The Free Press

The concept of a free press is increasingly difficult to describe or define.  Is the free press the traditional journalism of newspaper, magazine and television?  Does it expand to include online journalism, cable news, talk shows, comedy shows and other revenue-earning media that report and comment on current events?  Does it expand further to include blogs, and all social media – facebook, twitter, Instagram, snapchat - and any other form of social intercourse that allows people to freely express opinions?  If one describes the free press as anything that reports and comments on current events, then the free press is totally amorphous and impossible to define or corral in this age of the Internet.

In days of yore, the growth and reach of the free press was limited by the requirement that enough resources be available to print and distribute its output or that it had access to radio or television airtime.  This made for a more reasonable number of outlets so that one could generally be aware of the alternatives and make educated choices about what to read, listen to or watch. 

In this smaller universe of media there was a concept of journalistic integrity that, though certainly not perfect, inspired most journalists to report events responsibly and try to separate fact from opinion.  This line between fact and opinion is always blurry, and journalism has always been challenged in its reporting.

 

The power of the free press has been extraordinary and growing ever since the creation of the printing press. Its influence has helped launch wars, promote various charitable or philanthropic causes, alert people to dangers, epidemics or natural disasters, and create or destroy the careers of politicians, military leaders and entertainers of all types.  Every revolution that has occurred in the past three hundred years has been reliant on the press to rally people around its cause.

As revenue-earning enterprises, much of the free press necessarily emphasized entertainment over education, which tended to create sensationalism. The yellow journalism of the Hearst and Pulitzer eras are prime examples, but there is always a temptation in media to create dramatic effect. The public is fickle and easily bored or distracted.   Other challenges were imposed by the owners of these profit-making businesses, who often had strong opinions and influenced the tone and even the substance of their papers or programs.

The advent of the Internet and social media has partially destroyed the old model of the free press and put in its place a wild west of infinite and uncontrollable sources.  Many citizens are seduced by media that echo their own opinions and may read endlessly through unsubstantiated nonsense and never know what is truth and what is fiction.

In a world where powerful forces control much of society and where wealth and influence are concentrated in an ever-smaller group of business tycoons and politicians, the free press is in theory an independent bastion of free thought and a spotlight on the actions of those in control – in effect, the classic fourth estate after our executive, legislative and judicial branches (and of course now the business elite should also be recognized as equally or more powerful than those governmental branches!).  The free press should be the voice of the common man, the conscience of society, the honest marketplace of ideas and issues.

There has often been a perception in conservative circles that the free press is blatantly liberal in its reporting.  It is true that journalists have often felt a kinship to the working person and the powerless.  Indeed, many journalists go into the profession with a crusading spirit, embracing their role as a voice for those who have neither wealth nor power.  But I believe the great majority of true journalists embrace the ethical responsibility they have to report factually and to verify their contacts and sources.  If they are guilty of being liberal in their reporting, then it is only in the lens they use to interpret the facts they are reporting. 

This bias can, of course, be significant, but I am not troubled by it.  I see it as a much-needed counterweight to the overwhelming influence that the wealthy, the corporations, the military and other powerbrokers in our society wield.  These powerful forces are by and large conservative, as dictated by their own self-interest.  They may protest indignantly at the ‘liberal bias’ of the media, but the irony is that the balancing effect of the media is probably all that has stood between them and violent revolution for these many years of our republic.

Now, with some clever machinations of the conservative power elite – the Murdoch empire being a prime example - and the unleashing of dark, reactionary social media, the free press is a shadow of its former self.  Chaos prevails in our media, and there appears to be no means to rein it in.

When a balanced system is disturbed or broken, then the resultant behavior is unpredictable and possibly catastrophic.  With the free press now increasingly overshadowed by fabrications, distortions and hate speech from unknown and unchecked sources that are not held responsible for their content, it may be that the future looks rather bleak.