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 If private media companies can make legally unfettered editorial judgements about what will or will not be published on their outlets, even if slanted—which is their First Amendment right—they are by definition independent (and free).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

The Separation of Press and State

The death of local news has been greatly exaggerated. That’s the message that comes across loud and clear in a revealing Washington Post report by Leonard Downie Jr., The rebirth of local news depends on all of us. Downie reports:

You’ve heard local news is dying. In fact, it might just be evolving.

Look around: Online nonprofit local and state news sites are proliferating. Some family newspaper owners are purchasing and investing in endangered small-town papers. A few billionaires have bought large metropolitan dailies. Some public radio stations, local television stations and even universities are getting into the act. Much of this is being seeded and nourished by philanthropic foundations and nonprofits.

American local newspapers had long depended on an economic model primarily supported by advertising and print subscriptions, both largely destroyed by the digital revolution. By contrast, the nascent revival of local news media is dependent on a variety of still evolving models. Here is a sampling of what is working and where.

Downie then catalogs the numerous examples of how private funding is underpinning this evolution. This is good news. It’s exactly how the market works, and a refreshing counterpoint to previous calls for a dangerous government bailout of local news. But the list contains a poison pill for press freedom, which is the subject of my posted comment:

I POSTED THIS COMMENT: 

Unfortunately, this otherwise hopeful accounting of the "evolving '' local news market in the digital age contains a dangerous element—the inclusion of government economic support as one element of the evolution. This is a dangerous equivocation, because government support is not market support, it is force. "[G]overnment support, so long as there are no strings attached" is a contradiction in terms. What about implicit strings? Once news outlets become hooked on political support, their independence and objectivity cannot be assumed. Government support is different in kind from the private methods of support highlighted throughout this article. It is the difference between force and voluntarism. And why should taxpayers be forced to support news outlets that they won't voluntarily patronize? The First Amendment reads "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom . . . of the press." I read that statement as establishing the complete separation of press and state, in the same way and for the same reasons as the opening line establishes the complete separation of religion and state. Keep the government at all levels out of the press. As this article makes clear, private market forces are fully suited to "saving" local news.

Related Reading:

The Pravda-ization of the American Press

New Jersey Civic Information Consortium’s Immoral Taxpayer Grab

Keep the press free from the academics and the politicians by Paul Mulshine

NJ Government Takes First Step to Becoming ‘the Sole Arbiter of Truth’