The Ethical Responsibility of the Media
As a war for independence from the British Crown approached, colonial printers determined that: “A free or open press….did not have to allow equal space for opposing viewpoints that they characterized as endorsing lies and tyranny.”
The idea was that in controversies and conflicts between the government and the governed, the press should pick a side and function as an advocate, not as an observer.
The language of the First Amendment confers an obligation and duty on the press to do just that by granting a nearly absolute guarantee of protection to the press in performance of this function:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
While teaching my courses in Media Law and Ethics, my research carried me through materials on the history of the role of the press in the American Revolution.
This excerpt is digested and condensed from the summary of the essay on the subject From the Oxford Research Encyclopedias by Robert G. Parkinson:
‘Print, the Press, and the American Revolution’
“According to David Ramsay, one of the first historians of the American Revolution, “in establishing American independence, the pen and press had merit equal to that of the sword.” Because of the unstable and fragile notions of unity among the thirteen American colonies, print acted as a binding agent that mitigated the chances that the colonies would not support one another when war with Britain broke out in 1775.
Print was an essential factor in pushing the colonists toward revolution even if it was not sufficient to cause the Revolution. Benjamin Franklin, it should not surprise, grasped perfectly the power of newspapers. “By the press we can speak to nations,” the printer-turned-politician wrote a friend in 1782. Thanks to newspapers, Franklin concluded, political leaders could not only “strike while the iron is hot” but also stoke fires by “continually striking.”
Literary scholar Russ Castronovo’s book ‘Propaganda 1776’ embraces the old problem of propaganda once again, but instead of seeing the patriots in 20th-century guises (Sam Adams as America’s Joseph Goebbels), he sees them as propagators—a useful term that 18th-century farmers would have recognized. They used print to grow more patriots. According to Castronovo, the particular nature of print, with its inherent ability to carry emotion over wide spaces, pushed the Revolution faster than it might have gone otherwise. Here, it seems, the interpretation of print as a genuine motivator of hearts and minds at the heart of the Revolutionary movement has returned to a position in the historiography that David Ramsay would appreciate.”
https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-9
When all is said and done, the media should be a key component of the response to the question that was asked of Benjamin Franklin, the Father of American Journalism, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention:
“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”
To which Franklin replied: “A Republic, if you can keep it.
02/26/2020 @ 11:23 pm
At this point the media is a business. One thing that made it that way was a relaxation of outlet ownership rules in various markets.
02/27/2020 @ 12:19 am
Kosh , if/when you read the entire summary linked in the post, you will note that the colonial printers and publishers were engaged in the very hands on “business” of journalism…It was a colonial livelihood and lifestyle that, early on, was not held in very high esteem. However, by the time of the Revolution, journalism was taken so seriously and held in such high regard by the average citizen/soldier and the framers of the Constitution, that they deferred to Ben Franklin’s enterprise and sought to protect it in the First Amendment…
Frankly, one would be hard put to accurately describe today’s media as the journalistic enterprise that played a seminal role in, and helped give rise to, the American Revolution…..