Source: Law & Liberty
by Miles Smith IV
“There have certainly been examples where the spread of conspiracy theories and false information has proved harmful — one thinks of the 2016 Pizzagate incident where a North Carolina man was imprisoned after firing a rifle at a Washington, DC, pizza restaurant he believed was hiding a pedophile ring. But the idea that governments are more trustworthy than the citizenry or the free press is specious, particularly in light of worldwide government mismanagement of the covid pandemic and how basic civil rights have been curtailed across the West by governments left, right, and center. In the United States, the press understood itself until very recently to be a check on state power and to hold state declarations accountable, not to be a vehicle for state-codified information.” (01/21/25)