Referring to the recent reduction in staff (and elimination of key print sections) at The Salt Lake Tribune, Kim Horiuchi writes in The Trib’s May 21 edition that “the loss of a free press is at our peril.”
The loss of a free press would almost certainly trigger the end of our republic form of democratic self-government. I for one don’t see that ever occurring — in particular due to the failure of one newspaper or TV station — or all newspapers or TV stations for that matter. Owing to the First Amendment, America does have a free press. It does not have a fair press. It’s doubtful America has ever had a “fair” press, given swings of the political pendulum and the fact that “fairness” is in the eye of the beholder.
In response to new competition from cable TV and the reinvention of AM radio, the political leanings of legacy media (including print) have drifted further and further to the left. No reasonable person would argue print media’s circulation and ad revenues figures have been adversely affected by digital media. However, it would be interesting (fascinating) to see those figures if a time machine could replay the past decade or two and if the legacy media had hovered in the political center.
Fred Fairclough, Jr., Salt Lake City