Originally published June 04, 2012
The Frederick News-Post
[Myron Randall, Jr. is pictured above;
president of the paper]
Letter to the Editor
by William Eby
On May 21, the largest legal action in American history in defense of religious liberty was filed in federal court by no less than 43 Catholic archdioceses and organizations representing more than 60 million Catholics. The only national news story bigger at the moment of the lawsuit filing was how the major networks all but withheld this information from the public domain. The “CBS Evening News” devoted 19 seconds to the legal action.
Brent Bozell, the head of the Media Research Center, has noted, “The Chinese communists withheld from its citizenry for 20 years the news that the U.S. had landed on the moon.” As a nation we cannot long endure as an open democratic society, a free people, if the press willfully fails to inform and otherwise deprives the dissemination of news to Americans.
It was the original intent of the founders that the press should remain the Fourth Estate, true guardians and stewards defined in the First Amendment of our Constitution. ABC, CBS and NBC must be questioned about their evident bias and looked upon with great reservation.
It is the most insidious aspect of the media to omit or marginalize coverage of fundamental human interest events only because it may not fit a particular narrative template. What better example can be shown to illustrate this corrupted practice than minimal reporting of the church litigation filing? The timing of the news cycle could not have been more opportune to release such a breaking bulletin across national airwaves.
The Washington Post found itself obliged to make mention of the lawsuit in a somewhat distant column on page A6. The New York Times did a 419-word dispatch, but tucked it way back on page A17! USA Today headlined the story in small font size, a 128word item at the bottom of A2.
What's up, media? Would you wish now to enslave our conscious awareness and even our basic liberties to the darkness of a lesser light?
WILLIAM EBY
Ijamsville
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