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades' experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.