Without a free press, we really are doomed
Stefanik decided to celebrate her sixth term in Congress at a party in Louisiana
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Nearly Three quarters of U.S. adults (73 percent) told the Pew Research Center in April that freedom of the press is "extremely" or "very important" to the well-being of society. Another 18 percent said it was "somewhat important."
Nine in 10 Americans believed in a free press.
That was encouraging.
Yet, less than a month ago Gallup asked U.S. adults if they had "trust" in the media and one in three adults (36 percent) said they had "no trust in the media."
None!
Another 33 percent said they had "not very much" trust in the media. That means seven in 10 adults in this country don't have much faith - if any - in the media.
That is an enormous discrepancy in polling and leaves those of us who spent years in "the media" reporting the facts and trying to be fair wondering what we did wrong.
Is this a hyperbolic knee-jerk reaction to the screaming and partisanship on the prime time cable opinion shows, or is it a nod to the politicians who say it is so, including the next president?
Seven years ago, a local town councilman said during a public meeting that half of what you read in The Post-Star is not true.
I offered him a forum to list the 150 stories we published each month that were not true.
I never heard from him.
Many newspapers have responded to this lack of trust by running less opinion articles, no editorials and eliminating political endorsements to prove they are not partisan.
It has not helped.
One of the reasons Will Doolittle and myself continue to write on The Front Page is our belief that commentary often gives important context to the news and leads to vigorous debate. The engagement we receive from readers show our readers believe that, too.
For years, the media has been referred to reverently as the "Fourth Estate" for its unwritten role to hold government and elected officials accountable to the voters.
The results of Tuesday's election indicates the Pew Research Center polling is vastly out of step with reality.
No one trusts the media.
And at least half are not concerned with facts.
So now what?
Who will hold President Trump 2.0 in check?
The Supreme Court has ruled presidents can no longer be held responsible for breaking the law or any corrupt act if acting in an official capacity as president.
Losing our democracy won't happen on Jan. 20, or during the first 100 days the next president in office, but in many ways it has already begun to happen with the erosion in the public's trust in the media.
“For now, a few important things seem clear for the press," Jon Allsop wrote in The Columbia Journalism Review this week. "Things we’ve known conceptually for some time now hit with a shocking new clarity. The most important is that Trump’s impending second term poses a credible and unprecedented threat to press freedom as America has known it.”
But few will even notice as it disappears.
Brian Stelter reminded us in his Reliable Sources newsletter for CNN about New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger's warning earlier this year about what an attack on freedom of the press might look like.
The new administration would use the Federal Communication Commission and the Justice Department to review the "taxes, broadcasting licensing and government contracting" of media companies.
The news outlets that toe the party line will be "rewarded with state advertising revenue, tax exemptions and other government subsidies."
As the legitimate news outlets struggle, they will be bought up by those friendly to the administration.
"Within a few years, only pockets of independence remain in the country's news media, freeing the leader from perhaps the most challenging obstacle to his increasingly authoritarian rule," Sulzberger wrote. "Instead, the nightly news and broadsheet headlines unskeptically parrot his claims, often unmoored from the truth, flattering his accomplishments while demonizing and discrediting his critics."
With so much positive press, the leader will have unfettered ability to do anything he wants.
Sulzberger's point was not some futuristic fantasy, but how Viktor Orban did it in Hungary.
"It is a story that is being repeated in eroding democracies all around the world,"Sulzberger said.
That's the future of the United States of America where one in three of you have "no trust" in the media.
Kyle Paoletta wrote this for The Columbia Journalism Review:
“Next year, Trump’s assault on the press will become a fusillade of discrete attempts to quash whatever reporting he views as antagonistic. Access to the West Wing will be limited, perhaps by aides only credentialing journalists from conservative outlets — or even closing the White House briefing room outright. More consequential are the plans of Trump and his allies to turn the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission against the media, which will entail a raft of leak investigations, the politicization of broadcast licenses and antitrust litigation, and the potential indictment of journalists for espionage. Reporters covering protests and immigration enforcement will face detention from not just local police, but the Department of Homeland Security. It’s possible that Trump may even seek congressional action to reform libel laws or otherwise criminalize dissent.”
Tom Jones, the senior media writer for the Poynter Institute, wrote this week, "Trump’s messaging often seems to be about revenge and retribution. So, are his threatening remarks about the media just inflammatory talk meant to fire up his base? Or is he sincere about going after his enemies, with the press near the top of his list?"
That should make us all nervous.
Even threats might be enough to temper some of the critical coverage.
The Fourth Estate is there to hold power at the highest levels accountable.
The Supreme Court has shown it will not do that.
Congress has been incapable of doing it.
