“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” — Thomas Jefferson

“If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, as Jefferson cautioned, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.” — Ronald Reagan

Recently, there has been a big kerfuffle about the Trump administration revoking the White House press privileges of certain news media outlets. One of the First Amendment freedoms in the Bill of Rights in our Constitution is freedom of the press. I always find it amazing that many do not know what the very first right in our Bill of Rights is. It is the freedom of religion. The author of our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, gives us some very important lessons, being the astute man that he was. I would offer a simple question: how many Americans do you think have read the entire Declaration of Independence? Even more so, how many media outlets in America took the time to read the entire Declaration of Independence to the American people this year? I fully concur with Jefferson and his correlation of our liberty to the freedom of the press. And, as Reagan and Jefferson observed, it is imperative that, in order to maintain that liberty, We the People must not remain in the darkness of ignorance. However, what happens when the press, our media, takes it upon themselves to purposefully and intentionally leverage their freedom, their platform, to advance an ideological agenda that is antithetical to sustaining our liberty?

A free press must first be a responsible press, the unbiased umpire that calls a ball a ball and a strike a strike. But that has certainly not been the case in these recent years, as we have seen certain media outlets become platforms for political and ideological means. And when that happens, the media must realize that there are consequences, mainly the loss of public trust, but also a backlash. I remember watching CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer laughing and........

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