Dennis Ganahl
by Dennis Ganahl
Guest columnist
According to the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, the United States ranked last among 46 countries in media credibility in 2021. They reported only 29 percent of Americans trusted the media. Why don’t Americans trust the media?
As a journalist who was taught the First Amendment is the 11th Commandment and the Fourth Estate, I’m appalled at the number of politicians and many so-called journalists, who are calling for the end of free speech. Why are so-called journalists willingly giving up their right to free speech to subvert my free speech?
Some people don’t have enough money to buy a house, food or clothes. Free speech is the only possession they have to call out the authoritarian class. According to the First Amendment, a rich person, even if they’re Zuckerberg rich, can’t control the poorest person’s speech. A poor person can freely say, Mark Zuckerberg sucks, even if it’s not true. It’s free speech, and we’ve fought wars for millennia to gain the right to possess it. While free speech in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Brazil and a host of other countries is collapsing, America still has mostly free speech, but it’s under attack by the authoritarian class. Witlessly, so-called journalists willingly want to limit the scope of your free speech in America, while, according to Zuckerberg, the government is limiting your access to important information that effect your elections and your health.
We even have states like Colorado and California passing legislation that limits political advertising’s First Amendment rights on AI generated content, which must be labeled false information. Political speech has always been protected speech whether paid advertising or editorial content.
I thought I understood journalists. After spending 50 years in the company of journalists, both in the field and in academia, I would’ve bet my last dollar journalists don’t trust authority. Now, I realize I would’ve lost my last dollar. Today, far too many authoritarian-journalists see themselves as the authority figures. They’re not seeking out facts, knowledge or justice to report it, they mete out their beliefs, and expect us to accept their authority to proclaim it as truth. If you don’t accept their truth, they proclaim you’re ignorant, racist, and irredeemable. The farther media audience numbers plummet, the louder authoritarian-journalists scream that we’re denying truth, and that we should lose our right to free speech and be sent to re-education camps.
Our liberators from these ego-based authoritarian-journalists are the new citizen-reporters who have arisen to fill our news void. When the authoritarian-media refuses to report stories that don’t support their facts, and instead create unfounded facts to support their storyline, a citizen-reporter will post a video on X of an assassin on a rooftop with people screaming and pointing out the would-be assassin to the Secret Service. It’s hard to dispute visual proof, but the authoritarian-media will spin the facts to fit their needs even though they’re losing credibility.
Although my mind was usually wandering in college journalism classes about what I was going to do after class, I remember listening to my favorite journalism professor’s lecture about why journalists shouldn’t be licensed. His argument went something like this: Licensing would, by definition, control who would be allowed and who wouldn’t be allowed to think and speak freely.
Now, I get it. Down with authoritarian-journalists and authoritarian-media. Long live unlicensed and uncredentialed citizen-journalists, an emerging media with the courage and integrity to publish the actual facts wherever they lead. Free speech for all.
Dennis Ganahl, Ph.D, who delivered the presentation on micro-elections at the 2023 seminar of the Indiana Policy Review, has been involved in political campaigns for 52 years. He recently published a novel of political satire titled, “Don’t Shoot. We come in peace.” You can access his substack at https://dennisganahl.substack.com