The Liberator: Courage Absent from Today's Press

While reading about The Liberator and other abolitionist publications, I had known that abolitionists faced considerable and often violent resistance to expressing their beliefs. Such bravery and persistence often stands in stark contrast to the modern day press, which often abandons the principles it is supposed to hold and backs down from publishing important stories under the slightest hint of pressure.

Garrison was repeatedly threatened with death, and once was nearly killed by a lynch mob for the stories he wrote. The corporate news media often do not apply the same scrutiny to conservatives that they do to liberals in order to avoid being associated with the "liberal media". Garrison put forward his strongly anti-slavery opinions without any hesitation or regret, and welcomed being criticized in an opposing paper's editorial page. By contrast, President Rochon apologized for Emily McNeill's article on the Israeli-Palestinian article, which did nothing more than explore a lesser-known side of the issue.

The difference between the Liberator and modern media in how they respond to attacks on what they publish is a matter of intentions. The Liberator primarily existed to end slavery, and thus, if it had compromised its principles out of fear or desire to ensure profit, it would have gone against the very reason it was created. By contrast, the mainstream press are often owned by companies that expect profit out of them, and thus are willing to put pressure on them to censor stories that would alienate advertisers too often to be merely for the outlet's survival. As a result, editors often confuse the decisions that are necessary to stay in business with the ones they do to avoid taking a risk on a principled stand. They are essentially no longer doing true journalism, but doing business, and have betrayed their principles out of fear of survival.

Keeping to one's journalistic principles requires keeping sight of them, and this can be a difficult task when competing needs come into play. The nonprofit press is less constrained by financial and advertising-related burdens than the mainstream press is, but they are still not free of ethical dilemmas and difficult decisions. It is ultimately up to the journalists themselves and the people in charge of them to remember why they are producing articles, and the Liberator provides a good example of the resolve that modern journalists should show.