Conservatives Declare War On Independent Press

Our Democracy is in peril.
As I said before, the information the NY Times released drawing all the ire of the Republicans was widely available. WaPo had an article describing the White House attempts to claim otherwise and links detailing the SWIFT organization and it's cooperation with government law enforcement agencies to eliminate funding of illegal activities.
Media Matters

This week, the conservatives declared war.


Not on The New York Times. Not even on the media in general. No, this week the entire conservative movement -- from the White House to Republicans in Congress to Fox News to right-wing talk radio to conservative magazines -- declared war on the very idea of an independent press.


They declared war on the idea that journalists have not just the right but the obligation to hold those in power accountable for their actions. They declared war on the idea that journalists, not the government and not a political party, get to decide what appears in the press. They declared war on the idea that the public has a right to know what the government is doing in our name.


This is a profound threat to our democracy, and we underestimate it at our peril.


Here at Media Matters for America, we spend a great deal of time pointing out the news media's faults and missteps. But we do so because we believe in journalism, because we want journalism to fulfill its sacred obligations to the public, because we know that even in the world's oldest democracy, a free press is what stands between us and tyranny. The right wing, to put it plainly, does not share this belief.


There is a reason the Founders singled out the press for special protection when they wrote the Bill of Rights. It was because they understood that without an independent, free, aggressive, courageous press, democracy itself is impossible. When the government decides who gets to report the news and what they get to say, we no longer live in a free society. When journalists live under threat of prosecution and even violence, we cease to be citizens and become only subjects.