Free Press

As the publisher of the Kokomo Tribune decades ago and a member of the family that owned that newspaper for 84 years, I feel compelled to respond to the May 7th editorial about a “Free Press”.

The editorial was entitled, “Free press must remain free”. I could not agree more, but do not agree with the complaint about the Trump administration concerning the structure of the White House press conferences. The editorial says the Trump administration “is drastically curtailing …. access to White House press conferences” for the Associated Press, Reuters, and Bloomberg Media. It further complains the Trump administration “is choking off the ability of an independent press to ask questions…… “, which is bologna.

Those three mentioned are so-called “wire services” that send information daily to hundreds of media outlets across the country. Their news is supposed to be the result of objective, unbiased journalism; which it clearly, presently is not, particularly regarding political issues.

The administration, any administration, has the right to say who and who will not be present in a press room at the White House. That space does not belong to the “White House Press Corps”. The Trump administration has decided to include new and different outlets from the traditional or legacy news outlets in press conferences. It has that right. And there is only so much physical space and so many seats in the press room.

And the complaint that the Trump administration is limiting the ability to ask questions is total bologna. President Trump responds to a flurry of questions daily. When compared to the Biden administration, the difference in access to the President for direct answers is stark. Trump is openly accessible. Biden never was.

In many cases, press reporters make fools of themselves when asking totally unrelated or stupid questions when President Trump is responding to reporters whatever the event. Frequently, they sound like a bunch of cackling chickens.

In decades past, there were two major wire services, the Associated Press and United Press International, which fed information to the nearly 2,000 independently owned newspapers across the country. Those services were responsible to governing boards comprised of people from those newspapers. The reporting was required to toe the line of independent, objective reporting. That has been lost. The dominance of independently owned newspapers has waned.

The time of the Internet came. New sources of information have emerged. So, it became time for new news outlets to be included with old ones. Then let the public decide where truth is found. In days of old, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post along with the Associated Press and United Press International were regarded as beacons of objective truth. No longer.

And, yes, every administration tries to influence what is reported about it and how it is reported. That is a given. The so called legacy media has in many ways lost the trust of the American people. So, it is time to openly include the new and the old. Maybe in that way journalism will return to being what it is supposed to be: independent, objective, and unbiased. A free press and an informed public are the very foundation of the United States of America.