Not a watchdog, but a partner

An unpopular truth

[Reprinted from Issues & Views October 1, 2001]

What puzzles me is why journalism should be so reflexively on the side of the government. During the Watergate era, we heard about the "watchdog press," the "adversary press," the press as the "fourth branch of government." That old skepticism about government, largely illusory then, hardly survives today even as a pose. Today the press seems to see itself as government's partner, assisting and promoting the expansion of the state. The only politicians it treats with skepticism, verging at times on open hostility, are those who try to put the brakes on government. . . .

Faith in the state couldn't survive without the partnership of state and press. You'd think a free press would favor a free society and the morality that supports it. For some reason, the opposite is true.

-- Joseph Sobran, excerpt from "Defenders of the Faith," Sobran's newsletter, September 2001. For the most candid insights on culture, government and society, subscribe to Sobran's.

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