Can you have a healthy democracy without a common set of facts?
America’s presidential election is a test of that proposition
Journalists should not spend much of their time writing about journalism. The world is more interesting than the inky habits of the people who report on it. But this week we are making an exception, because the discovery and dissemination of information matters a lot to politics. Don’t take our word for it: “A popular government,” wrote James Madison in 1822, “without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.” Were Thomas Jefferson offered a choice between a government without newspapers and newspapers without a government, he said that he would choose the press (though that is probably going a bit far).
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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “The media and the message”
Leaders December 16th 2023
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- Can you have a healthy democracy without a common set of facts?
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From the December 16th 2023 edition
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