Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Ruth Marcus, writer and political commentator, contributor to the New Yorker Magazine, and former staff writer, associate editor, and columnist at the Washington Post, will address issues confronting the modern American press including political interference and polarization, commercial dependence and powerful ownership structures, regulatory vulnerability, competition from social media, national attention deficit, AI generated content, rise of public distrust and alternative facts, journalistic ethics and dilemmas, and more. Is freedom of the press, as enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, under siege? What are the stakes for our democracy and how do we sustain and preserve this central constitutional principle?