Consider three “P” pillars of our representative government: the postal service, the presidency and the press. The institution of the presidency is the youngest, not appearing until the U.S. Constitution emerges in 1787. The postal service is older than the United States, created by the Continental Congress in 1775. Far older than both in North America is the free press, which was vocal before Benjamin Franklin was a Philadelphia printer in the mid-1700s.

The free press of Franklin’s day was not the Philadelphia Inquirer and certainly not the New York Times or the Washington Post. It...