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Where Should Freedom Lie?

Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 07:18:49 PM EST

Things get thrown around a lot in the Judy Miller/Valerie Plame case--especially (these days) about the press and the sanctity of its role in society. What I wonder, when reading about all this is: Does the press still deserve its special position in American society?

ethics :: :: :: buzz-it!

Given that few people seem to agree with the New York Times stance that Miller is standing for protection of freedom of the press, maybe we should be asking just what this "freedom of the press" is, these days, and whether it offers anything to the American public.

Freedom of speech, certainly, is one of the bedrocks of our society--and freedom of the press stems from that. Supposedly, the press represents the people, so should have the same freedoms that the people have. In fact, many argue, protecting freedom of the press is protecting freedom of speech.

Is that so? Once upon a time, control of newspapers in America was decentralized (the same was true of TV and radio). The papers were owned by people that citizens dealt with daily, who were part of their lives and their communities. In a concrete way, then, the press of that time did represent the people, and its freedom was the people's freedom.

Today, however, newspapers (like TV and radio stations) are generally owned by corporations headquartered far away from any particular locality. Their concerns, therefore, are no longer the concerns of the local community--not even when they hire local people to run them (management responsibility has to be to ownership first). As the ownership class moves farther and farther away from the average American, both in terms of distance and in terms of income, it loses any sense of representing the people or the communities where its media organs appear. The integral connection the media once had with American communities has been removed.

If that is the case, do they really deserve a special status as guardians of American freedoms? Few of us, after all, are ever represented by American mass media. When we are, we are generally treated with condescension, our appearance more a public-relations ploy than a real attempt to make the particular media outlet a "voice of the people."

Stymied by what is now seen as the "traditional" media, Americans have begun to turn to other avenues for getting their voices heard. One of those is the blogs and sites, like ePluribus Media, that have taken the blog concept and moved well beyond it.

What I wonder about is this: Might it not be more important to worry about protecting speech on the Internet than in the "traditional" media? What would we lose, if the press lost its right to protect sources, say? Now that we have an avenue for self-expression that bypasses the older media, do we need to be concerned with those media at all?

I'm not asking these questions rhetorically--I really do want to discover the answers, and would appreciate any thoughts any of you have on this topic.

Where Should Freedom Lie? | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)

except when we need it (5.00 / 1) (#2)

The points you raise are good ones, though perhaps the remedy is elsewhere than limiting press freedoms. The concentration of news media in a few corporations, and their insistence on high profit margins over resources for newsgathering, are critical issues.

The impulse to limit press freedoms grows either when the press is doing a good job (and offending somebody) or when it is doing a bad job, as it mostly is now.

But beating the press is always popular, except when we need it.

The press has always been at least somewhat corrupt, controlled by despotic owners who wielded power by manufacturing news and slanting coverage, and corporations owning local newspapers. It's period of being governed by ethics is relatively recent, and clearly it's slipping back to darker days.

As for limiting press protection for sources, there is only limited protection in the law now. Not many people outside the NY Times, and apparently inside it as well, defend Judith Miller in this case, which may violate the Times own guidelines--that sources seeking to commit crimes or abet them can't expect protection (something like that---don't hold me to the wording.)

We needed the big newspapers to expose the Pentagon Papers and to expose Watergate. When Paul Krugman or Frank Rich express some of the same opinions you might find on the big blogs, their opinion carries more weight in the realms of power because of who they write for. We read them because of that, and because they express themselves so well. The big papers and networks get amazing access denied to others. They have a role. We rightly criticize them when they're wrong, but when they're right we are strengthened.

So it's the same as a lot of things. It needs serious change, but we work with what we have until we can get that change.

by Captain Future on Sat Aug 20, 2005 at 10:42:50 PM EST

: sorry about the double post (none / 0) (#3)

Please delete one. My fault. Or is there a way I can delete a comment?

by Captain Future on Sat Aug 20, 2005 at 10:46:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
: Intelligent Comments (none / 0) (#4)

I'm not sure I would ever want to limit press freedom, but I do wonder if the press deserves any sort of special consideration when it does not fulfill the functions those considerations result from. This is what I think about in terms of Judith Miller. Why should she have a privilege the rest of us don't have--unless she is acting in the interest of the public? I don't see how either she or the NYT is doing so.
And do we need the NYT to, as you say, expose the Pentagon Papers today? Haven't we, on the Internet, taken over that role anyhow? Although the impact hasn't been as strong as it should have been, it was the web that pushed the Downing Street Memo--not the press. Maybe it would have been better if the press had taken that up, but it didn't.
The press may have access denied to others, but does it use it for the common good? Perhaps it tried to, at one point, but I don't see it doing so today.
Anyhow, I don't have answers, only lots of questions.
Thanks for your comments. This is an important discussion, one I wish our whole country would participate in.

by Aaron Barlow on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 08:24:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]