World Press Freedom Day Underscores That Truth Is the Foundation of a Free Press

“[W]ere it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” —⁠Thomas Jefferson, 1787

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” —⁠Thomas Jefferson, 1807

Thomas Jefferson was in a foul mood. The man who, two decades earlier, had pushed for a written Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech and the press, was now railing against both. Biased press had called him a godless infidel. Under his leadership, warned one paper, “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood and the nation black with crimes.”

As he ranted to his friend John Norvell that June day in 1807, “[T]he man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”

An unwritten contract exists between the media and the public: You stay honest, we don’t hit Unsubscribe.

By then, Jefferson had lost faith in the press—and, as the latest Gallup survey shows, 72 percent of Americans now share that distrust: Less than three out of 10 trust the media to report the news fully, fairly and accurately.

That reality forces a blunt question after World Press Freedom Day: What exactly did we just celebrate?

The occasion commemorates journalists who have risked—and lost—their lives to bring facts to readers. It celebrates the fundamental principle of freedom of speech and, by its very existence, underscores a hard truth: Dictatorships and tyrannies depend on the suppression and censorship of a free press. It also stresses the need for media professionals to rededicate themselves to the highest standards of professional ethics.

In a word, honesty.

An unwritten contract exists between the media and the public: You stay honest, we don’t hit Unsubscribe.

But too often in recent years, the self-anointed titans of reportage have failed to live up to their end of that bargain. The result is what many have dubbed a journalism bloodbath: Virtually every news outlet, print and digital—from the Los Angeles Times to The Washington Post, from Time magazine to Forbes, from Sports Illustrated to Business Insider—bled red ink as layoffs, cutbacks and budget reductions shattered the illusion of invincibility.

The verdict is clear. According to surveys, the only consistently trustworthy news source left is The Weather Channel, an outlet whose reporting is literally answerable to the Heavens.

Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard put it succinctly when he wrote, “Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to harm by lies.”

Jefferson made the same point: A free society depends on a press that tells the truth. When it doesn’t, freedom collapses. “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be,” he wrote.

His warning still applies.

A truly free press isn’t defined simply by the absence of censorship or government interference. It’s defined by freedom from bias, propaganda, clickbait and lies.

Without that, “freedom” is little more than a slogan—one that will destroy the press, and with it, democracy itself.