Bruce Jenket: 1st Amendment does not give the media freedom to lie

To The Daily Sun,

On Oct. 10, The Laconia Daily Sun printed an article titled “What the 1st Amendment really says about press freedom” by Annmarie Timmins. She interviewed Attorney Greg Sullivan who tries to justify protecting misinformation by our media using the First Amendment (freedom of speech). I, too, support freedom of speech, but his examples seemed like he was defending the media’s “freedom to lie.”

According to the article Attorney Sullivan is the president of the New England First Amendment Coalition. Here is a link to their website: tinyurl.com/2uxsxvhe. Nowhere in their charter was it mentioned “truth” was a guiding principle.

In fact, Sullivan argues that the media should not be subject to lawsuits for publishing misinformation. My question is why? The First Amendment was created to protect truth, not journalists. Let me repeat that. The First Amendment was to protect truth, not journalists.

Today, most people don’t trust the media. The reason is obvious. The media no longer reports the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Now outlets on both sides support a particular political party and provide “opinions” masquerading as facts and censor facts that contradict their opinions. That was never the intent by our founding fathers. Yet here we are.

Contrary to Mr. Sullivan, I believe lawsuits are the “legal” solution to curbing the spread of misinformation and outright lies. That is why our legal system has laws against libel, slander and lack of candor (lies). We should embrace them. I personally believe CNN and MSNBC are the main political arms of the Democratic party and if they get sued out of existence for the lies, they’ve started and spread, great. Attorney Sullivan and his “New England First Amendment Coalition” can get rich defending them. This is my First Amendment “opinion” and I’ll gladly debate it.

Bruce Jenket

Moultonborough