Our work at America’s Future includes educating our fellow citizens about the principles that underlie our great country’s history so that we Americans can continue to shape its future. An issue that has reached the boiling point is information, or more precisely, the media, and how the dissemination and reception of accurate information is central to the proper functioning of a democracy. Freedom of the press is one of five central and fundamental First Amendment rights of our nation, but defrauding the public and causing chaos and divide fall far outside that scope.

Americans are being fed a steady diet of fake news — phony media about our domestic situation and false reports from the foreign front. Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at how the public has increasingly come to distrust the media. We’ll address why that happened, and how the fourth estate has collapsed, and what we can do to rebuild it. As an introduction to this new series, we’ll start with taking a look at the press’ role in a free society.

Over the years, the press and media industry have used different definitions to explain their purpose and role in our society. One journalist said his job was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. In the 1960s, it was said that the media’s responsibility is to speak truth to power. Of late, journalists say their mission is to educate their readership in critical thinking, yet, when responding to a PEW Research Center survey about the importance of giving equal coverage to both sides of a story, over half of the journalist respondents say that “every side does not always deserve equal coverage in the news.”

In reality, whatever definition is preferred at any time, they are just different ways of describing the same thing — using the press as a soapbox to push a political perspective. A “narrative” is the more common lingo used today. Bottom line, what we are seeing is the packaging and peddling of propaganda.

That’s not what the press is supposed to do in a free society. Rather, its job is a modest but important one — to inform the freeborn citizens of our Constitutional Republic. Without access to accurate information to shape our fate as well as the future of our families and communities and the country as a whole, we will lose America. And that’s why the Founding Fathers gave us the First Amendment, which ensures freedom of the press.

Make no mistake — the Founding Fathers didn’t romanticize the media of their day. George Washington called journalists “infamous scribblers.” Benjamin Franklin, a newspaper publisher himself, said the press was resentful and vicious, an institution comparable to the Spanish Inquisition. Thomas Jefferson, perhaps most critical, wrote of his distain of the media to a friend: “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.” Elsewhere he wrote: “I deplore … the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them.”

And yet they all knew that the country they were building needed a functioning free press as much as the public needed to speak their mind, freely and without fear of retribution or retaliation. The more information, the better. Let a thousand voices speak and the truth would eventually win out.

Obviously, the same holds true today. We need the media, but when it simply serves the causes of one political faction against another, it can destroy our faith in America’s greatness. And those that peddle fake news betray America. When you see it, call it out. Be smart. Take time to learn. Get involved. Stay informed.

Although journalists responded to PEW’s survey noted earlier that they did not believe they have an obligation to give equal coverage to all sides of a story, 76% of Americans responded that “journalist should strive to give all sides equal coverage.” In this week’s Reader’s Survey, we pose that question to you, along with two others. Please participate in our survey. We read all the comments, learn from you, and appreciate your time. Thank you!