Myth of a free press
By Michael Fraase
Thursday, 02 September 1999 06:18PM CDT
Section: 04 Myth of a free press
America’s founders took the idea of a free press very seriously. (For more information on why the founders felt so strongly about a free press, see “Information Control in England and the Colonies” on page 20.) The framers of the Constitution were so serious about the idea of a free press being crucial to a democracy, that they guaranteed it, almost unconditionally, in the First Amendment:
“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 of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Two hundred years later, it’s arguably true that the guarantees precluding government intrusion upon a free press have been, for the most part, admirably upheld. But the tend toward consolidation within the international media industries throughout the 1980s and 1990s has led to a state where diminution of unique voices is clearly undeniable. When the diversity of voices is reduced—for whatever reasons—the threat to a free press is both clear and present. Unfortunately corporate intrusion upon a free press now presents at least as great a threat, and no Constitutional guarantees exist to prevent it.
For example, consider the established, mainstream media coverage of the sexual harassment allegations against President Clinton throughout his administration. For the sake of this exercise, put aside the question of whether or not the story was newsworthy. Just think back to the actual coverage you saw, heard, and read.
Well after the dismissal of Paula Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against the President, the facts regarding the bankrolling of her legal representation were only beginning to trickle out in the mainstream media. The online publication Salon broke the story of a conservative political organization with ties to the Rev. Jerry Falwell that paid more than US$200,000 to people who made damaging allegations about President Clinton’s behavior. For weeks the story was completely ignored by mainstream media outlets.
Salon, in the same series of articles by investigative reporter Murray Waas and others, also broke the story that David Hale, the central witness against President Clinton in Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation, received payments from an anti-Clinton campaign funded by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.
Neither of these stories were picked up by the mainstream media organizations until weeks after they ran in Salon, and then coverage was limited in scope. One has to ask what purposes—or perhaps more accurately, whose purposes—were being served by ignoring what was surely one of the most important political stories of the 1990s.
In early April 1998, two former Fox Television journalists—Steve Wilson and Jane Akre—filed a lawsuit against a Florida affiliate of the Fox television network for killing their investigative piece on the possible health risks of a synthetic growth hormone for dairy cattle. According to the lawsuit, the Fox affiliate, WTVT, was ready to broadcast the four-part series in February 1997, but changed its mind when Roger Ailes, Fox News Corporation’s president, received a threatening letter from Monsanto, the manufacturer of the synthetic growth hormone. Wilson and Akre alleged that WTVT concerns about an expensive legal battle caused the affiliate to expand the editing process for nine months until the journalists could be fired.
WTVT responded to the lawsuit with a news release denying the charges and blaming the drawn-out editing process on Akre’s and Wilson’s unwillingness to check facts and present a balanced report.
Wherever the truth lies, Monsanto’s five-page letter of February 21, 1997 to Fox executive Ailes contains a particularly disturbing passage calling into question the integrity and professional behavior of Akre and Wilson. “In the aftermath of the Food Lion verdict,” the letter read, “such behavior would alone be cause for concern.”
The reference to the Food Lion verdict is especially threatening. A month earlier, in January 1997, a jury had ordered ABC to pay Food Lion US$5.5 million in damages for reporting that the grocery store chain repackaged spoiled meat for resale. The truth of the ABC story’s allegations was never disputed. Food Lion sued ABC for trespass and fraud when the television network’s producers posed as Food Lion employees and used a hidden camera to record employee actions.
What troubles media critics (and probably many “beat” reporters as well) is that mainstream media outlets have collectively decided to consciously avoid stories that would upset the deep pockets of Corporate America. For instance, a 1997 article in the American Journalism Review surveyed a collection of television consultants, journalists, and executives: “What passes for investigative reporting on local TV news these days is often a mishmash of self-serving, superficial reports on consumer rip-offs and government waste,” the publication reported. In short, mainstream media outlets are concerned about expensive litigation and boring viewers, not educating or enlightening the populace.