Americans today get their news from a diverse and polarized media – and that’s good. News organizations often, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.” But Jefferson also asserted, “Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.” Today’s diversity can be a great tool for spreading Liberty.

Ben Bradlee, the Washington Post editor who directed young reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to ferret out the crooked deeds of Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, has died. He was 93.

He was a man who helped The Washington Post topple a president, as well as to pick up 17 Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure, according to his obituary. But Bradlee’s Washington Post is gone and, with it, the old ways of doing news.

Along came the Internet, and now newspapers are used consistently only for parakeet cages and misbehaving dogs. The legacy media, with its cameras and web presses, pandered to power far too many times. It became the bullhorn of the Left and its monopoly on the ear of the American people shattered. Today, the media is filled with organizations to the Left and Right. They range from one-man blogs to media giants like CNN. It’s one of the best times to be a consumer of political news and yet it’s one of the darkest times in this country for press freedom.

Journalism matters for a free society. If it weren’t for coffee-guzzling scribblers, how else would we know about the Bowe Bergdhal trade, Congress’ stubborn inability to pass a budget and the latest celebrity gossip? Though if we depended solely on the Leftmedia, Operation Fast and Furious may never have come to light.

Sure, tons of journalism is click-bait. And some days, it feels that only people with half a brain go into journalism. But as James Madison once wrote, “To the press alone, checkered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”

In short, a free people, in order to remain free, need a free press.

Which brings us to a new Pew Research Center study on the media habits of an American public sharply divided by politics.

Typically, “Consistent Conservatives” distrust 24 of the 36 news organizations Pew asked its respondents to rate. And conservatives flock to one media outlet – Fox News. Nearly 47% said Fox was the place they go for political and government news. The study went on to say the average respondent consumed 5.1 sources for news in the last week.

Madison would be one of the first to agree that the press – unfortunately – is run by fallible people. The newsroom is sometimes filled with the same bureaucracy and politics as it’s trying to cover in government. That’s why the strength of the press is in its diversity.

Pew also found that a liberal is often more trusting of media, giving the benefit of the doubt to 28 of the 36 organizations Pew asked about – but they distrust Glenn Beck, the Drudge Report and, if Pew had asked, probably The Patriot Post.

On a side note: Liberals are more likely to de-friend or block someone on Facebook for expressing a view contrary to their own. So much for tolerance.

But while the news consumer has a plethora of information at his or her fingertips, the Obama administration is challenging the freedom to gather the news. The bureau chief for the Associated Press in Washington, Sally Buzbee, enumerated eight ways Obama’s “most transparent administration in history” is anything but. While Obama gave lip service to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, at least George W. Bush released information on the hunger strikes and assaults on prison guards. That information is classified secret, according to the Obama administration. And Obama’s merry war against ISIL sees little coverage, as journalists can’t cover the airstrikes from the air bases launching them. More disturbingly, the Obama administration has sought to erode the Freedom of Information Act, the law that allows private citizens access to government documents. Judicial Watch used this act to peer into the inner workings of the IRS after the Tea Party scandal.

Such stonewalling only benefits the crooked in power. As Obama himself once said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

In 1996, The Patriot Post – then called The Federalist – started to cut through the political doublespeak and provide news analysis on the Internet through the lens of Essential Liberty. We were one of the first organizations to use this new medium, and now, a publication would be foolish not to spread its work online.

Perhaps the Watergate scandal would have played out differently in the Internet age. Maybe it wouldn’t have taken two journalists from the premier publication of the day, but rather a blogger armed with only a laptop could light brushfires of freedom with his or her words. One thing is certain – the Leftmedia has lost its monopoly, and that’s something to celebrate.