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One of the most dangerous ideas to come with the invention of the printing press is that a writer has an absolute right to know everything about everybody. When books were difficult to reproduce this tendency was kept under control, and the reading public was only assaulted occasionally by mindless gossip diguised as "investigative journalism." Procopius' "Secret History," composed of every bit of prurient tripe that came the author's way, is a case in point. With the explosion of newspapers in the nineteenth century, then radio, television and, finally, the internet, the alleged right to know everything has spiraled out of control.

Journalists like to think of themselves as the "Fourth Estate" (without most of them knowing what an "estate" is), another branch of government that is unaccountable to anyone except their own whim and advertisers in whatever medium they infest. An "estate," however, was not a branch of the government, but a division of the legislature in France. The legislature as a whole was the "General Estates," or the three groups representing the common people, the nobility, and the Church. By positing journalism as a "Fourth Estate," the verbal papparazzi claim the right to representation on their own account, not on behalf of any social group or division.

That being said, the press does serve a useful purpose, although not quite an inflated one as the press itself would have us believe. William Randolph Hearst might disagree (in fact, he did), but the job of the press is not to create the news, but to report events. To demand that candidates for public office be required to hold press conferences (especially as a news event in and of themselves) is a form of creating the news, not reporting it, particularly as the favorite game is to try and trick the candidate(s) into saying something ill-considered or stupid that can be blown out of proportion, and giving the esteemed representatives of the press an ego boost for having "uncovered" yet another manufactured scandal.

The only thing worse than the coercive power that the press wields (which requiring government candidates to hold press conferences and answer questions from the media and the public would only increase ... and when was the last time a member of the public without press credentials was permitted to ask questions in a press conference, or even attend?), is the power that the media have to censor the news to make certain the public sees only what they want to be seen, and think the way the press thinks they should think. Mandating press conferences on the part of candidates for government office is bad - but worse is the power that it has to ensure that legitimate points of view remain unheard. A reporter's chief weapon is not his or her writing or investigative skills, but the ease with which he or she manages to dodge issues, or even corrections of fact that call into question something a reporter has published.

Should government candidates be required to hold press conferences and answer questions from the media and the public? Absolutely not - any more than they should be forbidden to hold press conferences or that the media should silence them in their perverse quest for perfection in everyone but themselves.

Learn more about this author, Michael Greaney.
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