ABSTRACT
Newsrooms look like banks or insurance companies, mostly silent, with low ceilings and cubicles instead of the open spaces of yesteryear. Noiseless computers have replaced the noisy typewriters, and reporters have college degrees, unlike the many high school dropouts who were among the finest journalists of yester-year. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines a journalist as one who gathers, writes, edits and disseminates news. The democratization of journalism was accompanied by a steady increase in literacy, from only priests and aristocrats to the population at large. The media and politicians have always been at cross-purposes, but President Trump has brought the enmity to new heights. A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of The Times, lambasted President Trump’s threats against journalists in an off-the-record Oval Office meeting with the president July 20, 2019. An outraged Supreme Court struck down the Army’s policy of giving general discharges on the basis, not of military misconduct, but “political” activities and associations prior to induction.
