THE FRAMERS, THE PRESS AND VERITAS

When I drop my daughter off at school, a huge banner with the word Veritas hangs from the rafters in the hallways for all to see.  As we walk through the entrance way, I ask her what does this word mean?  She smiles and confidently responds, “Truth Daddy.”   Of course, the first time my query was received with a blank stare but after the second and third tries, with some timely prodding, I was rewarded with a correct response. Veritas or truth is an interesting word. It crisscrosses our daily lives in many forms, whether students studying and deciphering the facts in an academic discipline, or couples sharing the fidelity and honesty of their marriages there are many avenues in which we seek truth.  According to Aristotle the pursuit of truth is tantamount to the pursuit of what is good, the greatest objective for a political community.  In America, a republic, where the people rule, the media has been assigned with a truth telling task via the First Amendment.  To the political community, the media are the  gatekeepers, those who are responsible for the dissemination of information and the affirmation of its relevance. In the Early Republic, there was a whole host of discussions pertaining to the republican format of the new constitutional order.  One of those questions which focused on freedom of the press was answered by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 84 who argued that a free press was needed, even if the practitioners strayed from the truth or engaged in demagoguery.  Similar to James Madison’s argument in Federalist 10 which asserted that the destruction of illiberal factions will lead to the end of liberty itself, Hamilton concurred that the censoring of malicious members of the press would lead to the destruction of the whole enterprise of a free press.  In letters exchanged by Madison and Thomas Jefferson, such a sentiment was echoed and affirmed.   To deny liberty to the press, even to an inept or demagogic one is to put a nation on the path to tyranny.  Such an assertion by these two Founders came to fruition during the Sedition crisis of 1798-1801 when a number of opponents of the John Adams Administration found themselves on the wrong side of the governing opinion, then on the wrong side of the law which led them to confinement in the pokey. The Sedition Act of 1798, passed by a struggling Federalist Party disallowed malicious criticism of the government.  But the question was put forward regarding who would determine if the criticism of the government was malicious? For the Adams Administration the answer was quite simple but yet divisive and destructive. It would be  the government who would be the arbiter of truth and malice.  Of course those thrown into prison were almost exclusively from the opposition party leading many to wonder if the fear of governmental tyranny was at the doorstep.  The election of Jefferson in 1800 put an end to the crisis with the repeal of the Sedition Act but not an end to the important question of the media as gatekeeper. In the contemporary period, the traditional mainstream media has been lambasted for being woke or being supportive of the Left, concerned about the progressive agenda without a regard for facts and truth.  Decades of false claims and unsubstantiated assertions have eroded the traditional media’s standing with the populace. The media’s claim to be “experts” are now oftentimes dismissed as merely being mouthpieces of the Left.  The recent fallacious reporting of the so-called Russian Collusion and the unquestioning support of COVID lockdowns has only served to accelerate this process.  With the dismissal of the traditional elitist Leftist media, the notion of citizen journalists has taken root and proliferated. The result is a cornucopia of information and viewpoints. The internet is filled with pundits, major or minor ruminating on the major events of the day. What has manifested itself is what many are referring to as Podcastistan. The notion that the Right and the Left have a series of media outlets which only serves to affirm their particular viewpoint. What has been lost in the concept of Podcastistan is what we started this discussion with, the seeking of truth.  Even if the media devolves into a party press, the traditional expectation of the press as watchdog holds true. It is not as if the nation hasn’t had a party press before.  In the Early Republic, both the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties featured a party press which would exist into the beginning of the 19th century.  Yet, political conversations are not supposed to be exercises in polemics alone.  On the contrary, the representation of viewpoints are supposed to be supported by facts which confirms the maintenance of the pursuit of veritas or truth.  Hosts which lead discussions are supposed to challenge the assertions made by those guests who espouse viewpoints that are either controversial or mainstream.  The new citizen journalist must take their craft seriously and not dismiss themselves as amateurs if their opinions fail under scrutiny.  If the fallback position for the new media is that they are not professionals, then these individuals are not to be taken seriously and should be ignored.  Otherwise, the basic premise remains, the media are the bulwark, the watchdog against government corruption, the seekers of liberty and freedom and the vanguard of truth, veritas.