Santa Barbara recently enjoyed a return of its International Film Festival. Films have played a legendary role in the culture of not only this country but internationally as well.
It happened that the same week, Steven Spielberg’s movie The Post came up on my Netflix deliveries. Several things struck me. Spielberg … said it was a compelling story about how the Washington Post picked up the torch after a lower court had ordered The New York Times to stop publishing the Pentagon Papers. Those leaked documents reveled the misinformation the government used to continue the Vietnam police action.
Facing almost certain imprisonment for their actions, the Post went ahead with publication. Spielberg said that his film needed to be made because the press had gotten hammered as being fake news and this story would restore faith in the Fourth Estate.
The Supreme Court upheld the right for the Times to publish, lifting a lower court restraining order. The decision was 6 to 3. Justice Hugo Black in a statement supporting the decision said “ … only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.” He went on to say, “The press was to serve the governed and not the governors.”
Over the past two years, how has that trust been served? The press has gotten lazy. All in lockstep with the same key words and talking points. Voices contrary to the mainstream narrative are ignored and even censured. Most chilling was the wholesale abdication of duty to investigate and continue to report on voting irregularities under threat of billion-dollar lawsuits by Dominion Voting Systems.
Could Spielberg find another Washington Post story today? Except for a couple of cable channels and podcasts, it’s crickets. And snoring. Is anyone taking the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization to task? A few lawmakers are, but they get no backing from the press.
The truth about reporting COVID-19 is being leaked. The CDC admits more than 70 percent of deaths in vaccinated people listed because of COVID-19 were people with four or more comorbidities. Dr. Fauci came clean on the massive child hospital admissions because of COVID-19 indicating that they were being overreported. Most of the admissions were because of other reasons like broken bones or cuts. A positive COVID test came up during their admission, but they were not sick with the virus.
In addition, the FDA has been ordered to release their review documents of Pfizer’s vaccine test data, which they initially wanted to keep locked up for more than half a century.
Truth will out.
Where’s the Fourth Estate?
Jan Lipski
Vandenberg Village
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 7, 2022.
