The Fourth Estate: An Endangered Species?

One of the few remaining checks and balances provided by our Constitution is eroding like a sand dune in a hurricane.

Consider this scenario:

Joe’s Zippymobiles, a fictional car dealership in the fictional American town of Springfield, buys a weekly full page ad in the local daily newspaper, the Springfield Daily Blather. The Zippymobile’s latest luxury sedan, the XYZ99, has a fatal design flaw that randomly causes those cars to burst into flames.

The publisher of the Blather takes the editor aside and says, “Bury that story about the XYZ99. We get a good percentage of our annual revenue from that dealership.”

In days of yore, the managing editor or the editor-in-chief or the editorial board, whose first responsibility is to the truth, would tell the publisher to stuff his advertising dollars where the sun don’t shine and would run a story about the fiery roadsters on the front page, perhaps including a local slant, making sure that the newspaper’s readers in Springfield were warned of the potential hazard. The responsibility to provide accurate information, particularly when there is a danger to a …