The role of the media

I like to refer to the media as the Fourth Estate, the name its members, the journalists themselves assumed at the beginning of the French Revolution, which arrived on the scene under the ringing tones of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

France, before the revolution was a monarchy, populated by distinct social classes: the nobility, the clergy and the professional, officially designated the First, Second and Third Estates; these estates overlapped to some degree and the very numerous class, of peasants and serfs did not belong to any of these recogniSed estates, as they were unrepresented in the Estates General, where the three estates occasionally met to consult on the affairs of state.