FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT AN INVINCIBLE RIGHT

Don't like what we say or print?  Too bad, say the press and media: we have the right to freedom of the press.  There's nothing you can do about it.  Up yours.  

With any right granted by the Constitution comes a responsibility.  The right to bear arms, for example, does not mean that a known and convicted killer has the right to own a gun; he gave up that right when he abused it.  So it is that the press and the media, in exercising their rights to freedom of the press, have an obligation to use that freedom in a responsible way; if they don't, they lose the right.  

The press and the media have the responsibility to the American public not to become a propaganda arm of any political party because, if the politicians control the press, who can we trust to tell us the truth?  In virtually every case where a government has become an oppressor and has usurped freedoms of its citizens, the government has first controlled the press.  So, when the press and the media start telling untruths and hiding the facts in order to placate and advance a political interest, they lose their rights to freedom of the press.  

I believe it is time that we Americans put their feet to the fire.  If we can prove that they are owned and/or controlled by a political faction, printing or broadcasting untruths and covering up crimes or other misdeed, we should shut them down.  To hold otherwise is to say that someone can actually yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater and get away with it. 


That's MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted.