9-8-2001: Millions of American citizens have been watching events unfold in Washington, D.C., amazed at what the national news media have chosen to cover, and more importantly, what not to cover.

While Social Security is pillaged, they report breathlessly of shark attacks. While Medicare is imperiled, they go around and around the Condit mulberry bush. While election reform lies fallow, they squeal over the newest Powerball zillionares. Any political press conference plays second fiddle to airplanes without landing gear or mangled trucks spread across a highway.

There are many possible explanations for the conspicuous lack of meaningful coverage of the issues that lie at the heart of our national interest. Perhaps corporate sponsors fear a decline in ratings if the nightly news speaks of budget shortfalls instead of missing interns. Perhaps journalists, seeing this trend, seek to make careers out of covering sensational stories to ensure their names become known.

Whatever the case may be, the trend towards news-as-entertainment instead of news-as-information has been happening for years. It took off with a bang via Pentagon-purified coverage of the Gulf War, and became pure art during the trial of O.J. Simpson. By the time the Clinton impeachment came along, infotainment became standard fare for the masses.

If you believe that a healthy democracy requires a healthy and vigorous free press that seeks to inform and illuminate the citizenry, then it is but a small leap to the conclusion that this trend has cost us all dearly.

In a nation so vast, with a government so large and with such power, it is impossible for our citizens to govern as we are tasked to if we are not given the information necessary to make informed decisions in the voting booth and elsewhere.

Thomas Jefferson and the Framers were great admirers of the concept of a free press. They believed no democracy could endure without one. John F. Kennedy, speaking for all politicians, was in agreement, saying once, "Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press."

This is a great burden and responsibility the modern media have, and they have not been doing the job of late. What, one may ask, would be the result if a democratic nation were suddenly deprived of a free press?

Leave that door unlocked and tyranny must soon follow.

Hobbes tells us that people act from a core of pure self-interest. If this is true, then we may be on the cusp of a revolution in the realm of journalism. The media haven't seemed to care much, or at least enough to cover in detail, our declining fiscal situation. They have assiduously avoided, with a few notable exceptions, any discussion of the catastrophe that occurred in Florida and the Supreme Court.

Hobbes might say that if such things do not affect a journalist personally, they won't receive any attention. However, threaten the livelihood, indeed the freedom, of a journalist, and you might suddenly cause an army of intrepid reporters to swarm like piranha.

A writer and investigative journalist named Vanessa Leggett has been imprisoned in Houston on a contempt-of-court charge for failing to hand over her research and notes to the FBI. She had done several interviews in the process of writing a book about high-society homicides. Federal investigators attempted to strong-arm information out of her with subpoenas, because she managed to do their jobs better than they did.

Ms. Leggett understood that if she were to betray those who confided in her, she would never be able to do her job effectively again, so she refused to comply. Our government has imprisoned her for 18 months because she chose to do what any ethical journalist would do—she chose to protect her sources.

Associated Press reporter John Solomon had his phones tapped by the Justice Department last May, with the green light for said tap provided by newly minted FBI chief Robert Mueller III. Solomon had written a story detailing leaked information pertaining to the investigation of Sen. Robert Torricelli, and the Justice Department wanted to figure out who the leaker was.

Rather than ask him, or do an investigation in a manner that protected Solomon's privacy, the Justice Department has embarked on a frightening course of action. Reporters and newspapers live on leaked information. Without those leaks, and without the ability to protect the identity of those leaks, the press cannot do the watchdog work for which it exists. The precedent has been set—accept and publish leaked information about the workings of government, and secret ears will be listening to your telephone.

To date, the Justice Department has refused to discuss the facts surrounding the imprisonment of Leggett or the tapping of Solomon's phone.

Even more chilling, Congress is preparing to consider 'anti-leak' legislation that would make it a federal crime for anyone to provide information to a reporter about government actions. Many have described this as an "official secrets" act that would all but decimate the press' ability to inform citizens of what their government is doing.

Those who have leaked information to the press in the past have done great good for this nation. One need only recall the release of the Pentagon Papers to understand that government works best, and within the bounds of ethics, when exposed to daylight. If this legislation passes in silence, the free press will basically be a memory. What use is a newspaper if it has no news to report?

Since arriving in office, Bush and his minions have taken many drastic steps that do not serve the common good. The journalistic realm has not seen fit to cover this in the detail it requires. Now, however, the basic livelihood of all journalists, as well as their ability to remain free and beyond governmental surveillance, is being threatened by an administration that does not want damaging information exposed for public consideration.

They are building walls around the White House, and appear willing to go to any length to squash reporters who find or publish information not sanitized by Ari Fleischer.

The media have been late coming to the party. Now that their own personal interests are directly involved, perhaps they will belly up to the bar with the rest of us. Self-interest should be awakened in journalists all across this nation, galvanizing them into action. At long last, those of us watching this whole mess and lamenting the lack of meaningful coverage might have something to cheer about.