Democracy and the Press
John Perry

03 July 2010

Freedom of the Press was important to the Founding Fathers; it’s right there in the first amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;or abridging the freedom of speech,or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

尽管如此，开国元勋们还是有很多想法。它们并不都是好的。两个结果很糟糕的是第二修正案和美国参议院。第二修正案赋予了人们拥有甚至携带"星芭儿"武器的权利这样他们就能在毫无预警的情况下，远距离杀死我。对我的自由感没多大帮助，更别说我的安全感了。参议院的反民主制度意味着，作为一名加州人，我对美国政府的发言权比其他任何州的公民都要少得多，大约只有阿拉斯加州或怀俄明州公民对参议院构成的发言权的1/70。其他非常糟糕的想法，比如支持奴隶制，不让妇女投票或担任公职，已经通过战争和修正案被消除了。但至少这两个糟糕的问题仍然存在。

So the fact that the Founding Fathers liked freedom of the press isn’t a terribly persuasive argument that it is a good idea. One might think that freedom of the press, in an age of the internet and corporate owned newspapers is about as practical as unrestricted access to guns, in an age of automatic weapons. Freedom of the Press needs to be defended philosophically, not by the authority of the founding fathers.

The philosophical basis for freedom of the press, especially in a (more or less) democratic state like our own, is that people are the ultimate decision makers, decisions are likely to be better if founded on truth than falsity, and truth is most likely to be available and widely believed with an unfettered press.

But does that really provide an argument for a press that can try criminals on Nancy Grace’s television show and in the tabloids, and so interfere with the right to a fair trial in front of impartial jurors? Would the sorts of restrictions that other countries, like Britain, impose on reporting of crimes before trials really undermine the democratic process?

How about a press that can report on the intimate details of person’s private life, hiring reporter-detectives to trail public figures and report on their affairs? Would democracy suffer if we didn’t know everything there was to know about Tiger Woods pecadillos? Or his pecado importantes, for that matter. Well, you might respond, that may be so, but isn’t it important for the electorate to know about John Edwards affair? Well, is it? Would we had been better off if we had known about John Kennedy’s private life in 1960? Then Nixon might have won. Well, actually, come to think of it, it might have been better to get Nixon out of the way then. Historical counterfactuals are a bear. But that’s another show.

Perhaps it's important to distinguish freedom of the press from freedom of speech. Glenn Beck ought to have the right to stand on a street corner and spout nonsense. But would it be so far-feteched to argue that people ought to have some basic qualifications before being given the power of a national television show? Lawyers are policed by their own profession; they have to have a degree and pass the bar to practice. Given the low esteem lawyers seem to have among the public these days, that might not be such a good point. Still we have regulations about dentists and doctors, we have accrediting of universities that affect eligibility for government support, we have regulations about the medicines and drugs that one can peddle. Doctors have to take an oath and have the requisite degrees. Is it crazy to suppose that at least some journalists, the ones with access to the public airwaves, the ones that work for the large and influential newspapers and cable broadcasting operations, havesomeminimal accreditation? Some education? Some oath to tell the truth? The government rates steaks. Why can’t they rate journalists? I’d give John Stewart and Rachel Maddow and the sainted Eward R. Murrow prime ratings. Glenn Beck the equivalent of fit for dogs. I don’t know where I would Keith Oblermann. We need a category like nourishing but pompous, I guess.

Our self-assigned calling on Philosophy Talk is to question everything. The freedom of the press is pretty sacrosanct, no doubt for pretty good reasons. But I’ve done my best.

