Kalb: "Only a Free Press Can Truly Protect Us from Authoritarian Government"

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron appeared together on The Kalb Report this past Monday evening at the National Press Club to take the current pulse of press freedom in the United States and assess the ever-evolving relationship between the executive branch of government and the Fourth Estate. Moderator and broadcast legend Marvin Kalb channeled the man who hired him at CBS News 60 years ago and reserved the final seconds of his program for a rare, See it Now Murrow-esque moment: 

In my career, I spent a lot of time covering the Soviet Union, when it was governed by communists.  They had little taste or understanding of personal freedom, much less press freedom.  Everything was determined by the vozhd, the Russian word for a strong leader who ran everything from the Kremlin, who thought he knew more than anyone else.  As a result, everyone, from doctors to reporters, had to stand up and salute—never to rock the boat, never to be critical of him or his policies.

I did not like that arbitrary style of governance then, and I don't like it now.  What I have learned over the years, and many have accumulated, is that only a free press can truly protect us from authoritarian government.  Only a free press can insure a continuation of a vibrant democracy.  The two are inseparable.

If a political leader finds it to his advantage to attack a free press, to humiliate it, to disparage it, he is really attacking democracy at its core, and that has no place in this country.  At least, that is my view.

Let me now thank our audience here at the National Press Club, and all over the world, and then thank our two editors, Dean Baquet of the New York Times and Marty Baron of the Washington Post, for taking the time to be with us, for sharing their thoughts and experience and for giving us hope that their leadership will inspire a new generation of reporters to getting the news, without fear or favor.

And that's it for now.  I'm Marvin Kalb, and as Ed Murrow used to say many years ago, good night and good luck.

To view Monday evening's Kalb Report program in its entirety please check your local C-SPAN listings or watch online here.

Press Contact:
Lindsay Underwood, The National Press Club, [email protected], (202) 662-7561

SOURCE National Press Club