P.S. A Column On Things

By PAUL E. SCHINDLER JR. I am from Portland, Oregon, Beaumont ’66, Benson High ’70, MIT ’74. Some things are impossible to know, but it is impossible to know these things.

The Speech Every News Outlet Should Be Making

January 20, 2026

Yes, there are, basically no more print newspapers, no more roaring presses. But in the 1952 movie Deadline USA, Humphry Bogart makes a phone call that every journalism leader in the country should make to the president tonight.

Performing a speech written by William Bowers, Bogart [managing editor Ed Hutcheson] is on the phone in the pressroom talking to mobster Tomas Rienzi.

“It’s not just me anymore. You’d have to stop every newspaper in the country and you’re not big enough for that job. People like you have tried it before. With bullets, prison, censorship. But as long as even one newspaper will print the truth, you’re finished.

That’s the press, baby, the press, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing.”

I would take out a lifetime subscription to any outlet that showed me a real (not LLM/notAI) video of that call. It’s time for the truth, baby.

The whole speech is worth reading.

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Paul E. Schindler Jr.

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