The 4th Estate and the 1st Amendment

Investigative Journalism,image from UNESCO

The term The Fourth Estate is used to refer to the press and, in today's world, to television and radio news, and internet news sources. According to 19th Century Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, the term was first used by Edmund Burke in a parliamentary debate in 1787 on whether to open the House of Commons to reporters. Burke said "there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.”

Four years later, Amendment I to the United States Constitution was adopted, recognizing and protecting five rights necessary to sustaining the freedom of a people to govern themselves. It reads:

     "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
       the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
       right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a
       redress of grievances."

These civil rights were originally intended to protect individuals from laws made by the U.S. Congress -- the Senate and House of Representatives. Of course in those days that meant only white men. Not women, not slaves, not Native Americans, etc. etc. etc.

Gradually, those civil rights have become recognized as belonging to the rest of us. And now they protect us from State and Local governments as well as the Federal Government. We achieved that recognition as a result of people exercising those rights before they were officially law. Exercising them at great risk to themselves, their families, and their livelihoods.

An educated electorate is necessary to oversee our elected government. By educated I do not mean certified by some educational institution. I mean we need to know what our government leaders and employees are doing. This is where The Fourth Estate comes in.

We don't have time in our own lives to attend our respective state houses on a daily basis while they are in session. And most of us live too far from D.C. to observe Congress, or the Supreme Court while they're in session. We, as individuals, have no access to the President as he conducts the daily business of our nation.

We do have access to proposed laws and regulations if we want to take the time necessary to look them up online. We can opt to watch Congressional debates and hearings on CSPAN. We can read Supreme Court decisions, including dissenting opinions, again online. But we can't question the people arguing in those debates and participating in those hearings. We usually don't have access to experts who can discuss or explain the pros and cons of this law or that regulation. Often, because our thoughts as rightfully caught up in our own affairs, we don't take time to even imagine how actions they take and decisions they make might directly affect us.

Because I am retired, I probably have more time to do these things. I'm seldom too tired to watch anything more demanding on TV than 'Dancing with the Stars.' But many of my fellow citizens are. I don't usually need to decompress from my real-life life by playing 'Minecraft' or 'Sims.' But many of my neighbors and friends do.

Whatever our situation, we need a free press to keep us informed about the business of government -- not just the national government as it operates in D.C. But as it protects me and mine on the open seas and the battlefields and in the foreign government and corporate offices of the whole wide world. As it functions on my neighborhood streets by monitoring the safety of our automobiles. As it operates in my kitchen by monitoring the safety of our food. As it works in the medicine chest over my bathroom sink by monitoring the safety of my prescription medications.

I need a free press to keep me informed about the business of government at my State Capital. As it works with the Federal Government and on its own. I need them to help keep track of my local government, my local school board, my state and local courts.

Our Federal, State, County, and City governments are all there to take care of OUR communal business and it is ultimately our responsibility to oversee their work. There's no way we can keep up with them without the much maligned 'media.'

From the beginning of our Republic our Fourth Estate has been shot through with news people more concerned with selling ads and papers. Easy news costs less to collect and is less likely to alienate advertisers and patrons. It means more profit for the news provider. News like who got a ticket for speeding, which local society dame attended what cotillion, who died and when their funeral is scheduled, how the local sports teams are doing, what building permit has been issued, and how much black-baldies are selling for a-hundred-weight. It's all news of interest to somebody.

Then there is the sensational news guaranteed to attract news consumers and thereby sell ads. This news is also fairly easily and inexpensively come by. News about which celeb is in trouble with the law, who's sleeping with whom especially if they have some sort of celebrity status, or shocking declarations from someone with or without legitimate standing that are guaranteed to incite public passions. Again news of interest to someone.

Then there is investigative reporting. That's when news people spend time and resources exploring illegal, unethical, and/or immoral practices by people in responsible positions within our core institutions. This is the news that brings The Fourth Estate into its own. It's usually not easy and seldom inexpensive. On top of that, the results may not be popular or pleasant.

In the mid 1800s Harper's Weekly exposed New York City's corrupt Tammany Hall machine. They reported in print and Thomas Nast's political cartoons, taking aim at the political machine's head honcho.

  

Pretty good resemblence, doncha think? Boss Tweed is reported to have said "I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures." He didn't want people to 'know.'

In 1954 Edward R. Murrow, a television journalist, responded to a personal attack on him after CBS News reported on Joseph McCarthy's tyrannical behavior in the U.S. Senate. People needed to know. Something needed to be said. Murrow said it.

Click on the date to see and hear what this journalist had to say.
April 13, 1954

In 1972 Woodward and Bernstein brought Watergate to light resulting in indictments of 40 administration officials, the resignation of President Nixon, and the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

In 2003 members of The Boston Globe's Spotlight team received the Pulitzer Prize for their series exposing the cover-up by the Catholic Church of wide-spread sexual abuse of children. How much longer would this despicable behavior been allowed to continue if the world had waited for the Church to fix it? For the law to discover it?

