The Press Was Always Meant to Be Raucous

Freedom of the press was never about tidiness. It was about life.

One of the great problems of our democracy right now is that a huge segment of the press community, and of the people, believe that freedom of the press applies only to a press that is fair and balanced. They are wrong. Freedom of the press in our Constitution protects primarily the publication of what is unfair and unbalanced. That was the whole point for the Founders. Today's legacy journalism is basically milquetoast. But today's real journalism—the facts, the ideas, the arguments, the opinions, the complaints and accusations, all of it—is being reborn and reshaped by users of facilities like Substack, YouTube, and Facebook, and more. It is true that newspapers and other legacy platforms are dying, but so what. They have ossified. Sad to watch but that’s a fact, and everybody knows it. A sea change is upon us.

Another important point that I don’t like but am beginning to accept is that there is less and less interest in community news. Why? I think because there is a rapidly diminishing sense of community in our culture. That sense of Usness that has been a bedrock of our local communities is simply disappearing, and I believe it is irreversible for the moment.

But there is something immensely satisfying and exciting ahead of us: For a few hundred dollars anyone can create a viable, productive publishing empire consisting of one or more newspapers, various magazines, a complete production studio with video and audio broadcast capabilities, newsletters, and much more. Thanks to smartphones and mostly free streaming and publishing platforms, anyone can now do this. It is completely mind-blowing. And so is the often-heard lament that journalism is in decline. Journalism is not in decline. The heralds are simply moving to another stone.

Please have a look at https://shankybottom.substack.com/p/community-journalism-does-not-have and www.shankybottom.com

Note: I am not a journalist by profession. I am an old lawyer, soon to turn eighty, who has witnessed many changes in our western culture. But the foundational forces shaping our republic remain the same: government, the press, and the people. Government has three constitutional components: legislative, judiciary, and executive. The press, the second pillar, is recognized and protected but not defined by the Constitution. And the third pillar, the people, are the guardians of power and retain all power that they have not delegated to government. Since the beginning, the press and the people have been raucous, messy, disorganized, belligerent, shameless, and chaotic. The Founders would applaud them and smile at their functioning democracy.

A sea change is upon us. It’s an exciting time to witness — and to shape.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on where you see journalism—and community—heading. -Joe

P.S. Building a new kind of community takes all of us. Your ideas, disagreements, and stories are welcome here.

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Here is an excerpt of a poem I wrote about fifty years ago

I read this part and more at my daddy’s funeral in 1977:

On this day I am the hawk.

I dive,

And all the hawks of all

the ages,

Before and to come,

Rush on this dive.

For one brief moment,

In the totality of it all,

This form is here,

In the all-being.

It blinks into shape once,

It quivers,

And then it is gone.

Gone.

But something goes on.

It’s there in the storyteller’s soul,

And in the marble cornerstone

of homo’s domicile,

This thing that moves on

through us all,

And does not stop when

each we do,

But moves on,

Becoming more with

each birth,

And yet even more with

each demise,

Transversing generations and

constituting them each,

Expressing them all,

And being expressed by them,

This thing.