Liberty and the News

Liberty and the News is Walter Lippmann's foundational examination of journalism, truth, and democratic responsibility in the modern state. Written in the aftermath of the First World War, Lippmann confronts the widening gap between events and their public representation. He argues that democratic governance depends not merely on freedom of speech, but on the reliability and integrity of information itself. When the press fails to distinguish fact from distortion, the consequences extend beyond individual error to structural weakness within democracy. Anticipating themes he would later develop in Public Opinion and The Phantom Public, Lippmann offers a disciplined critique of both journalistic practice and public expectation. Concise yet analytically rigorous, Liberty and the News remains a central document in the intellectual history of media ethics and political theory. This Wilder Publications edition presents the text in a clean and carefully prepared modern format.