Page 31 - PLATINO EDUCA

4x7: the fourth estate 31

in the seventh art

Charo Moreno

“[W]ere it left to me to decide whether we should have a
government without newspapers or newspapers without a
government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Thomas Jefferson, 1787

These were the words of the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, in
1787. So clear and convincing was his declaration, that the freedom of the press has
since been enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Nevertheless, this principle has not always been upheld. According to the Committee
to Protect Journalists, during the first months of 2020 there were 400 attacks on the
freedom of the press in the United States.

Nor has the European Union been free of such problems. The Council of Europe states
that 142 serious threats have been registered since the start of 2019 and throughout
2020, and that “the freedom of the press in Europe is now more fragile than at any time
during the Cold War”. In Spain, it looks as though journalism and media professions
will be increasingly threatened over the coming years.

Yet despite this alarming situation, both citizens and their governments continue to be
aware of the immense power of the press.

In other words: journalists and media corporations have and exert influence. What about
the fourth estate? The same year that Jefferson incorporated freedom of the press into
the US Constitution, Edmund Burke coined the term the “fourth estate” during a debate
in the House of Commons in Britain. During the opening up of the House to reporters,
Burke attributed to the press a political status on a par with executive, legislative and
judicial powers.

Deadline - U.S.A. in English is also the title of a 1952 film directed by Richard Brooks and
starring Humphrey Bogart. In this classic movie, the figure of the journalist becomes a
hero fighting tooth and nail for the truth despite external political and economic forces.
The movie also teaches us about the structure of a newspaper’s editorial staff at that time.

Let us go a step further and discuss the “fifth estate”: that which relates to the media and
the information revolution that has occurred as a result of the emergence of new social
phenomena and the Internet. The title of the 2013 movie, The Fifth Estate is a reference