What Doesn't the Press Understand About Free Markets?

So I was out hiking this morning listening to National Public Radio (NPR)when they started discussing the pirates in Somalia. I stopped in my tracks when the so-called reporter called the pirates tradesman and what they were doing the only business the poor souls could do since the fishing industry in their country was not doing well - as an aside Somalia has more coastline than most of the countries in Africa. NPR interviewed two 'businessmen' to find out what led them into their current 'trade' and it was as if they were interviewing Bill Gates or the owner of the gas station on the corner or the person running the Burger King down the street. I just do not understand! Pirating is not legal and is punishable by life in prison or death in a whole lot of countries, yet NPR thought these guys were legitimate businessmen? This is the same radio station that has been beating down the businessmen in this country for being the reason for our current economic crisis. Let's see - U.S. businessmen are evil and pirates are good? What can NPR be thinking? They are not.

Oscar Wilde had an opinion on journalism: "In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism."

But in 1752, earlier than Wilde's comment, Henry Fielding wrote: Of our political writers ... take[s] notice of any more than three estates, namely, Kings, Lords, and Commons ... passing by in silence that very large and powerful body which form the fourth estate in this community ... The Mob."

And finally there is Senator John Kerry, who held a hearing on the future of newspapers: "If we take seriously this notion that the press is the fourth estate, or the fourth branch of government," Mr. Kerry said in a prepared statement, "it's time we consider its importance to democracy." Talk about a Freudian slip. Newspapers becoming the "fourth branch of government" is exactly what people most fear from any hand extended to save an independent press.