[Jameel Jaffer in The New York Times]

Jameel Jaffer is the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University:

"The spectacle of powerful media organizations debasing themselves before Mr. Trump has become so familiar that it is beginning to feel like scheduled programming.

[...] Mr. Trump captured the spirit of our times when he observed in December that, “In the first term, everyone was fighting me,” but “in this term, everybody wants to be my friend.” Certainly, some of the nation’s most powerful media institutions seem to have concluded that it is simply not in their commercial interests to inconvenience the president, even if sparing him inconvenience means abandoning their own First Amendment rights."

As Jaffer argues, the cases being settled by ABC News, Meta, and CBS are not slam dunks for Trump. This isn't about legal details; it's about capitulating to the new President and kissing the ring. That leaves us without an effective free press to hold truth to power.

The conclusion here is on point:

"The First Amendment is just words on a page. Giving those words meaning — sustaining their promise, generation after generation — depends on a civic courage that seems, right now, to be in ominously short supply."

And that, to be honest, is terrifying.

#Democracy

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