[JustAnotherFan]

....He was quite an idiosyncratic poster...

teejers1, Snorflax, Genuine Realist, akidcoc, you might be mistaken about me.  Thank you for your response JustAnotherFan.  I will try to live up to the definition given below for idiosyncratic as used as an adjective (and hope this will suffice to keep me from being disappeared from here):

1. pertaining to the nature of idiosyncrasy, or something peculiar to an individual: The best minds are idiosyncratic and unpredictable as they follow the course of scientific discovery... 
   
   Now, back to the topic I hope you might find interesting to discuss:
   
   

“The First Amendment is the safety valve of our democracy,” says US free press advocate Trevor Timm (TED Talk: How free is our freedom of the press?). “It has always been the bulwark against secret government, against authoritarianism and against tyranny.”

If we need the press to be free and independent, is the press or to what degree is the press of today free and independent in how it is covering and investigating matters related to Covid-19?  What is your take?  Thoughts?

Perhaps you could start by answering the question I posed: "Do you or your contact believe that the government has been preventing the press from reporting even the most absurd claims regarding Covid?"

Fox News is the most popular source of TV news in the country. It has been free to peddle lies and disinformation that has most likely led to a worsening of the pandemic, and has undermined public health efforts. There is lots of money to be made selling snake oil so places like OAN and the Washington Examiner are also in on it. The government has not infringed on their "right" to package lies as journalism. In fact, the chief executive has amplified them. So what are you getting at?

But if we are going down this path, none of the "rights" in the Bill of Rights are absolute, and some are simply waived off as no big deal. The only examples I have seen of the freedom of the press being infringed has been when cops kept shooting rubber bullets, bean bags, and chemical agents at mainstream reporters who were covering the George Floyd / Black Lives Matter protests in the summer. So again, what are you getting at?

[JustAnotherFan]

....He was quite an idiosyncratic poster...

teejers1, Snorflax, Genuine Realist, akidcoc, you might be mistaken about me.  Thank you for your response JustAnotherFan.  I will try to live up to the definition given below for idiosyncratic as used as an adjective (and hope this will suffice to keep me from being disappeared from here):

1. pertaining to the nature of idiosyncrasy, or something peculiar to an individual: The best minds are idiosyncratic and unpredictable as they follow the course of scientific discovery... 
   
   Now, back to the topic I hope you might find interesting to discuss:
   
   

“The First Amendment is the safety valve of our democracy,” says US free press advocate Trevor Timm (TED Talk: How free is our freedom of the press?). “It has always been the bulwark against secret government, against authoritarianism and against tyranny.”

If we need the press to be free and independent, is the press or to what degree is the press of today free and independent in how it is covering and investigating matters related to Covid-19?  What is your take?  Thoughts?

Perhaps you could start by answering the question I posed: "Do you or your contact believe that the government has been preventing the press from reporting even the most absurd claims regarding Covid?"

Fox News is the most popular source of TV news in the country. It has been free to peddle lies and disinformation that has most likely led to a worsening of the pandemic, and has undermined public health efforts. There is lots of money to be made selling snake oil so places like OAN and the Washington Examiner are also in on it. The government has not infringed on their "right" to package lies as journalism. In fact, the chief executive has amplified them. So what are you getting at?

But if we are going down this path, none of the "rights" in the Bill of Rights are absolute, and some are simply waived off as no big deal. The only examples I have seen of the freedom of the press being infringed has been when cops kept shooting rubber bullets, bean bags, and chemical agents at mainstream reporters who were covering the George Floyd / Black Lives Matter protests in the summer. So again, what are you getting at?