From TGP Communications, LLC v. Sellers (filed Monday, D. Ariz.):
Understandably, the nation is fixated on this election. This is a matter of great national importance, and its importance stretches far beyond Arizona's borders.
It is no surprise that there is great skepticism on one side of the political divide and there is unqualified trust on the other. Society has degraded to the point that many Americans are skeptical of the good faith, the competence, and the bias of governmental institutions. However, this skepticism almost always comes down as a "Red" versus "Blue" issue. If a Republican makes a claim, one can expect "Team Blue" to scream at the top of their lungs that she must be corrupt, or worse. If a Democrat does the same, the "Red Team" is not going to take her statement at face value. We then depend on the press, such as it is, to inform us all so that we can at least hope to know what in tarnation is going on.
Our press is no less divided than our electorate. Our press has descended into a morass of competing partisan reporting that is no longer something Edward R. Murrow or Ben Bradlee would respect. Nevertheless, when the Free Press clause was placed in the Constitution, our national press was possibly even more divided and biased than it is today…. Anyone with any degree of media literacy today would be unlikely to say that we have not returned to our roots. The only difference is that today, the mainstream press operates much like the Party Press of the early Republic, but they try and perpetrate the fiction that it is not so.
Meanwhile, if a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, everyone will still tell the public what it sounded like and what it means. National Public Radio will report that it happened because Donald Trump caused it with a post on Truth Social. This claim would be followed by a two hour exposé on how trees in forests are racist. Fox News will report the same story, but suggest that the tree fell because Hillary Clinton was trying to kill a frog who had information about her being on Epstein's island. Who are we to believe? We are all free to make that choice, but the greater the diversity of voices in the marketplace of ideas, the better informed the public.
.png?w=600)
