Power Corrupts & Reporters Are Wimps

Think Again: ‘Chilling’ the Press

by Eric Alterman and Paul McLeary
December 2, 2004

The story is one as old as the political arena itself. When one side feels it wields all the power, it loses a sense of proportion and limits on its behavior. We’ve seen countless hints of such likely abuses from the conservatives who rule the roost today, from a purge of those who offered sensible advice before our current misadventure in Iraq took place to an ill-fated attempt to give certain congressional staffers the police-state like power to examine the tax records of Americans at will. Together with this tendency to believe in one’s political invulnerability is the notion that power is no longer accountable in the old-fashioned way; that the media are no longer to be treated as a necessary protection of the people’s right to know, but rather as a nuisance to be neutered so that power may roll along merrily and unhindered by too many uncomfortable questions.

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