In Praise of Tricksters and the Free Press
Everywhere in the tradition of human experience, one will find the Trickster. However this character is named, their mission is simply to blow the minds of the comfortable.
In Shakespeare, his name is Ariel. In Norse mythology he is Loki. In indigenous American tradition, he is Coyote. In the Arab world, he is Djinn. There are countless others of their type, obscure or notorious, hidden in our common experience. Human progress is impossible without them.
They are the voices raised to question cultural beliefs, those notions held so lovingly that nobody ever asks “why?”. They are the vagabond contrary brujas that piss in our ceremonial campfires, and show us visions in the steam, a new way of looking at things.
In America, they are called the Free Press.
The operative word here is “free.” An organ of the press is free to either accept or to challenge the world around it. It can capitalize on its hold on the public attention by celebrating the status quo, and becoming a cheerleader for the political dogma du jour, or it can be a Trickster and question prevailing power.
That freedom is afforded to the press by our Constitution.
I was sports editor for my high school paper, the Outlaw Corral. In journalism class, Mr. Aldrich taught us that a good news piece asked the Five Ws, “who, what, when, where and why.” The first four are, of course, provable facts. It’s the “why” that always intrigued me.
Given that ratio, I believe that a free press should spend eighty percent of its time reporting factual events, and the rest of the time exploring the human motivations behind the events. Asking the “whys," being tricksters, pissing in the campfire.
It is perhaps my background as sports editor that makes me relish politics so much. I consider it to be America’s great indoor sport, Sacred Cow Tipping. Politics has everything a sport needs – scoreboards, pep squads, victory laps, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. It is also a very fertile field for asking “why.”
Politics is the perfect ceremony for tricksters to disrupt, it is the Great Campfire in which the press is free to piss.
For me, this is particularly necessary in times when the prevailing dogma is widely held among the population. When the population is all caught up in the cheerleading and patriotic songs, when the marching all goes in one direction in lockstep, that is the right time for a free press to ask, and ask loudly, “why?”
The first newspaper in America was “Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick”, published in Boston in 1690. The paper was shut down by the Massachusetts governor after the first issue because the publisher had the temerity to criticize the colonial administration.
Since then, the freedom of the press has been enshrined in our Constitution, and the Fourth Estate has assumed its rightful place among our democratic institutions. Speaking truth to power, whether a particular medium chooses to do so or not, is a civil liberty of the press.
In short, our Founders legalized and legitimized the media’s pissing in the ceremonial campfires.
Whether government, political power, or anyone else gets their feelings hurt by the free press is of no material consequence. Hurting powerful feelings and afflicting the politically comfortable is simply in the job description of any responsible arm of the press.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the First Amendment is an elegant legal instrument. While it guarantees the press’ freedom to publish what it damn well wants, it constrains nobody to read what is published.
So, if you read something that offends you or calls into question your basic beliefs – say, in a column in Cowboy State Daily – feel free to read no further, and go back to your pep rally.
Rod Miller can be reached at: RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com
