Beyond “The Post”

I'll tell you a story from a long, long time ago – almost 30 years.

I grew up in Communism, through my 15^th year of life. This was your textbook communism, with a dictator at the top and a government so loyal to him there was no room to pry it with a crowbar. The government was made up of not only loyalists to the president, but mostly by his close family members: all the children, his wife, and then extended family.

It was the Communism you (should) learn about in school, where regular people like you and me, regular civilians are forced to believe whatever the one leader of the country says. I took propaganda lessons that I had to pass an exam on every year (these were enforced, you had no choice) for the first eight years of my school life. I had friends whose parents were interrogated and sometimes killed in beatings because they would not think whatever the government wanted them to think. The books we were allowed to read were “edited” by the government, to match the propaganda. Some brave people still had the original copies of uncensored books, but they ripped up their true covers and they wrapped the copies in the covers of the “approved” books, so that the Security police who came searching their homes would not suspect they had “dirty” copies of the censored books.

The local and national papers were all government-controlled. So was the one TV channel the whole country had access to and the one radio channel, too. There was nothing printed, or broadcast on TV or radio that was not controlled by the government. If your radio could reach The Voice of America broadcast, or Radio Free Europe, you'd go to jail for a long, long time, and you would never come out, quite often. As I said: textbook Communism.

And then, when I was almost 15, The Revolution came. One night, a handful of people, lead by mostly writers, artists, and students overthrew the regime, killed the dictator and his wife and we were, dare I say it, free. During that one night, we were cautiously, and very frighteningly, elated by the possibility, by the hope, and the dream, that our little country could possibly now be free. Free to express ourselves, to think what we wanted to think, free to choose our profession without it being chosen for us, free to buy whatever we wanted, in whatever much quantity we wanted to buy!

That one night my dad asked me to tell him just ONE reason for which I am happy that communism is now extinct in Romania. Just ONE reason. So, I told him: I am happy they are gone because now we can have freedom of the press, and freedom of the written word. Now, whenever I read a newspaper or a book, I said, I will be sure I am getting the true writing, intended by the writer, and not whatever a party loyalist deemed to be “appropriate” for me to read.

Many moons later, I am in the US of A, till recently deemed the “most free country in the World”, my dream of being her citizen fulfilled, and I see with my own eyes something that I never thought I would see again: I see how politicians attack the press, deeming it untruthful and lying, while they proclaim to their supporters that they, and only they and their loyals, have the whole truth and nothing besides. And the unbelievable happens: the supporters (for they are painfully many) believe this.

It's happening again: I am telling you, dear friends, from personal experience, and not from what someone taught me about Hitler, or Stalin: the first institution a dictator smears and tries to kill is the press. The first value they kill is free speech. Their very first step is to denigrate it. And for us, here, in the US, at least for now, this works! 

The reason, of course, is simple. But blinded as we are in America, by the freedom we have taken for granted for many years, and by the ignorance a mediocre school system and an even more mediocre political education system encourages, we do not see this simple reason: it's the press, and anyone who defends free speech, that must be killed first in order for the leader to manipulate the population however they please. The press makes people think. Tyrants have no need for people's thinking, because the only thoughts that matter to them are theirs. They deny everything else of value, because of the huge ego that they lead with which has to be the one, the only, governing power and focus over all the minions. How else do you submit them?!

There is a very important reason and not a coincidence, that your First Amendment (and not the second or the third) protects free speech. Without free speech, you have no democracy. The rest of the amendments are optional in a democracy. Without free speech you have dictatorship. You have easy mind control, and you have tyranny. Period. End of story. No arguments. History has proven this very big platitude for hundreds of years now. No more proof needed.

The press is and will always be, in my mind, and as a matter of fact, the one defender of free speech. By its very nature, it must be. I recently saw the movie The Post, which is a pretty good story, well done, for many reasons. It resonated with me from many perspectives, not only because of my government-controlled upbringing years, but also from the perspective of being a former newspaper employee and a good (I think) friend to many people who are still in this business or still respect it.

And then I read comments from random people online who said that (I quote from memory because I am too disgusted to go get the actual quote) “I am not going to spend my money on this very clearly far left political propaganda movie. After I have seen enough in the past year and a half to know not to trust these rags.” (referring, perhaps to The Post in particular and newspapers in general?!) This just about broke the camel's back for me.

I have seen these comments (and oh, so much more!) online for the past two years now (and who hasn't, if you're paying attention?!), that Trump and “them” are all good and right and it's the media that makes them look bad. The belief of the ordinary American nowadays is that newspapers and news outlets, somehow are all on this platform to lie about everything Trump, and he, somehow, is the only one telling the truth. This boggles my mind, in a way, and in another: I can totally see what he's doing and how … it's working for so many people, and to our detriment! The Communism in my little country, just as Nazism in Germany was seemingly the “will of the people” when first instated.

Just to make sure I get it out there: I am not endorsing The Post, or any other particular newspaper or news outlet. I am just endorsing the thinking, inquisitive, and ever truth searching human mind. The Post (in the movie and in the past few years) has just merely exposed mostly (if not always in entirety) verifiable truths that should at least make us think of where we get our news and who we can trust. All this while our political leaders have done nothing but stepped from one wasp nest into another, amongst law suits, mystery accusations, revolving doors of firing and hiring for key-level positions, and yes, lies. A lot of lies that have been proven not once, or twice, but multiple times by many sources to be just that. But I am getting ahead of myself, because I do not want to keep this entry specific to a particular regime, person, or time in history. The lesson that The Post, the movie, teaches us, I think, is much deeper, and much larger than any one reality.

