May 31, 2026
[A preliminary note: in Greek myth, the original Palladium was a wooden statue of Pallas Athena that protected the city of Troy.] The liberty of the press is the Palladium of all the civil, political and religious rights of an Englishman.
‘Junius’ (which the pseudonym of a contributor to the Public Advertiser, a London newspaper in the 18thcentury whose identity has never been established)
MEDITATION: How many times have you been burned by the press—or flattered by it? Do you believe public scrutiny is a burden or a privilege?
COMMENTARY: Junius wrote when the press was the sword of the citizen. Today it’s the battlefield itself; but we now call it “media”.
Free societies can only survive when those in power accept that criticism is the rent they pay for influence. When they dismiss the media as deliverers of fake news, when they start shooting them, the very first line of any society’s defence is gone.
