They Forgot About Zenger

From Human Events we get information regarding how a network news outlet may have squashed an interview because it brought discredit upon a popular liberal reporter - Christiane Amanpour.

CNN spiked a hot story on Sunday. But if their plan was to keep a lid on a eated and unflattering Christiane Amanpour interview, it didn’t quite work out. Christiane Amanpour interviewed author Marc Thiessen about his hot new book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack last Wednesday, January 20. But Thiessen turned the tables on Amanpour and instead confronted her about her biased reporting.

The show broadcast to CNN’s international audience, as planned. The piece was then to air in the large U.S. market Sunday. However, it appears that after Thiessen firmly called out CNN’s star reporter for spreading mistruths about enhanced interrogation, one of her pet issues, the network opted to not air the show at all in the United States.

It is not pleasant for anyone to be "hoist by their own petard " and to have the interviewee turn into the interviewer must have been a humiliating experience for the renowned Ms. Amanpour. But what was she reporting? Thiessen wrote a book that is clearly criticizing the President for his handling of national security. He interrupts her diatribe to interject how Ms. Amanpour's misreporting of waterboarding has endangered our nation. Thiessen is a former speechwriter in Bush administration; some of the pertinent dialogue can be viewed here from a segment broadcast on Sean Hannity's program.

Misrepresentation of facts is far more effective than simply suppressing them. It presents an opportunity to "poison the jury pool" of public opinion and to harden attitudes which might have been changed with the straight forward presentation of fact.

This is not what the Founders of our Nation had in mind when they drafted the First Amendment. Freedom of the press is supposed to provide the citizenry with an opportunity to decide for themselves how they should govern themselves. Commonly attributed to Thomas Jefferson, the adage, “An informed citizenry is the bulwark of a democracy” is truly a vital component to self governance, particularly today when government is all intrusive, all pervasive and affects every part of our lives.

Which is why we need to revisit why freedom of the press was considered important enough to become part of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Remember, the Bill of Rights was drafted to satisfy the States demand to clarify certain rights and ratified nearly three years after the Constitution in December 1791 (the Constitution was accepted in June 1788).

There is an incident in colonial America that sparked this Amendment protecting the freedom of the press, it was the trial of John Peter Zenger (I was taught this in the seventh grade; I wonder if they even teach it anymore).

The Trial of John Peter Zenger: An Account
By Doug Linder (2001)

No country values free expression more highly than does the United States, and no case in American history stands as a greater landmark on the road to protection for freedom of the press than the trial of a German immigrant printer named John Peter Zenger. On August 5, 1735, twelve New York jurors, inspired by the eloquence of the best lawyer of the period, Andrew Hamilton, ignored the instructions of the Governor's hand-picked judges and returned a verdict of "Not Guilty" on the charge of publishing "seditious libels." The Zenger trial is a remarkable story of a divided Colony, the beginnings of a free press, and the stubborn independence of American jurors.

To make a long story, less long, Zenger got himself in hot water when he started the New York Weekly Journal in November of 1733. He did this at the bequest of friends who were fighting against a corrupt Governor, William Cosby, who ran the colony like his own private fiefdom and railroaded anyone who got in his way. A new opposition political party was started and they ran a candidate who won the election in what is now Westchester County (just north of NYC for all you non-New Yawkers). And there were shenanigans and goings on as the Sheriff threw his support behind Crosby, but the opposition candidate, Lewis Morris, still won. Of course Zenger faithfully reported this in the Journal.

Zenger continued to report on the shenanigans and goings on much to the consternation of Mr. Crosby. Crosby tried to use the court system to shut down Zenger's presses but was unsuccessful.

Cosby responded to these frustrations by proclaiming a reward of fifty pounds for the discovery of the authors of the libels and by issuing an order that Zenger's newspapers be publicly burned by "the common hangman."

Then, in an effort to get around the Grand Jury's refusal to indict, Cosby ordered his attorney general, Richard Bradley, to file "an information" before Justices Delancey and Philipse. Based on the information, the Justices issued a bench warrant for the arrest of John Peter Zenger. On November 17, 1734, the sheriff arrested Zenger and took him to New York's Old City Jail, where Zenger would stay for the next eight months.

Zenger's trial commenced on August 4, 1735. His lawyer, James Hamilton, got the juror's sympathy and introduced a revolutionary doctrine - jury nullification. For prior to this:

Chief Justice Delancey ruled that Hamilton could not present evidence of the truth of the statements contained in Zenger's Journal. "The law is clear that you cannot justify a libel," Delancey announced. "The jury may find that Zenger printed and published those papers, and leave to the Court to judge whether they are libelous."

Hamilton responded thusly:

I know, may it please Your Honor, the jury may do so. But I do likewise know that they may do otherwise. I know that they have the right beyond all dispute to determine both the law and the fact; and where they do not doubt of the law, they ought to do so. Leaving it to judgment of the court whether the words are libelous or not in effect renders juries useless (to say no worse) in many cases.

We know how this ends. The jury returned a verdict of "not guilty." This didn't mean a cessation of political shenanigans and goings on, but it did stop any further prosecutions for seditious libel in New York.

A half-century after the Zenger trial, as members of the First Congress debated the proposed Bill of Rights, one of the Constitution's principal drafters and great-grandson of Lewis Morris, Gouvernor Morris, would write of the Zenger case: "The trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America."

This, this, is what the First Amendment is all about. Not the protection of petty government potentates who harbor illusions of grandeur; not to promote some reporter's pet peeve. But to protect those who would uncover wrong doing, evil if you prefer. The First Amendment is the flashlight that causes the cockroaches to run when the darkness disappears and their actions are revealed.

And we see damn little proper use of it. And it is a shame, because so many Americans are looking for this in their news sources. Consider this revelation:

Fox is the most trusted television news network in the country, according to a new poll out Tuesday.

A Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters Jan. 18-19 found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News, 10 percentage points more than any other network.

Thirty-seven percent said they didn’t trust Fox, also the lowest level of distrust that any of the networks recorded.

There was a strong partisan split among those who said they trusted Fox — with 74 percent of Republicans saying they trusted the network, while only 30 percent of Democrats said they did.

If you build it, they will come.