This is excerpted from an essay originally delivered as a talk at the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs on Tuesday.
The role of a free and independent press in a healthy democracy is under direct attack, with increasingly aggressive efforts to curtail and punish independent journalism. I don’t believe it’s an overstatement to say that this anti-press campaign threatens the special formula that has made the American model so successful for nearly 250 years.
A free people need a free press.
Across the world, we’ve seen democracy in retreat. And for aspiring strongmen seeking to undermine the laws and norms and institutions that underpin a healthy democracy, the free press is usually one of the first targets. It’s no secret why. Once you’ve constrained the ability of journalists to provide independent information to the public about those in power, it becomes far easier to act with impunity.
From its beginning, our nation has recognized journalism as an essential ingredient for democratic self-governance. The Founding Fathers enshrined this insight in the First Amendment, making the press the only profession explicitly protected in the Constitution. The generations of presidents, lawmakers and Supreme Court justices that followed largely championed and defended press freedoms.
Behind their support was a bipartisan recognition that the press plays a crucial role in our success as a nation. Three roles, actually, each of which also maps precisely to current challenges undermining the nation’s civic health:
As a historic surge of misinformation erodes our shared reality, the press ensures the flow of trustworthy news and information the public needs to make decisions, whether about elections, the economy or their lives.
As polarization and tribalism strain our societal bonds, the press fosters the mutual understanding that allows a diverse, divided nation to come together with common purpose.
As rising inequality and impunity undermine confidence in the American promise, the press asks the tough questions and exposes the hidden truths that enable the public to hold powerful interests accountable.
All over the world, we have seen escalating pressure on the ability of the press to play these roles.
A record number of journalists have been killed or jailed in recent years. Many more are subjected to campaigns of harassment, intimidation, surveillance and censorship. Those efforts have been perhaps most obvious and intense in authoritarian states like China and Russia. But a more insidious playbook for undermining the press has emerged in places like Hungary and India. Places where democracy persists but in a more conditional way under leaders who were elected legitimately and then set about undermining checks on their power.
The experience in those eroding democracies offers sobering lessons in how attacks on journalists are often precursors to attacks on a broader suite of democratic institutions, rights and norms, such as free expression, fair competition and the evenhanded administration of justice.
This anti-press playbook is now being used here in this country — and it could not come at a more difficult time for the American press.
The business model that funded original reporting is failing. About a third of all newsroom jobs have disappeared in the past 15 years. Hundreds of newspapers have gone out of business, and they continue to close at a rate of more than two a week. That economic pressure has been increased by the difficulty of operating in an information ecosystem dominated by a handful of tech giants. They control the flow of attention online, but most have shown something between apathy and open hostility to independent journalism and little concern about the quality of information they pass along to the public.
In short, a vastly smaller, financially weakened and technologically disintermediated profession now finds itself facing the most direct challenge to its rights and legitimacy, as well.
Some cheer this state of affairs. I’m all too aware that mine isn’t the most popular profession. Too much of modern media is devoted to entertaining rather than informing, to stirring up anger and fear rather than advancing understanding, to amplifying whatever is trending rather than focusing on what really matters. In a country with too many pundits and too few reporters, it’s not a coincidence that trust in the media has plummeted.
Even the best news organizations — the ones with the highest standards, the most rigorous processes, the best track record of putting the public interest first — don’t always get it right. At The New York Times we run a daily corrections section for good reason. And in our long history, you’ll find we’ve made our share of bigger mistakes, as well.
But independent journalism is designed to be self-correcting. We constantly ask the same questions of ourselves that we hear from our critics. Were we open-minded enough to unexpected facts? Were we skeptical enough of prevailing narratives? Have we taken enough time to really understand the issues and the communities we’re writing about? Were we too soft? Too tough? Did we double-check, triple-check, then check again? When we make mistakes, we try to own them, learn from them and do better.
And yet, even with its imperfections, the press remains essential.
Even the most cursory read of the news shows that our democracy is undergoing a significant test.
Foundational laws and norms are being undermined or swept aside. Rule of law. Separation of powers. Due process. Intellectual freedom.
And the press is far from the only American institution that finds itself under pressure. We’re seeing direct efforts to go after government agencies, universities, cultural institutions, research organizations, advocacy groups and law firms. We’re even seeing challenges to the authority of Congress and the courts to serve as a check on executive power.
Like all of those institutions, the free press is imperfect. And like all of those institutions, the free press is a load-bearing pillar in a free society. In the words of President Ronald Reagan, “There is no more essential ingredient than a free, strong and independent press to our continued success in what the Founding Fathers called our ‘noble experiment’ in self-government.”
A subservient press, meanwhile, makes it easier for leaders to keep secrets, to rewrite reality, to undermine political rivals, to put self-interest above public interest and ultimately to consolidate and cement their power. In the words of the political director for Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister often cited as a model for President Donald Trump: “Whoever controls a country’s media controls that country’s mindset and, through that, the country itself.”
Let me pause to say plainly that as a champion of independent journalism, I believe our job is to cover political debates, not to join them.
We’re not the resistance. We are nobody’s opposition. We’re also nobody’s cheerleader. Our loyalty is to the truth and to a public that deserves to know it. That is the distinct role that independent news organizations like The New York Times play in our democracy.
Without a free press, how will people know if their government is acting legally and in their interest? How will people know if their leaders are telling the truth? How will people know if their institutions are acting to the benefit of society? How will people know if their freedoms are being sustained, defended and championed — or eroded by forces that seek to replace truth and reality with propaganda and misinformation?
A strong and independent press is essential to self-rule, to personal liberty, to national greatness. That once radical insight, made law in the First Amendment, anchored a centuries-long, bipartisan tradition of supporting the rights of journalists. If broken, a free and independent press won’t be easy to rebuild.
As the free press and democracy more broadly face this period of pressure, I’d urge you to support both by seeking out news sources worthy of your trust. News sources that produce original, independent reporting in the public interest and that have a record of challenging power, no matter who wields it. Make room for this kind of journalism in your lives and routines. Read. Listen. Watch. Engaging with the news is one of the simplest, most essential acts of citizenship. This is not the time to tune out.