These are but a few examples of the news that people needed to know so something could be done, but we would never have been able to dig it out ourselves.

An informed electorate. That is what is necessary for a free people to govern themselves. It is the responsibility of journalists, regardless of their medium, to provide us dependable information in a fair and unbiased form, regardless of whose ox is gored. That doesn't always happen.

Sometimes they have profits to make. They have pet projects to promote. They have people or beliefs or plans for their own futures to protect.

Sometimes we have to be skeptical and do a little research of our own. We have a vast set of governments to oversee thus insuring the freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. Media news people are valuable tools for us to use. It is up to us as individuals to responsibly consume the news.

Libraries, Who Needs 'em?

image from The Earth Story's Facebook Page

These are books. Very old books from a library in Timbuktu, a city in Mali on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. This photo and the accompanying article are from a page I follow on Facebook.

In 2012 Islamic extremists backed by al-Qaida took over the city of Timbuktu. They began a pogrom against people and thoughts that differed from their own, in this case specifically against the Sufi branch of Islam. They meant to eradicate not only the public exercise of Sufi traditions, but Sufi thought as well. To that end, they set out to destroy mausoleums, mosques, and the library.

Timbuktu's library contained thousands of books, ranging far beyond Sufi religious scholarship. Many were from the founding of Timbuktu's university in 989 CE. The library had survived centuries of comings and goings of controlling forces, up to and including French colonization from 1893 to 1960. Always adding to its collection.

Thanks to the courage of a group of people who understood the value of preserving these books, the books were smuggled out of the city and are being stored in safer areas until they can be restored.

For a more complete story about this click on Endangered library.

I have a cyber friend who lives in Scotland. She's a retired librarian and an active traveler and blogger. (https://anabelsblog.wordpress.com/) She recently blogged about libraries in England being closed because the economy there is on a downturn and public funding is tight. That got me to thinking.

I'm from Oklahoma so I know a little something about the vagaries of economies and public funding. Oklahoma is an oil producing state, so when oil is up, Oklahoma booms. People buy jewelry, hire interior decorators, and travel the world in style. When oil is down, as it is right now, pawn shops do well and interior decorators tighten their belts. People go to Vegas in economy class and Oklahoma holds its breath.

Oklahoma does its public libraries on a county basis, meaning that the libraries are maintained by county governments. The local public library has always been an important part of my life. Saturdays were for grocery shopping and going to the library -- gathering sustenance for the week ahead. And sometimes going to the movies.

When I worked at the Edmond Public Library, Oklahoma was in an economic state of equilibrium, not the best of times and not the worst of times. The Edmond Public Library is part of Oklahoma County's Metropolitan Library System which has satellite libraries scattered throughout the county. Not all of the satellites are open every day of the week. And not all have extensive collections in-house, but you can check out any book available in any of the public libraries in Oklahoma County and have it there within two or three days. Or you can check them out on-line and pick them up at your local library.

If the book is not available from MLS, they will help you do an inter-library loan. That means they can find the book (or documents) you want wherever it might be in the U.S., even in college collections, and have it for you in a couple of weeks.

When I worked there, the Edmond library circulated more items than any other library in the state, public or private. And we were busy from opening to closing.

People used the computers to search for jobs or to do research for the jobs they already had. They met in the library to quilt with their friends, to listen to representatives of government agencies explain programs and regulations. They attended book signings with their favorite authors and got help filing their income tax returns. There were Story Times for children and Read to a Dog sessions for young readers. (Dogs listen patiently and don't rush or correct a reader.)

Religious groups, political groups, hobby groups -- anyone could book a meeting room there whether they were politically correct or not so long as they didn't DO anything illegal or disruptive while in the library.

Personal privacy was strictly protected. All record of what you checked out of the library was deleted from any records connecting to your name when the item was checked back in. If it was checked in, no one could track your reading interests. Not the government, not your employer, not your insurance company, and not even your mother.

And we had everything from Manga to classical music CDs, magazines, newspapers, and of course books. Books about everything in the universe and by almost anyone who'd ever been published. And in other languages. And E-books complete with an e-reader if you didn't have your own. Yes, and even items about things that you might not want your mother to know you were interested in.

Research librarians didn't just sit at their desks and point you to the stacks. They were actually qualified to and enthusiastic about helping you find the information you wanted.

Libraries are our passport to the world, to the past, to the future. And public libraries make that passport available to us all whether or not we can afford to buy books or pay a monthly internet bill.

The First Amendment to the American Constitution protects freedom of religion, free speech (which includes the written word,) freedom of the press, freedom of peaceable assembly, and the freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances.

Public libraries give us access to learn about all these things we have the constitutional rights to do. And a safe place to do them all.

Sometimes the library is the only place to go for peace and quiet when your house is chaos and you just want to read the local paper or the New Orleans Times Picayune or maybe just take a little nap.

To endure, a free and democratic nation needs a well-informed electorate. Libraries provide access to information for us all.

Who needs a library? We do.

Support your local library.