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Article: Local government and the press: from the desk of a newspaper editor.
- Article from:
- Public Management
- Article date:
- December 1, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 International City-County Management Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Understand Your Newspaper's Role
"No government ought to be without censors, and where the press is free, none ever will."
Thomas Jefferson
On my office wall is this quotation, hanging under cartoonist Thomas Nast's depiction of Tammany Hall as a lion killing the republic and destroying the ballot box.
Local governments across the nation have come a long way since those days of boss rule, but Jefferson's observation about the roles of the press and the government rings as true today as it did in early America.
The Press's Role
As Jefferson suggests, the press's role is that of a watchdog, telling readers fairly and accurately ...