Following is a letter from Dr. James Likoudis, president emeritus of Catholics United for the Faith, commenting to the Buffalo News regarding the sorry state of the Press nowdays.

Letter to the Editor
Everybody's Column
BUFFALO NEWS
One News Plaza
Buffalo, NY 14240

Dear Sirs:

Murray Light's defense (3/16/93) of an often abrasive and irresponsible Press was buttressed by quotations from Thomas Jefferson. Missing was the other side of Jefferson's nuanced thought.

In a Letter to J. Norwell, 1807, the author of the Declaration of Independence wrote:

"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle... I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been happening in the world in their time... I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into four chapters, heading the 1st, Truths; 2nd, Probabilities; 3rd, Possibilities; 4th, Lies. The first chapter would be very short."

In another Letter to Dr. D.W. Jones, 1814, Jefferson wrote:

"I deplore... the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write them... These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste."

Readers might well inquire whether the Buffalo News in its political philosophy, moralizing, and advertising properly distinguishes – again in Jefferson's words – "between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness."

About Dr. James Likoudis
James Likoudis is an expert in Catholic apologetics. He is the author of several books dealing with Catholic-Eastern Orthodox relations, including his most recent "The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and Modern Eastern Orthodoxy: Letters to a Greek Orthodox on the Unity of the Church." He has written many articles published by various religious papers and magazines.
He can be reached at:  jameslikoudis1@gmail.com, or visit  Dr. James Likoudis' Homepage