While working at decluttering a home a few weeks ago, I came upon stacks of old newspapers. This particular article had been torn from a page in our local paper dated Tuesday, January 13, 1976! It was a fascinating read.
We probably have all heard of people or organizations on social media whose personal articles, interviews, opinions, and more have been 'taken down' by 'fact checkers' simply because they have the power to do so.
This published article below was spurred on by the death of the Chinese premier Chou Enlai (China's head of government from 1949-1976) who who was apparently revered in the press for his intelligence, wit, and accomplishments, but hardly a journalist thought it important to mention the evil regime he was a part of. The italicized words here are excerpted directly from this newspaper editorial. I have highlighted some of the words in red ink. This is a timely reminder to us all.
Selling One's Birthright
.... Just what is it we as journalists are here for......?
We are here to make sure there is never one single, undisputed version of the truth handed down from the government to the people, to be accepted without question. This is the sole reason we make such pests of ourselves around the politicians and the police, and the reason we often draw attacks from the Chamber of Commerce types for being "knockers, not boosters".
In short, we are the guardians of pluralism. And the Chinese Communists are the open and sworn enemies of pluralism. In China, a single institution, the Communist Party, controls every school, every press, every loudspeaker and every pen in the land. All books, all paintings, all music, drama and ballet are judged by a single criterion; whether they express the approved ideology....
The Chinese communists intend to do far more than merely make life difficult or impossible for independent thinkers, as the Soviet government did to Alexander Solzhenitsyn. They intend to make it impossible for independent thought to exist.
Remember, independent thought is not a universal trait: it takes a special environment to survive. It is only possible where every individual is a member of many different institutions - family, church, club, labor union, trade association, state -- all making different and sometimes conflicting demands on his loyalty, forcing him constantly to choose and decide between different values and alternatives.
Under the Chinese system, every institution in the land, including the family, is considered to be a local branch office of the state. The Chinese attitude towards the press was expressed perfectly by a Chinese journalist who was asked by a Western journalist whether a government-controlled press was consistent with liberty.
"But of course," he answered. "Here, the government serves the people, and the press serves the government. What could be simpler than that?"
But it doesn't work that way. No government, no matter how chosen, can ever "serve the people" so completely to be above criticism. If that attitude had prevailed in the US, the Watergate scandal would never have been brought to light.
There is one right way for human beings to live, and that is the state of having no one right way to live forced down their throats. Even the Christians, who believe in God's plan for mankind, accept this: in their belief, God chooses to allow Satan to exist and tempt mankind, so that he may choose the good of his own free will, rather than accept it blindly.
It is a strange symptom of the malaise of our times that many Western intellectuals seem to have a death wish: a desire to destroy the very social system that made it possible for them to become intellectuals. They tire of the pain of thinking, the hardship of choosing, and the constant frustration that comes of being responsible for the fulfilment of one's own dreams. They seem to want to give it all up for a system that offers security and a sense of common purpose --at the expense of thought.
This, to our minds, is a perfect example of selling one's birthright for a mess of pottage. And journalists especially should keep this in mind...
We cannot leave it to journalists and mainstream media to give us both sides of a story anymore. It's important to continue to exercise our right to freedom of speech, which includes the right to access various opinions and information so that we may determine the truth for ourselves. The information is out there. It should continue to be accessible.
A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize.
~Sir Winston Churchill
