Freedom of the press exists to protect democracy by keeping citizens informed. The freedom stems from the notion that an informed populace is essential for voters to be able to hold government officials accountable, and to make informed choices at the ballot box.
https://twitter.com/lindyli/status/1491985801399439363
What Haberman did here flips that on its head. She used her access as a journalist not to inform the public, but to increase her own ability to profit off of hoarded information. This isn’t free press; it’s complicit press.
This nation’s mythology reveres individualism and a person’s power to succeed. But when the institutions of democracy silo off access to information and power for the benefit of insiders, it makes that American Dream unachievable. You can’t aim for something you can’t see.
Haberman has every right to profit off of her writing abilities. But doing so like this undermines the core purpose of independent journalism. She saw democracy in peril, and used that knowledge to get hers—at the cost of another step down a darkening path for our country.
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