I warned throughout the campaign about the existential threat the media would face after a Trump victory in “Which Will Prevail: Trumpism or a Free Press?” The article has ideas which are still relevant, but would have been far easier to implement before Trump’s electoral victory and which are still applicable to an institution which needs to stop feigning “objectivity” regarding issues that threaten its very existence as the “4th Estate” of American democracy. The third part of the series offers ideas regarding how we as “citizen journalists” can facilitate the cause of protecting freedom of speech if the mainstream media fails to do so. The challenge now for media institutions is how to PROACTIVELY versus reactively protect First Amendment rights in the face of an incoming administration that calls the press “the enemy of the people” and threatens it (which means not “it”, but rather: individual journalists and institutions) with “retribution.”
