The press and freedom: some disturbing trends

NPR's Bob Edwards tells it like it is--or at least calls 'em like he sees 'em--in the annual Joe Creason Lecture at the University of Kentucky, delivered on the occasion of Bob's April 8 induction into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.

You can't hold a press conference without the press, yet President Bush nearly did. Where were they that night? Some of those whose names were called might have bothered to ask a decent question. With the nation about to enter a war that's decidedly unpopular everywhere but here, no one asked the hard questions. Instead, the President was asked if America should pray. He was asked if he worried in the wee small hours of the night. The first black reporter to get a chance to question the President since his decision to support a rollback of affirmative action asked him, "How is your faith guiding you?" One critic said this was the journalistic equivalent of, "Mr. President, you look great today. What's your secret?"

Bob goes on to list some of the hard questions that are not being asked. In this day of neo-McCarthyism, he's taking a big risk by speaking his mind. Makes me proud to be a Louisvillian. You tell 'em, Colonel!