Contributed by Josh Fryfogle
“The Press” is not what you might think it is. “The Press” is not synonymous with “The Media”. “The press”, as it’s described in the First Amendment, is a reference to the printing press, which was a relatively new, and controversial technology that, at the time the Amendment was written, had already disrupted religion, culture, and politics all over the known world.
This idea that the so-called ‘Fourth Estate’, this supposedly valid, yet certainly unelected, quasi-branch of the government that keeps the other, elected branches of government in line... Well, that’s a major departure from the intent of the First Amendment.
The First Amendment does protect the activities of media professionals, but only because media professionals, themselves as individuals, have First Amendment rights. The companies they work for don’t even have a ‘self’ to express, so the First Amendment protection of conscientious self-expression cannot be accessed by these companies, except that they hire a human person to work for them.
No, the intent of the first amendment is clear, to allow for free expression of human People who already inherently possess the Liberty to express themselves, in any way they see fit, but also through speech, the printing press (or other modern media), or in peaceable gatherings where they proactively self-govern by addressing the People and their representatives, and petitioning for redress.
The First Amendment’s ‘press’ clause is not to be taken out of the context of the single sentence that conjoined the clauses of the total amendment. This First Amendment is not a random grab bag of rights, but a purposeful and powerful combination of particular rights, that empower the individual voice to engage the system of self-governance through their ability to communicate to the community at large. Creating a public record in this way, and presumably a consensus of the People, is the best check on government overreach we could possibly hope for. The People having an accurate measure of the consensus, as common knowledge, is the best way to assure that our representatives are re-presenting what we’ve presented to them.
The corporate media today, which has been called ‘The Fourth Estate’ - a term that is rife with implications - is simply reverting to a time in Old Europe, before the printing press and it’s use were made public domain by the First Amendment. A little look into the history of the term alone is enough to raise questions about the place of such an institution as this, being archaic and rooted in a medieval paradigm. Literally, historically, the idea of a Fourth Estate is, itself, an affront to the values of a free society.
Our First Amendment was revolutionary, because it was encouraging and accommodating the average person to speak candidly, and for themselves! It was trusting that if we are peaceable in our approach - rather than the Adversarial approach that mires modern politics - that we could come to a consensus. It’s the trust that, if the People were free to do so, they might leave behind the medieval concepts of Lords and Peasants, of Commoners and Nobles, and inform their representatives and the public at large of what their individual concerns are, and the collected result would serve as guidance to those we elect to re-present that consensus in our varied congresses.
The Fourth Estate in America is often referred to simply as ‘The Press’. This is a misnomer.
This is so simple, yet so important. ‘The Press’ is a term that is taken from our First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
It’s modern use to describe the media industry is completely off-base. And the fact that ‘The Press’ has come to mean something completely different in common parlance does absolutely nothing to affect the actual freedom of the press or those who hold that right: The People.
The human, natural persons who have a voice to speak with, who have a hand to wield the press, who have the mind to invent new ways to better communicate with their community - these are the inheritors of these rights that keep us free.
The fact that many people do not make use of these rights, that does nothing to change the fact that these rights belong to them, and them alone. As proof, consider that the media industry pays for 100 percent of it’s content creation budget, employing human persons. Reporters, editors, camera crews, the list goes on. All of these people are lending their own, personal, first amendment rights to these companies, in order for these companies to engage in the First Amendment activities that they do.
News You Can Trust - that’s not a rational statement.
The idea of the First Amendment is to protect our ability to create a consensus, by making our own thoughts and concerns into a public record, so as to guide and inform our elected representatives in their task - which is to re-present those concerns in the offices of the People.
This is not meant to be a trough to consume your daily ration of rationales. It’s a tool to be held in your own hand, a mechanism of democracy, a powerful protection against tyrants and despots.
With this in mind, I remind all of my neighbors that our true and sincere conscientious expression of self is the only way the government will every be able to serve those concerns.
I remind those around me, regardless of your perspective, that we’ve all agreed that there are certain rights that all humans have, that we cannot infringe upon lawfully, but of those other issues that are not inherent rights, we can reach a consensus on these issues and create a government that truly serves the people. We can institute laws that the majority supports, but first we must measure the consensus. We can create a justice system that is just, but that too requires an established understanding of the consensus of the People.
The First Amendment is an interactive opportunity to shape the communities we live in. It’s not an industry, even though some industrious souls have found financial compensation for their creative output. First and foremost, the freedom of the (printing) press, and all other tools of self-expression, is the right of each individual person, so that all might be heard, who choose to speak, and all might hear, who have ears to do so.
