Just what is the duty of a free press ?

[kentuck]

http://www.counterpunch.org/

"The first duty of the press is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the events of the time, and instantly, by disclosing them, to make them the common property of the nation. The statesman collects his information secretly and by secret means; he keeps back even the current intelligence of the day with ludicrous precautions The Press lives by disclosures For us, with whom publicity and truth are the air and light of existence, there can be no greater disgrace than to recoil from the frank and accurate disclosure of facts as they are. We are bound to tell the truth as we find it, without fear of consequences--to lend no convenient shelter to acts of injustice or oppression, but to consign them at once to the judgement of the world."

Robert Lowe, editorial, London Times, 1851.

<snip>
Such submissiveness on the part of the Times harks back to self censorship by the paper in the early 1950s, covering up CIA plans for coups in Guatemala and Iran; also to the paper's behavior in 1966 when it had information about IA shenanigans in Singapore and through south-east Asia. The editors submitted the story for review by CIA director John McCone, who made editorial deletions.

In its Friday story, the New York Times meekly agreed not to identify the "senior White House official" who successfully petitioned them to spike the story for a year. The fact that no one was specifically named allowed Bush to discount the entire story when he went the Lehrer News Hour on Friday evening.