By Michael Socolow,
(Michael Socolow teaches
journalism at the University of Maine.)
International Herald Tribune, December 14, 2005
Media freedom II
Sixty-four years ago, the governments of Germany and Italy declared war on the United
States. Congress replied in kind later that same afternoon. The government had been quietly preparing for modern war, but once it arrived few understood the demands it would make on American society.
At some point on that day, President Franklin Roosevelt told his press adviser, Stephen Early, that the government needed to acquire one of the national radio networks. Now that America was at war, the government's requirement for unmediated and direct communication was essential.
Ultimately, the government did not assume control over NBC Blue, or any other private commercial radio network, during the war. But Roosevelt's desire to control communication with the public is symbolic of a peculiarly American dilemma: how to speak directly to the American people in times of war, national emergency and crisis.
Journalists - then as now - interpret the government's actions and words. The American news media system, in which the press receives
constitutional protection and private, independent broadcasters operate as government licensees, was designed to create an unofficial auditing system for government communication. In 1941, America was singular in structuring its communications sphere in this manner; today, the majority of people in the world still live without an independent media.
Too often Americans forget the radical, even revolutionary implications of their media system. It trusts an essentially indefinable group of people ("the press") to serve the public interest by interposing itself between political authority and the citizenry. The concept of a government pledged to
protect independent reporting on its own behavior remains subversive to most authorities around the globe.
The conversations held in Roosevelt's White House are clearly relevant to today's climate of press-government tension. Just as Roosevelt, in a 1942 fireside chat, inveighed against "the typewriter strategists who expound their views in the press or on the radio," the Bush administration fumes over reporting it considers inaccurate, unrepresentative of reality and antagonistic.
The current administration continues to develop multiple strategies to connect directly with people - whether in the United States, Iraq or elsewhere. The recent furor over payments to Iraqi journalists in exchange for publication of U.S. government-authorized news accounts attests to a level of desperation. This administration's recurrent attempts at direct communication demonstrate an intention to subvert the purpose of the First Amendment.
But the government is
not acting in a vacuum. It is reacting to a media environment marked by enormous hostility. Skepticism is healthy, but too many journalists practice reporting informed by a pessimistic cynicism. This corrosive attitude is damaging the news industry; newspaper circulation and TV news viewership continue to decline.
The tension between the press and the government has grown to the point that neither is acting in the public interest. It is time for these two adversaries to discuss the patterns of behavior creating such rancor and frustration. Both sides must be willing to exchange and recognize legitimate criticism in an open forum. Grievances may
not be easily resolved. But discussion in the spirit of inquiry rather than recrimination will initiate a more constuctive relationship.
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