“We can’t survive without a free press, dedicated to preserving that fine line and secure enough to follow the facts where they lead,” the fictional president declares. “But the current environment imposes serious pressures on our journalists, at least those who cover politics, to do just the reverse. Everybody knows it’s wrong, but the immediate rewards are so great that we stagger on, just assuming that our Constitution, our public institutions, and the rule of law can endure each new assault without doing permanent damage to our freedoms and way of life.”
