A memory: when I was a kid, growing up in Texas during the Cold War, I couldn't understand the conflict between Washington and Moscow. I remember asking my babysitter to explain it to me, and she explained it this way: Imagine that the President of Russia wanted to make Texas into “Little Russia,” without ever asking the people what they wanted. She warned that if this happened, we wouldn't ever be able to speak out about it, since people in Russia weren't allowed to say anything about their government, and therefore most people didn't even know what decisions were being made for them. I understood what she was trying to say, but I don't think I fully understood how the U.S. government differed, particularly in regards to journalism. Surely people couldn't say bad stuff about the government, right?
Later on, I realized that many factors accounted for the animosity in the Cold War. I learned about the stifling of the press in Communist countries, and learned how that differed from general practice in democracies. The definition of a democracy today is little changed from Abraham Lincoln's definition in the Gettysburg Address: it is a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. This means that members of a democracy govern themselves either directly or through freely elected representatives, who are supposed to give voice to the concerns of their constituency, and work out compromises in the event of competing needs. This places an enormous burden on the populace – in order to ensure that elected officials are adequately representing everyone's concerns, the people need to be aware of all the issues being represented; also, there needs to be a way to express discontent or to advocate for change.
Because a good democracy hinges on an informed populace, both journalism and the First Amendment are important tools to the democratic process. Journalism is a method of reporting by which even very complex information is made accessible to the public, through several medium. Journalists wear many hats: they can work to improve society; they can simply report the facts; they can provide a forum to help solve community issues. In more recent times, social networking changed the face of journalism, allowing non-traditional methods of information dissemination. Though this kind of power could easily be abused, the First Amendment protects the role of journalists, by stating: “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.” Among the many important points listed, the right of the people to inform and be informed through the press plays a prominent role. It allows the people a way to ensure that their democratic representation is just and truly representational.
That, then is the difference that my eight-year-old mind had such trouble comprehending.
I too, grew up in Texas during the Cold War, and I remember being four or five years old and being told by family that the Russians could nuke us at any point and end "Our Way of Life". I had a lot of fear about it, but a few years later Russia splintered and those fears were gone.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as I grew up, I realized just how important the liberties that we have as part of our way of life in America, and that includes our First Amendment rights to free speech and journalism. And this is even more important in the 21st century. As you point out, social networking and other non-traditional methods of getting information have changed the way journalists work, but our 234 year old way of life is still important.
I would ask if freedom of speech extended to false speech. Do I have the right to pass off lies as journalism? Fox News successfully fought for this right and won. However, they were not allowed to open a similar affiliate in Canada, because Canada does NOT allow this.
ReplyDeleteAashi,
ReplyDeletethis is a good point. Fox News and a lot of other news outlets are able to report information that may be false by calling it an opinion. They *present* it as fact, but it is just opinion. Let's explore this a little more.
If a person or a news affiliate (or whatever) reports an outright lie as fact about a private individual, they can be sued for libel. Even if the offended person is a famous ("public") person, all that person has to do is prove that the news outlet acted with actual malice - which means knowing that something is false and recklessly or negligently allowing it to be printed as fact. However, I'm not sure if the government is a public person.
I suppose, that given the fact that corporations now have citizenship rights as though they are actual people, we could potentially draw that line and say that yes, the government, as a whole, is a public entity.
However, think about the Nat'l Enquirer and other tabloid mags that often give inaccurate or false info -- most people don't even bother to sue to protect their reputation, since those kinds of allegations are very hard to get a reasonable settlement on, given the lawyer fees and whatnot. They get away with it because it's too expensive and time consuming for people to sue them successfully.
And... clearly, there are people who believe Fox News, and I'm talking about people who believe that info regardless of who reports it. The viewers that take the opinions of Fox News and hold them as gospel are already set to believe those things no matter what or who presents them. This actually goes for both liberal and conservative news shows - people are predisposed to think one way or another based on their own experience. One person's "truth" is absolutely another's fiction, it seems.
So I ask now... how many people does it take for something to be false or true? If Canada doesn't allow "false" opinions to be circulated, who determines that falsity? The government? What if the journalist in question is criticising the government?
And please understand that I'm not defending the kinds of practices that I see from Fox news or any other biased news source. I think presenting an opinion as fact is disgusting. They ought to clearly label their opinions as such and exhort people to think for themselves. But I'm troubled by the idea that we might censor something that someone says just because we don't like it or don't happen to agree with it.
Robert,
ReplyDeleteI'd like you to define our 234 year old way of life, in 350-500 words :-) Due Friday.
One thought: A communist state that encouraged innovation, arts, and culture, as these are the product of the people and not the aristocracy, and education, as it is the foundation for the modern age, would wipe the floor with a capitalist state. The problem is that far from being slef-aware and transparent, most communist states are so permanently on the defensive against the free enterprise model that all free expression seem threatening.
ReplyDeleteWell said! Hopefully the press will remain free and independent and vigorous...
ReplyDeleteQalico,
ReplyDeletewell, I'd argue that East Germany had it pretty close, honestly. I mean, apart from the whole neighbors-spying-on-neighbors thing. But they did have one of the best school systems. Period. The current Finnish system reproduces it somewhat, and they're pretty darn well educated.
But yeah, to me, part of education is knowing what your government is actually doing, and you need free and independent speech for, well, for that.
Hey, Jes! I really think you have some insightful ideas in this essay! I like how you say that "a good democracy hinges on an informed populace." This is so true!
ReplyDeleteI would clarify your point slightly: good democracy hinges on an informed and *educated* populace. A properly educated populace (in things like critical thinking) would be able to discern the difference between fact and opinion, and the rest would fall into place. Unfortunately for all of us, there does not appear to be any required classes in logic and reasoning at any point in the educational system.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, yes, any true democracy requires freedom of the press. Without a free press, who would be capable of learning about and then informing the public about the misdeeds of government? Could the public actually trust the government to provide unvarnished truth, especially if there was no one to call them out for falsehoods? The answer is obvious.
I know this is about journalism and democracy, but I can't help thinking about how freedom of the press also seems to encourage freedom of the arts. This post and comments made me recall a song by Prince called "Ronnie Talk to Russia," in which the artist admonishes Ronald Reagan to open up discourse with the Soviets before we all ended up in a nuclear conflict. I am one that believes that a complete education also means being exposed to the arts, and that one encourages productivity by encouraging creativity. I imagine that democracy needs journalism to encourage artistic expression to encourage productivity to encourage contributions to society to encourage democracy (I'm sure I left something out, but it's too early in the morning for me to work it all out, nor is this kind of thing my forte).
ReplyDeleteRegarding First Amendment and Fox, we have had this type of confrontational, opinion talk for decades. Right now, we just seem to focus more on it but, when looking at the ratings for those shows on Fox we see that they are not seen by more than 1% of the population. Even Rush is only heard by 5% on his best ratings shows.
ReplyDeleteNow, regarding the 1st and our Democracy. In the early 1970s I worked at several radio stations, reading the news as part of my job. The biggest two stories of the era were Viet Nam and Watergate. Both were defined by an open press, a strong 1st Amendment and tenacious journalists who put themselves at personal risk to insure the stories got out.
It was not popular to report casualty numbers, problems of quagmire or protest in 1970. Now it is commonplace. At the time people lost their jobs over "editorializing" the news as it was being read.
To Watergate, it remains to today the zenith of the exercising of the 1st Amendment in challenging the strength of the Democracy. The experience of that episode has defined much of how journalism is worked today. That which is common was, at the time considered treasonous by many.