FREE SPEECH: Right belongs to all

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. Amendment I to the Constitution of the United States.

In Friday’s Press, guest opinion writer Marc Stewart described a “critter … called the citizen journalist … They simply woke up one day and declared, I am a journalist, hear me roar … Citizen journalists are known to lie or omit key pieces of information.” He uses two recent local news items as examples of citizen journalists’ using sensational reporting to mislead and influence public opinion.

Against a body of evidence to the contrary, Stewart avers that no proof was ever given that pornographic materials were made available to kids by the Community Library Network. And that it wasn’t remotely true that a drag queen exposed his genitals to children in the park. While the definition of pornographic material may be open for debate, a drag queen performing in front of children, exposed genitalia or not, is beyond the pale. It flies in the face of North Idaho’s cultural values.

When the Founding Fathers included freedom of speech and the press in the Bill of Rights, they did not restrict it to an elite corps of professional journalists. It was designed for every citizen.

In his dystopian novel, “1984,” George Orwell wrote, “Those who control the present, control the past, and those who control the past control the future.” Without a free press, warts and all, a free society is in jeopardy.

BOB LaRUE

Hauser