Freedom of the press is a significant part of the Constitution of the United States. Described in the First Amendment, it prevents any level of government from interfering, censoring or punishing news organizations for any media published.
In the past year, I’ve watched the federal government try to attack and punish news organizations that do not align with its views. For example, in August, the Trump administration cut $1.1 billion in funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) via executive order. The CPB, created by Congress in 1967, provides funding to National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service, over 1,500 local news stations and supports informative and educational content across the country.
The Trump administration says that no news organization has a constitutional right to federal funding, regardless of the viewpoints it promotes. While it is true that no part of the Constitution guarantees or protects funding for public media, there has been a large outcry of people supporting NPR and PBS. Supporters say that other, privately funded news outlets exhibit greater bias from corporate sponsors and billionaire owners, and that removing funding from them threatens access to unbiased reporting. Even with a lack of federal funding, NPR and PBS will continue to operate, with most of their funding coming from small private donors. Even though they will continue to operate, I think that this sets a dangerous precedent for the federal government to control and coerce the news media.
The federal government is also pressuring news organizations not to broadcast interviews and other content for fear of the Federal Communications Commission revoking their broadcast license. Most recently, CBS blocked an interview that late-night host Stephen Colbert had with Democratic Texas representative James Talarico because of pressure from the FCC. I believe this pressure and removal of funding from the CPB have been a blatant violation of the First Amendment by the Trump administration, which is trying to censor these organizations and remove reporting that does not align with their views or paints them in a bad light.
This affects Park students in many ways, mainly because it causes a lack of information from multiple sources. Having multiple news sources is the best way for students to know what is going on in the community, especially with recent federal enforcement actions in the Minneapolis area, and the questionable reliability of information coming out about them. I think that a lack of multiple trusted news sources can lead students to turn to social media for news, which can be extremely unreliable, and full of misinformation, as well as bad actors attempting to spread disinformation in support of themselves or other organizations. It can also be hard for students to differentiate between sponsored or biased content on social media because sensationalist posts and information tend to be shared much more widely than information from more reliable sources or traditional news media.
The First Amendment protection of freedom of the press is incredibly important because it allows scrutiny of the government, individuals and corporations, and upholds the rest of the Constitution through the knowledge of what our leaders are doing, and if their actions are truly in the best interests of the people.