Comments(12)

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

“政府价格的牛排。Why can't they rate

“政府价格的牛排。为什么他们不能给记者打分?"
At the very least the comparison with the legal profession breaks down here, right? Because lawyers rate, accredit, lawyers. Why can't, or don't, journalists rate journalists? That might be an even more important question. Glenn Beck would never pass a journalistic bar exam designed by and administered by journalists.
政府评级的记者可能更像罪犯评级的律师，而不是政府评级的牛排。

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, April 22, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

我不认为参议院是个坏主意。I

我不认为参议院是个坏主意。事实上，我认为开国元勋们提出了一个允许民众意愿在众议院被计算的系统，但也确保没有大城市或人口密集的州在会议桌上有一席之地，这可能有点先见之明。
In my mind, the biggest mistake immortalized by the US Constitution is our electoral system. Their ideal of Madisonian democracy, where illiterate farmers voted for the smartest guy in town, who went to the Electoral College to nominate candidates for President, from whom the House would then elect a President, completely failed to foresee how the process could be usurped by political parties and has failed just as miserably in reforming itself to stay with the times.
Sorry, I just wanted to say that. I promise my next point will be more relevant to the issue of freedom of the press.

Michael's picture

Michael

Thursday, April 22, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

Passing judgment on the competence of lawyers is r

对律师的能力做出判断相对容易，但最高法院(公共政策通常由最高法院决定)除外。评判记者的标准将更加主观，尽管报道的基本准确性将是他们所有人的最低标准(从而排除那些重复医疗改革法案中关于“死亡小组”的煽动性废话的“记者”)。
But formal regulation of the profession would have an unacceptable chilling effect on free expression. Thanks to the internet, the statements and claims of journalists are subject to broader public review and criticism. As Justice Brandeis wrote in 1927: "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
[最后，参议院是一个可怕的反民主的时代错误，由于阻挠议事而变得更糟，但我不会详细说明约翰给出的原因。]

Michael's picture

Michael

Sunday, July 4, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

John writes about "a press that can try criminals

John writes about "a press that can try criminals on Nancy Grace?s television show and in the tabloids, and so interfere with the right to a fair trial in front of impartial jurors?"
Sounds like John has already tried them and found them to be "criminals"...
But the data supports John's choice of words, since the vast majority (~90%) of defendants in criminal cases plead guilty or are found guilty at trial. In the public's eye, there's a deep presumption of guilt that press coverage tends to strongly reinforce despite the ubiquity of "alleged" and similar disclaimers.
The British model is an unacceptable intrusion of government into free expression. The only real antidote to the problem John raises is screening potential jurors to minimize the effects of pretrial publicity. It's a challenge that can sometimes be insurmountable: it's hard to imagine how a court could impanel an impartial jury if Osama bin Laden is ever caught and brought to trial in the U.S.

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, July 10, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

At 18:05 in response to John's question: ALL OF TH

在18:05回答约翰的问题:以上所有。考虑到最近的政治、社会和经济环境，这是有史以来最重要的广播;然而，我发现有趣的是，你们三个不愿意在你们的推论中走得太远，去讨论在所有媒体中交织的光明会和其他神秘主义宣传。例如，沃尔特·迪士尼是“33度共济会”成员，这并不神秘。没有问题。Now, however, Disney corporations, as Griffith states, own G.E..
So they get rich off War, but don't they also benefit from subliminal messaging, and behavior placement within, say a cartoon? Psychologists are used in advertising paradigms, no mystery there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp5ebIhF57s&feature=related

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, August 14, 2010 -- 5:00 PM

Your criticism of the Second Amendment is based on

Your criticism of the Second Amendment is based on factually inaccurate information. There is no parity between the number of legal firearms in a community and increased murder rate. To the contrary, the they are inversely proportional.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/21/guns-decrease-murder-rates/
http://biggovernment.com/jlott/2010/03/01/more-guns-less-crime/
The Founding Fathers had a much deeper grasp of what they were doing than you appear to have in your critique.

Guest's picture

Guest

Monday, November 29, 2010 -- 4:00 PM

if you start with an untrue assumption, can your c

if you start with an untrue assumption, can your conclusion be reliable?
america is not a democracy, by design. consequently, freedom of the press is merely a convenience for press owners.
在一个民主国家，拥有主权的人民会要求并捍卫获得信息的权利，从而使所有个人享有言论自由的特权。this is counterfactual to reality in america.
the privilege of gun ownership was extended to the people of the usa so that they could resist the impositions of government. it has utterly failed in that end, for resistance begins in the mind, and the american mind is cowed. owning a gun makes some cows feel less impotent, allow them this tawdry sense of worth.

