Chris Williams runs through a rain storm as he packs his car to evacuate his apartment before Hurricane Milton’s arrival on October 09, 2024, in Fort Myers, Florida. Meteorologists like Alabama’s James Spann have been dealing with conspiracy theories and misinformation as they attempt to report the weather. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
If you’ve ever heard of the press critic A.J. Liebling, it’s probably because you’ve heard this sentence of his: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”
Liebling penned that for a 1960 dispatch from a publishers’ convention . The New Yorker correspondent had spent days watching newspaper publishers vigorously slap each others’ back over the purported strength of their industry.
This happy talk revolted Liebling, who saw publishers as self-interested and usually delusional. A big reason for their profits was newspaper consolidation that left cities with fewer voices, less newsgathering and more bias.
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