Monday, February 19, 2024

“Democracy Dies in Darkness”

From Wikipedia:

“The Washington Post first unveiled the slogan via Snapchat on February 17, 2017, when it launched its Snapchat Discover platform intended for reaching younger readers, before adding it to its website under the newspaper title. Shani George, the newspaper's Communications Director, said that the phrase had been used internally within the company for years before being officially adopted.

"Democracy Dies in Darkness" was the first slogan to be officially adopted by The Washington Post in its 140-year history.  According to the newspaper, the phrase was popularized by investigative journalist Bob Woodward. Woodward used the phrase in a 2007 piece criticizing government secrecy, and referenced the phrase during a 2015 presentation at a conference when he talked about The Last of the President's Men, his book about the Watergate scandal. Woodward said he did not coin the phrase himself, instead attributing the phrase to a judge ruling on a First Amendment case, believed to be from Circuit Judge Damon Keith. The paper's owner Jeff Bezos, who attended Woodward's 2015 presentation, also used the phrase in a May 2016 interview. The newspaper said it decided to adopt an official slogan in early 2016. This started a process which involved a small group of newspaper employees meeting to develop ideas for slogans. The group eventually settled on "Democracy Dies in Darkness" after brainstorming over 500 options.”

Q: If someone, say your teenage kid who is beginning to take an interest in politics, asked you “Pop/Ma, what does the phrase ‘democracy dies in darkness’ mean?", what would you tell them?  How would you explain it to them?

Let’s hear it.

(by PrimalSoup)

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