Fred Griswold's picture

Fred Griswold

Saturday, April 28, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

Are there any American news

Are there any American news sources where freedom of the press really works the way it ought to? Where the only bias is in favor of how important the news is? The bias is clearly conservative at the Fox henhouse. At CNN the bias is in favor of kittens caught up in trees. They've been so intimidated by the neo-cons that they can't really report the news any more. The bias at MSNBC and Current TV is liberal in what news they have there, it's really mostly talk shows. The PBS New Hour, for its part, seems to be biased against people like Chomsky. The studiously avoid the likes of him and Glenn Greenwald and Medea Benjamin. Places like KPFA, on the other hand, have a pacifist bias. I don't personally know of a single American news source that can really be counted on to give it to you straight. Most of this can be accounted for by the profit motive, like Leslie Griffith said, starting 30 years ago or so. I guess we can blame it mostly on the quick, hot buck. I do know one foreign source that seems to do a pretty good job, namely Deutsche Welle in Germany. But they seem to be government-supported.

MJA's picture

MJA

Sunday, April 29, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

For me freedom of the press

For me freedom of the press means knowing when to shut it off,
And that is most of the time.
=

MJA's picture

MJA

Monday, April 30, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

...as for gun ownership: the

...as for gun ownership: the world would be a better place without them.
还有参议院:谁需要或想要被治理呢?
=

Guest's picture

Guest

Monday, April 30, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

Freedom of the press means

Freedom of the press means that one can proffer one's opinions through any medium without government retribution. Of course the rich will create and, thus, have access to the larger media. However, we are not guaranteed equal access, merely unfettered access. As one who has partaken of and created his own pieces of alternative media through the decades, I have no problem with this arrangement per se. When the government messes with my right and ability to do that, then it is a big deal.
As things stand these days, our problem is more one of reliability than access. 500-channel TV was sold to us as a way to promote diversity and access to other views. In fact, what it seems to have accomplished is simply to provide a station which reenforces the reality one already believes, enabling a person to never have to move out of his or her comfort zone. The internet takes that to the nth degree, allowing the truly bizarre to hook up with the like minded and convince themselves they are a mass movement.

Guest's picture

Guest

Friday, May 4, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

史蒂夫击中了它的头部。

史蒂夫击中了它的头部。越来越多的出口给了我们越来越多的机会去纵容我们的偏见。
Leslie Griffith's argument sounds to me very much like the conspiracy theories neo-cons and others throw around all the time. The "corporations" are colluding, the "corporations" are doing this or that, the big bad "they" is out there manipulating everything. Horse manure. Competing corporations can't get together on anything. And by her own standards, a JOURNALIST (as opposed to a "presenter") has to have EVIDENCE - so where is hers?
The truth is, a completely unbiased journalism, owned by those without biases or agendas (to use Leslie's standards) has never existed, nor will it ever exist. The press in the time of the founding fathers was vicious, slanderous, and often based intentionally on lies, and owned by vested political and commercial interests. And so it goes ever since. The idea of objective journalism seeking only the truth is a very recent ideal, not a reality.
新闻自由是言论自由的一个方面。这意味着人们可以发表他们认为是真相的东西，也可以发表自己的观点，而不受政府的阻碍。正如史蒂夫所指出的，这是关于获取的。我们拥有的，和以前一样多。随你怎么说，布什政府并没有把不讨喜的记者送进监狱。事实上，(美国)媒体对伊拉克战争这样的事情如此毫无疑问，这是媒体的错，而不是政府的错，政府只是尽其所能地把自己的立场推销得最好，任何政府都会这样做。I was stationed in Germany at the time - the European press was not taken in at all.
As long as we want all the modern high-tech instant capabilities we get in modern news media, we will have corporate ownership of media outlets - there is no other way to fund it aside from government control, which would be worse. As long as that corporate ownership is not all just one corporation (and it is not), and it does not block access for all others (and it does not), then we have a Free Press.