This country is in the middle of an ongoing debate that only occasionally flirts with coherence about the role of a free press in a democratic society. The results of various polls suggest that the American public has an understanding of the First Amendment that ricochets wildly between somewhere between woeful and “Are you kidding me?”
For those given to the odd bout of despair now and again, trying to understand the public’s seeming indifference to the role of a free and unfettered press is an unforgiving exercise. As we approach the (hopefully) final drawdown of American forces from Iraq later this year, it’s absolutely vital to remember that one of our most precious gifts from our Founding Fathers was – for a wrenching period – nearly a casualty of the ill-conceived debacle that killed thousands of American soldiers, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and squandered ultimately perhaps one trillion dollars of ever-more-precious treasure.
Seldom mentioned much anymore (self-flagellation is hardly a modern media mainstay) is the media’s shameful behavior during the run-up to the Iraq War, perhaps the most egregious example of ignoring its own vital role in our democracy. I speak, of course, of the pitifully orchestrated, obsequious rah-rah coverage that swept up virtually all of the mainstream media outlets in the months leading up to the Iraq War and certainly much of the initial coverage of the war itself. If the mainstream media is truly the monolithic, liberal-leaning adherent of all things anti-war, warm-and-fuzzy and otherwise unmanly, how pathetic is it that the institution could have collectively stumbled so badly at the very hour when its tenacity and independence were needed the most?
Once the fog or war was replaced by the virulent devastation of anarchy and sectarian violence by mid-decade in Iraq, pundits from the starboard side moaned that the “liberal” media played up stories that portrayed the Bush Administration in general and the Iraq War in particular in a negative light. This deftly sidestepped the embarrassment of the group’s anemic performance in the months leading up to the war, suggesting that it was apparently unable to deliver in the clutch.
Television viewer and readership polls reveal that perhaps as much as one third of Americans haven’t got a clue about what a free press really means, if numbers indicating a giddy willingness to surrender editorial control to the government are to be believed. The government, of all things! It would make as much sense – but be infinitely less ominous – if we somehow endorsed censorship administered by the Rotary Club or the Kiwanis, but here we have 30 percent of those polled saying government should be able to “approve” of the news before it is published. If this were radio, I would be speechless, or at least sputtering.
So here we are with one of the true gems of our forefathers’ machinations in 1776 having its fundamental underpinnings blithely equated to the self-indulgent demands of an over-the-hill rock group staying at a Holiday Inn, and our exalted scribes and commentators have very little to say on the topic. Gee, how sad that the press just didn’t seem to care that millions of Americans just didn’t seem to care about the press.
Like so many things, it would be arguable that the bloated, out-of-touch and self-important gasbags in the media were getting exactly what they deserved, except for one thing: the American public was getting the short end of the stick along the way. And while it could be argued that the public too was getting its just desserts, that kind of bleak despair is best left out of big-picture considerations about democracy. Our political process is befouled and distorted enough without relegating one of its principal – maybe only surviving – counterbalancing forces to the trash heap of history.
Even in its currently grotesquely diminished, factionalized and rabidly partisan state, we need the free press as we have never needed it before. There’s a cogent argument to be made that the two fearsome institutions that can at least be marginally impacted by a free press – government and business – have never had a moment in time when they wielded as much terrifying power as they do in the Year of Our Lord, 2011.
And if somebody reading this thinks that it’s paranoid for a private citizen to be fearful of big government or big business – either separately or more likely acting in concert – then I can only wonder how they could have made it so far into this discussion. I can waste barrels of ink on any number of topics, but not a drop arguing that the American public has nothing to fear from those two bullies as they work their shameful magic right before our eyes. I offer pharmaceutical companies, hedge-fund managers, investment bankers and their legion of enablers in Congress as Exhibits A through D. The rest of the alphabet awaits at your convenience.
Nope, the press has a role to play, and a damned important one at that. Sadly, the fourth estate has never been at a more significant crossroads than where it finds itself today. The dizzying pace of technology has rendered the airwaves a frightful place to navigate, and the resulting number of shipwrecks bear witness to an almost appalling inability to adapt.
- T.S. O’Connell
(This blog will conclude in another entry in a few days.)