CNN reporter Jim Acosta bitterly complains when Trump calls the mainstream media an “enemy of the people.” Acosta says Trump is an Orwellian tyrant, while Trump accuses Acosta and other liberals of deceiving the public with fake news.
Two of the most profound works on freedom of speech and press are John Milton’s Areopagitica (1644) and John C. Calhoun’s Disquisition on Government (1851). Milton the Englishman penned that mighty Christian poem, Paradise Lost. Calhoun was America’s greatest statesman and philosopher. Both men were pioneers in theorizing about the free press. Both were mental giants who spied a new and important element in politics; and a great and influential force in the modern age. Milton believed governing decisions should be reached by open discussion and debate. He argued that, through open debate, mind sharpens mind as iron sharpens iron. Error can stand only when cowering in the darkness of Plato’s cave and buttressed by popular ignorance; unexposed to reason’s light, and safe, for an allotted brief span, from the Biblical sword of Truth. Selfish and narrow interests, combined with demonic hatred and fear of truth, will always conspire during this earthly life to suppress truth by preventing open debate.
Calhoun viewed the press as a power either for great good or great evil; either aiding or undermining a country’s beneficent constitutional order. Public media, even when free from government control, are typically instruments of factions; either created, or captured and weaponized, for party warfare. While feigning objectivity and love of truth, these captive media spew propaganda to mold and control public opinion. Contrary to the public good, servile media promote the selfish interests and ideology of their overlord factions within a favored party. So the press can be a trusted friend of the people --- or a mortal enemy.