journalists
now I have heard that there are journalists, television reporters, newspaper reporters, and reporters, but since I don't know those distinctions, I lump them all together, and ask you to forgive me and, for this paragraph, lump them all together too. you see, our founding fathers were experienced men, however idealist they may have been also, and they knew you can't count on a government to police itself. government and freedom are antithetical, although they can be symbiotic. in any case, they drew up a document which reserved a lot of freedoms to the people (which meant rich white men at the time, but has since been extended - more or less). but when it came to explicitly guaranteeing important rights to the people, they had to write ten amendments which we call the Bill of Rights. what, you might be wondering, has any of this to do with journalists? I was coming to that. you see, one of the freedoms the Bill of Rights guarantees, and one which we mostly haven't trampled too badly, is freedom of the press. The founding fathers couldn't count on a government to police itself, but they could count on those pesky journalists ferreting out egregious behavior, at least some of it. and they could count on at least some editors and newspaper owners having the courage to print what the journalists ferreted out. and they could count on newspaper readers gossiping. and they could count on rabble-rousers demanding redress for the egregious behaviors that newspapers exposed. and they could count on frequent enough elections getting rid of at least some of the egregious behavers. it doesn't always work, but it works well enough sorta. and all of that counting on hinges on journalists. they protect our freedoms as much as anyone does. thank you, journalists.
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