Anyone who knows me and has read my blogs knows: I rarely do politics, but these things had to be said:

• Politicians lie. No matter which side of the aisle you're on, even the best of them, even the ones I deem to be my favorite, most inspiring, true in character and morality, they all lie. For whatever reason, security, or politics, they all lie. Little lies, big lies, they all do it. They seldom apologize for it, and they seldom get caught. They have armies of staff to bury the evidence. This is not conspiracy theory, this is fact.
• After spending 10 years amongst journalists, I am here to tell you: they lie much, much less than any politician I have ever experienced. For obvious reasons, but if you're having trouble knowing what they are, I will spell some of them for you:
  • Their lies are 100% verifiable and they have zero protection against them. They have no secret police, no PR protecting them. It's their word against the mountain of evidence, and their lies, if they happen, are very short lived.
  • Their lies are insular: if one reporter or even one paper lies, and it is a legitimate lie, the rest of the papers will live with one goal in mind and that is to prove the truth. There is no way, in my experience, that all (or most of) the news outlets in the nation lie about the same one time. Report the same thing, sure? But not after much source vetting do they all publish the same thing in every outlet.
  • Their lies are almost always 100% suicidal: they will never write for a paper/ media institution again if they are found, and they will die of hunger – quite plainly.
  • More than any other profession I have ever been exposed to, journalists keep each other accountable. They have this incredible pride in what they do that they do not allow doubt to seep into their business, at any cost: they know that if they lie, their peers, and their competitors will prove them wrong and all will be lost – their credibility is much more important to them than any one story in all its sensationalism.
    I should mention here that I am speaking of journalists who represent legit sources, your Posts, Times, your NPR come to mind but are just a couple, of course – there are thousands out there. I am not referring to your tabloids and scandal reporting, which I hardly would call “journalism”.
• Journalists, unlike politicians, do not have the power, therefore there is nothing to abuse. They cannot sway the masses in one way or another. Sure, they can try, but you won't get 100 news institutions swaying in the same direction. There is competition, point of view, difference of opinion (which is the foundation of the news landscape, really) that news institutions thrive on and need for their mere survival. Tyrannical, one-opinion minded politicians need uniformity and conformity. Diversity is chaos to them, and they want it put out, for fear of undermining them.
• Another thing I see very clearly in our current political system: the need of the main leader to be surrounded by either family, or people stupider or less prepared (Gosh, is it even possible anymore?!) than themselves. This is, of course, also done in an effort to make them look like the only authority and supreme source of knowledge. This is typical, my friends, of tyranny. Mind my words: textbook!

In the many years I spent at a daily newspaper, I have learned that there is one thing that moves a true journalist: the chase for the true story, the meaning of it, the history of it, and getting all those facts on paper. They skip meals, they work crazy hours, they drive distances on their (very puny) salary to get to the true meaning of a story. It is probably childish and silly to say this, but I am going to say it: they don't want to manipulate, they just want people to know the real story. I don't even think they care whether anyone agrees with them or not. Getting the story is their prerogative, and theirs alone. Writing, in any form, is a pretty solitary business, and so is chasing that story for them. There is a pride in that, a true sense of accomplishment that they're after. And most of them do it with passion and grace. I am yet to find the work ethics and dedication in a work place like the ones I knew in the newspaper business!

From knowing what I know about politics, these are foreign concepts to people in the leadership of this country, or any other, really. Before you slap me for my puerile credulity, I will tell you that no, I don't believe all reporters tell the truth. But I will say that most of them do, for the reasons I briefly shared above, and possibly a lot more. I will also know, deep down in my heart, that politicians will lie to just about anyone, about just about anything to save their rung on their ladder.

Surviving for the journalist equates with the truth. For the politician, survival is keeping in power, however you can hold on to it. This is why you see politicians not conceding races right away: because they think there is always a way they could have won that power.

After our elections, I have thought we could not lower ourselves in a deeper darkness and mire. But I was wrong, for the true walk through the darkness can only now begin: us turning a blind eye, not staying vigilant, not demanding our press to stay free and open and yes, controversial and competitive, is what is going to slip us surely into the deep and muddy and empire of darkness which will ultimately threaten our very being.

The last thing we need is one person to tell us how it is, and us not to interpret and weigh in on our decisions and options. One person to offer us one pill of knowledge and us run with it, without questions and doubts. Sure, thinking is hard. But trust me: falling asleep and waking up with someone else's brain in your head is much, much harder to stomach!

I do think that one line from The Post summarizes the whole movie, the events that it depicts quite beautifully and the lesson those events drive home. I also think that this one line carries a much heavier message about why it is still important to trust the written word, and to value the right to public opinion, and why it is still and will always be important in a true democracy to do everything we can to preserve the right to free speech. That line is, in paraphrase: “Journalism is the first rough draft of history.” If we don't know our history, we're doomed to repeat it. The good but especially the bad of it. We owe it to our children to help that, if we can. And we can. We may not want to (it's tough work, I get it), but we certainly can.