To Tracy Hahn-Burkett’s excellent “3-Minute Civics” column of our Constitution’s system of checks and balances (Sunday Monitor Forum, Aug. 18), I offer one not-insignificant addendum: the unstated fourth branch of a free press. Guaranteed by the First Amendment, a free press is vital to a functioning democracy. It checks all three branches of government and provides the people with the information we need to be, as Ms. Hahn-Burkett concludes, “the ultimate check on our democracy . . . at election time.”
WILLIAM L. CHAPMAN
Concord