Photo-Shopping the First Amendment
When I wasn’t paying attention, World Press Freedom Day came and went and now it’s ten days in the past tense, way off what serves for current copy.
And yet there’s a shocking statistic that bears yanking us all back into taking another look. Did you know---I certainly didn’t---that in country rank for free and unencumbered press, America is tied with Estonia, Latvia and Barbados at 24th out of the 194 countries ranked.
Barbados? We rank with Barbados? Nothing against that lovely island nation, but gosh, we used to think of ourselves as leading the pack in that category. Finland, Iceland and Sweden now lead that most attractive of lists and North Korea, Burma (I refuse to call it Myanmar), Cuba and Turkmenistan bring up the rear.
What the hell is going on? The first thing that springs to our lips when queried about our freedoms is that knee-jerk response that we pride ourselves in our freedom of the press.
What the hell is going on is the current administration’s foisting off ‘infome…