Letters: Free press is vital to free society

A free press is not the enemy of the people. I fought in a war for this nation to defeat a totalitarian government. As U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in 1998, “the international community must be vigilant in its defense of a free and independent press, which advanced the cause of human rights, good government and development among all peoples.”

The First Amendment to the Constitution commands that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press” because the cornerstone of our democracy is the freedom of the news services to gather and publish the acts of government for the edification of the citizens it serves. No democracy can long exist without the freedom of the press to gather and to distribute news without governmental interference.

This story was originally published April 1, 2017 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Letters: Free press is vital to free society."