Letter to the Editor

The 4th Estate

By Jeff Gliedman, Marlboro
Posted 1/14/21

If you Google the term “The 4th Estate” Wikipedia’s response: “The term Fourth Estate or fourth power refers to the press and news media both in explicit capacity of advocacy …

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Letter to the Editor

The 4th Estate

Posted

If you Google the term “The 4th Estate” Wikipedia’s response: “The term Fourth Estate or fourth power refers to the press and news media both in explicit capacity of advocacy and implicit ability to frame political issues. Though it is not formally recognized as a part of a political system, it wields significant indirect social influence.”

 The press plays a very positive and constructive role in a democracy. It keeps the people informed of the national and international news and happenings. It brings to the notice of people the programs, policies and activities of the government.

In 1972 a pair of investigative journalists for the Washington Post wrote a series of articles about the Watergate scandals. A group of five burglars were arrested during an attempted break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in the Watergate office-apartment-hotel complex in Washington.  Then after numerous denials President Nixon’s secret recordings of his phone calls and conversations in the Oval Office, became the “smoking gun” proving that the President had been part of a criminal cover-up from the beginning. On August 9, 1974, facing likely impeachment for his role in covering up the scandal, Nixon became the only U.S. president to resign. Woodward and Bernstein were those two investigative reporters.

The role of the “4th Estate” was abrogated during this past Presidential election season. Not only did the press in general fail to uphold its role in keeping the people informed of the national news and happenings, it continued to put forward the old “Russia hoax”. Meanwhile the Biden campaign dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story, which they described as a part of a Russian disinformation operation, without evidence. They boasted that more than 50 former senior intelligence officials had signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” None of these signatories had seen the evidence.

A report by the New York Post on October 24th revealed damning evidence from Hunter’s laptop that contradicted the Biden’s campaign narrative but none of the major news media or big tech reported this information. Now that the November 3rd election is over and it’s been revealed that the FBI is in fact investigating the Bidens, the media and platforms like Facebook and Twitter are allowing the story to be viewed. Where were the Woodwards and Bernstein’s in 2020?