Free Press

In today’s world where we have multiple sources of information I am reminded that the reason the founding fathers added the Bill of Rights to the constitution was to limit the power of the central government. The first amendment states that the government shall not limit the freedom of the press. To show the importance of this Jefferson said: The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. Thomas Jefferson 1787 The authors of the first amendment had lived under the despotic King where there was no press to stand up to his actions and they wanted to make sure that would not happen again. I am thankful for those news outlets that investigate governments and expose any activities deemed undesirable. I believe it wise to have a natural distrust of government.