The current trend of News organizations requiring a subscription or sign up to read their articles has become an impediment to our Republic’s constitutional requirement of a free press. The world of just a few decades ago only had local newspapers, free radio and free television. It was here that people found their viewpoints and windows into the events that formed their world opinions. But news and opinions now have become the world of YouTube, Twitter (X), Instagram, Bluesky and a multitude of streaming services or podcasts. All of these making it quite easy to discover your own personal news sources. This internet phenomenon has multiplied the voices into a Diverse, Enigmatic and Individual river of opinions from which one develops their viewpoints.

Since the advent of newspapers one had to purchase the paper to read the news. This newspaper could be read over-the-shoulder, discarded, left in a coffee shop or found in a library for the perusal of any number of informed opinions to be had.

Having been a paperboy, as a child, I can say that many of our nation’ s social and political opinions were illuminated from a cold winter’s morning delivery of that newspaper to a snow drift filled porch. Sure a small cost was collected by the paper boy for subscription but I believe that the majority of that fee was to secure the distribution process paying both the distribution delivery truck manager/driver and myself for walking in the snow that morning. Newspapers gathered much of their revenue from the advertisements within the paper along the side of their edited pages of stories/opinions about the days news.

News of current events is essential to the formation of opinions upon the politic of the nation. To understand and read/hear the opinions of others about a subject allows the formation of one’s own opinion. This formation takes time and can change amongst a varied amount of external events.

One of the dangers of the small exchange of information can be learned from the years of the late 19th and early 20th century control of newspapers by small groups of publishers that sought to control the narrative. The so called ‘Yellow Press’ with its sensational news form is blamed for everything from the War with Spain to the sensationalism of crime leading to a feeling of insecurity by American citizens.

I worked with a young colleague that broadcast with pride that he did not get news from the paid media but rather from following Twitter (X). The online aspects have changed the playing field and the necessary reading the free speech of others has become more difficult as the proliferation of opinion writing has opened widely in the internet. The need to subscribe on the internet to read an opinion has actually limited free speech not increased it. It has led to the narrowing of views to a small demographics of followings that have overtaken the wider writings of the professional pay-for-it media.

More now the dissemination of ‘Free Speech’ is found free in a legal voice sense that is not found in the physical world. If you read part of an article online of a major newspaper or news outlet invariably you are suddenly hit with a call to ‘join’ or subscribe. You cannot read the increasing varied opinions without some sort of not-free sign up. As such these outlet authors like the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell, San Francisco Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli or even NBC’s Alexander Smith have their voices muted to the world without some form of payment. You cannot read an old discarded newspaper because they literally are so small in number now the physical copy is a rarity. You need a subscription to Apple News or to the Washington Post to get a varied opinion. Instead, you read the free opinions of radicals posted on Twitter(X).

This type of selectivity leads to a narrowing of the views one is exposed too. This type of exposure reduces the ability to form a varied opinion. This type of selectivity actually is a form of ‘self censorship.’

A reduced selection of opinions is not Free Press. My suggestion is to change the method of distribution to one that can withstand the winter storms of our politics and land up on your opinions front porch.