No fourth estate

The term 'fourth estate', applied to the press, refers to its role as the fourth branch of government, unelected, but truly representing the people, a group of experts and professionals whose job is to impartially report on the activities of the government, and to ferret out information about that activity when such information is not forthcoming.

"Asking the tough questions" is only the first step -- "getting clear answers" is the second and equally imortant job. The act of phrasing the 'tough question' in person to the government official (or whoever may be expected to have a difficult time answering it honestly) is very telegenic and doubtless satisfying, but it has been packaged by the TV news/entertainment shows as the end of the process. Any half-assed answer, evasion, non-sequiteur, or counter-accusation is lazily accepted as a response.

Without a fourth estate that actively and aggressively holds out for valid answers to those questions, and reports those answers (or the lack thereof) to its public, there can be no healthy democracy -- especially when two of the first three estates have been stripped of power by the first, which has taken for itself the unilateral power to drag this country down to hell to satisfy the adolescent whims of its sociopathic leader.