The Media needs Protected, not Villified

The beauty of the first amendment is that it offers us many freedoms that we often take for granted. It is because of this that we are allowed the freedom of speech, assembly, religion (or from religion), and petition. Also, this amendment guarantees us one of the most important freedoms we can have: press.

We are fortunate to live in a country where the press is free and independent. The press is not controlled by the government, and people can have access to a press that is beholden by dangerous leaders like in China or Russia. You may not find all information at all sources, but if you look hard enough, you are almost guaranteed to find what you are looking for without government interference.

Because most of us have never lived in a country with government controlled press, we often take the press for granted; they have even been under attack from many as of late. The amount of times I see people say things like,"The media won't report this," or even, "The media is the enemy of the people (Thanks for that Trump)," is becoming too high of a number to count. We have created this false enemy out of the press that quite simply is unfounded.

Are media entities blameless and impartial? Absolutely not. You would be hard-pressed to find a totally unbiased source these days; CNN and MSNBC lean left while FOX and OANN lean right (extremely right for OANN), for example. However, does that mean they are false? The answer is no. You do not have to agree with the lean that some sources put on their stories, and no, not every source reports every story. The fact of the matter is though that facts are facts whether you agree with them or not. Fake news is not the proper description for something you simply disagree with; fake news means false as in not fact (like stating a 75 year old man works for Antifa). Because of our president and many of his followers, the term "fake news" has been weaponized and used to mean stories one doesn't like or agree with. This is simply an incorrect way to look at things.

Now, why is this important, and how does it relate to the first amendment? Well, frankly, this turn against the press and the media has put actual people in danger. This narrative of "media = bad" has made many people not only distrustful of actual information, but actually angry and spiteful towards the press. As we have seen in the country lately, anger is turning in to physical action which in turn leads to a present danger for the media. These ideals go hand-in-hand.

The main problem with this is that the media is not simply an ideal or something symbolic conglomerate. The media is made up of real people just trying to do their job, which is present people with the information they need. These people don't all get to sit in some nice studio with a comfortable chair. A lot of these people are in the field during hurricanes, floods, wars, and recently, riots. We are demonizing these people and then putting them in to situations where they have no protection. So, what happens? Well, as we have seen recently, reporters are being shot with rubber bullets, arrested on live television, and threatened for simply doing their jobs. This is not how we protect our rights in this country.

If you have a problem with biased media, take it up with the networks. But, do not simply attack the press or media in general. The media consists of real people putting their health in real danger to report real information that the public needs to see. Those people, and the freedom the first amendment affords them, are what allow us to formulate our own opinions and to learn more than just what the government would want us to learn. Our press needs protected, not attacked, and keep in mind, the next time you attack the "media", you are also attacking the people, not just the logo on a building.