Editor’s note: This column originally appeared as a blog post on Mitt Romney’s 2018 Senate campaign website.
When I was growing up, Americans got their news very differently than we do today. The newspaper was a central part of every day; in our house, the Detroit Free Press was delivered in the morning and the Detroit News in the afternoon. Both ran stories by local beat reporters and from wire services around the globe.
Weekly magazines, like Time and Life, featured in-depth stories and photojournalism on major events. The New York Times was the newspaper of record with its motto: “All the news that’s fit to print.” There were only three television networks — CBS, NBC, and ABC — and most Americans stopped their day to watch the evening news. And while Republicans and Democrats had deep disagreements on issues and policy, they based their thinking on an understanding of the same basic facts.
Source: A free press is not an ‘enemy,’ it’s a pillar of democracy: Mitt Romney