Dear Reader, 

I address you in this manner deliberately. Had I the funds to buy enough postage, you would be reading this in a letter in your hands. I say that in hopes that you will not take this essay as being from the media (although it is printed in a newspaper).

To be more direct, I would like for you to think of me as another citizen who has opinions as opposed to being another voice with a frightening agenda driven by unseen dynamics. 

In 1787, an Englishman, Edmund Burke, coined the phrase “the fourth estate.” His meaning was that in addition to the three established estates in the English Parliament, there was now a fourth: the press. In those days the circulation of newspapers was no threat to politicians or the public. 

In time, however, as populations grew and were unable to know what was going on because word of mouth no longer obtained, the public became more and more dependent on newspapers to get information. 

Almost anyone could do almost anything and get away with it—if he could keep it out of the papers. Now the invasive TV camera has nearly supplanted the printed word as the vehicle for informing citizens about what their elected officials are doing. 

The internet today presents another opportunity for reporting on people and events, often fabricated or distorted by the person who posts something to the web. Sources such as Snopes offer judgment about the authenticity or veracity of such postings. (Who verifies the  pronouncements Snopes makes?) 

What Snopes and the public in general cannot judge, is all those things that are unseen behind closed doors. For instance, the CEO of Proctor and Gamble might have written a letter criticizing the President and sent it to major newspapers that chose not to print it. 

For instance, a general who activated a ready response team recently after the bombing of an American embassy was relieved of command but the messages sent back and forth to Washington are unknown.

 For instance, questions about the legitimacy of this or that or the other candidate for office may be raised. Sadly in all of these cases the Fourth Estate chose not to jump in and ferret out the hard truth.  

What the public knows these days is what the media lets it know. People don’t directly address or confront their nationally elected officers. 

Instead, they meet them through snippets on a news show, snippets that may well have been edited to make a point the broadcaster or his owners want made, not the one the politician actually meant. 

Oscar Wilde once wrote: “In old days, men had the rack. Now they have the Press.  That is an improvement, certainly. But still,l it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing.  

Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment, it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the  House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism.”