The Concept of a Free Press, Real or Illusion

My lifetime has taught me to admire, respect and love the truth that is my country. In my youth I was taught to believe that our free press is our protector and our protector will always be there to tell us the truths we need to know and understand. This is the reason the press was revered and given safe harbor in our First Amendment to the Constitution. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press.”  The First Amendment clearly demonstrates the importance, faith and reverence extended to the press by those who chose to create and protect our nation.

Step away from the clearly desired and desperately needed intent of a guaranteed freedom and carefully observe the press rejecting its intended protector role. The press in all its modern forms now chooses each and every day to follow unanticipated, dangerous courses and purposes. The truths it chooses to twist daily can be compared to the images you see when you enter a house of mirrors found in many carnivals. There, you get what you expect. Your reflected image is simply a humorous distortion. You are tall, short, skinny or fat and you are amused because you understand that it is not really you. In real life the press also presents you and this nation as distorted images based on false values and false truths. Those images continue to grow more and more grotesque and dangerous and I am decidedly not amused. Truth is the only image you and I should seek and demand or we no longer have a protector. 

If you cannot trust where can you turn?