And the Republican Party has long given up any shred of dignity in that regard.
Journalists have always been there as the last line of defense. Gradually, one by one, they will be discredited and picked off until there is no one left.
Crunching the numbers
Paula Collins received the standard drubbing from Elise Stefanik that other Democrats have received in recent years. Stefanik received 62.3 percent of the vote compared to 37.7 percent for Collins. Considering Collins had a fraction of the funding, I guess that's not bad.
Collins did not carry one county. She did best in Essex County where Stefanik beat her by four percentage points. Next closest was Warren County where Stefanik beat her by nine percentage points. Washington County preferred Stefanik by 25 percentage points.
While Proposition 1, the equal right amendment aimed at guaranteeing women's rights, passed in New York, it did not received majority support in Warren County where 17,496 voted against equal rights and 16,556 voted for them.
Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner continues to defy the odds as an upstate Democrat who wins.
She easily reclaimed her Assembly seat by defeating Jeremy Messina with 61.99 percent of the vote to Messina's 37.90.
The presidential numbers in Warren County reflected the national trend with 51.62 percent of Warren County voters going for Trump and 47.37 voting for Harris. It was a different story in Washington County where Trump received 60.60 percent of the vote and Harris 39.40.
Celebrating on the road
Rep. Elise Stefanik continues to show disdain for the people who just elected her to a sixth term in the House of Representatives.
When North County Public Radio asked Stefanik's campaign where she would be celebrating her victory on election night, they refused to say.
It turned out Stefanik was nowhere in the 21st Congressional District. She was in Louisiana having her picture taken with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
Ironically, NCPR interviewed several voters leaving the polls Tuesday who were less than enthusiastic about their vote for her.
"I’m not overly pleased with the lack of time that Elise spends in the North Country. I think she spends too much time focusing on national politics and the party,” Patrick Hanss of Rensselaer Falls told NCPR.
NCPR pointed out that Stefanik not only did not debate her opponent, but she held no big, publicly planned campaign events.
“I feel like she doesn’t always have her own ideas," said Matthew Mastine from Oswegatchie told NCPR, "and she’s just trying to position herself to get into higher office, that’s what I personally feel like.”
She took her victory Tuesday night for granted and opted for a higher profile party in Louisiana.
Aftermath
From the time I went to bed about 2 a.m. on election night, until Wednesday evening I did not read a news story or watch any television news as I imposed my own personal news blackout.
Finally, I took refuge in the only possible bit of entertainment that made sense - The Voice.
It was as far away from the real world as I could possibly get.
Reality could wait one more day.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
This is grief!!! I've walked among trees where I find peace and strength. I deleted fb from my phone. I continue to read HCR, The Front Page, Lucien Truscott, and a few others. I do not watch the news, rather I read books and depend on newspapers. Someone offered me leftover Halloween candy, I took it and ate way too much. I've discovered the Paradox of Tolerance, written in 1945. I've suggested to others they read Vicktor Frankel's, Mans Search for Meaning and Elie Weisel's Night. I watched Will and Hunter on Neflix. I highly recommend it. I've returned to my sewing and sorting. I sleep well. However, when I sit down to read, the gut punch and pit in my stomach returns. But, I am, in no way, giving up. We women have work to do, again!!! January 20th would be a good day to rise up and let the world know we women of all races, sexual orientation and culture will not tolerate the intolerable.
The scare tactics around Prop 1 worked in the region.
The irony is that many of our neighbors were worked into a lather at a Queensbury town board meeting about Prop 1 supposedly opening the door to transgender boys or boys pretending to be transgender raping girls in school bathrooms, dominating girls on sports teams, and kids getting gender reassignment at school. I am convinced these people really believed these were real possibilities, but about 2 weeks before that meeting there was some sort of sexual assault on a Lake George/Warrensburg/Bolton school bus for which an 18 year old boy has been charged.
Very little news has been released about this incident despite, or because, numerous young athletes apparently watched and even video recorded the assault against what can only be assumed was a teammate.
These sorts of incidents happen regularly and assaults on young women and LGBTQ youth happen far more often and in fact are a daily occurrence across America. Our neighbors in Queensbury fought against putting positive language into our state constitution protecting the rights of those abused groups of people while the opposition ignores the very real problems that women, men, and trans individuals, and children face.
In this nation we have come to accept that in some states a 10 or 11 year old girl must carry the child of her own father to term despite the lifetime of psychological damage he inflicted on her and the very likely chance she could die because of what my neighbors insist are parental rights.
Thank you to the majority of N.Y. voters who chose to insist that children are endowed with unalienable rights apart from the “parental rights” of abusive elders and put that language into our constitution.