Economic Power and a Free and Independent Media

There is a significant and distressing lack of understanding in America about freedom of speech and press. For example, this meme has been circulating on social media:

 

My comment:

There is a basic contradiction in Carlin’s statement. If private media companies can make legally unfettered editorial judgements about what will or will not be published on their outlets, even if slanted—which is their First Amendment right—they are by definition independent (and free). “The news media” is NOT monolithic, as Carlin implies. They are subject to competition, as Elan Musk proved when he bought Twitter and revised its biased policies. Remember that economic power is benign and voluntary because it derives from consumer choice. Economic power is NOT political power, which is coercive because it grows out of the barrel of a governmental gun. I’ll take economically driven media over politically shackled media any day. It is to the glory of America that we [still] have an economically-driven media.

The First Amendment is clear: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . .” Carlin makes the immensely dangerous equivocation of political and economic power. The First Amendment refers only to political power, and seeks to impose a strict separation of press and state. Carlin’s equivocation implies an opening for the government to step in and enforce an “independent” media, thus making an end run around the First Amendment and—in the name of “an independent media”—substitute political power for economic power, making the press subject to government coercion. On economic vs. political power, see the first link below.

Related Reading:

The Dollar and the Gun by Harry Binswanger

When Private Media ‘Colludes’ With Government, Blame the Government, Not Media: The Dollar is No Match for a Bullet.

Malinowski's Censorship-By-Proxy 'Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act' Advances

Americans Abandoning Free Speech Better Brace for the Consequences by J.D. Tuccille for Reason: Government will happily suppress misinformation in favor of misinformation of its own.

Note to #FREEPRESS: A Free Press Derives from Freedom of Speech