Independent Press Is Under Siege as Freedom Rings
Mr. Hannity’s good buddy Newt Gingrich went one better, suggesting
that administration officials fully close the briefing room to the news media, which he has called “a danger to the country right now.”
What’s most extraordinary in all of this is how many people calling for curtailments on
the free press are such professed “constitutionalists” and admirers of the founders.
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” — Benjamin Franklin, 1722
“There is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly terrible to tyrants,
and their tools and abettors, as a free press.” — Samuel Adams, 1768
“The freedom of speech may be taken away — and, dumb
and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter.” — George Washington, to officers of the Army, 1783
“Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power, and to withhold from them information without which power is abused.
(Added context: The N. R.A.
chief Wayne LaPierre recently called “academic elites, political elites and media elites” America’s “greatest domestic threats.”)
The Fox News host Sean Hannity has urged the Trump administration to force reporters to submit written requests in advance of the daily
White House press briefing, which, he said, should be narrowly tailored to specific topics the administration wants to talk about.
