There’s a sharp piece in today’s Washington Post from Jack Goldsmith, currently with Harvard Law but formerly an assistant attorney general in the Bush administration, about “Why the U.S. Shouldn’t Try Julian Assange.” Goldsmith points to the sticky First Amendment / press freedom issues at stake should the U.S. try to go after Assange and WikiLeaks:
A conviction would also cause collateral damage to American media freedoms. It is difficult to distinguish Assange or WikiLeaks from The Washington Post. National security reporters for The Post solicit and receive classified information regularly. And The Post regularly publishes it. The Obama administration has suggested it can prosecute Assange without impinging on press freedoms by charging him not with publishing classified information but with conspiring with Bradley Manning, the alleged government leaker, to steal and share the information. News reports suggest that this theory is falling apart because the government cannot find evidence that Assange induced Bradley to leak. Even if it could, such evidence would not distinguish the many American journalists who actively aid leakers of classified information.
One reason journalists have never been prosecuted for soliciting and publishing classified information is that the First Amendment, to an uncertain degree never settled by courts, protects these activities. Convicting Assange would require courts to resolve this uncertainty in a way that narrows First Amendment protections. It would imply that the First Amendment does not prevent prosecution of American journalists who seek and publish classified information. At the very least it would render the First Amendment a less certain shield. This would – in contrast to WikiLeaks copycats outside our borders – chill the American press in its national security reporting.
Quite right, and it’s a point bolstered by another editorial that also appeared in the Post a few weeks ago by Adam Penenberg of New York University, in which he made the case for treating Assange as a journalist. Penenberg asks: “What constitutes “legitimate newsgathering activities”? How do you differentiate between what WikiLeaks does and what the New York Times does?”
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PFF today released the fifth installment in our ongoing series on “The Wrong Way to Reinvent Media.” This series of papers explores various tax and regulatory proposals that would have government play an expanded role in supporting the press, journalism, or other media content. In the latest essay, Berin Szoka, Ken Ferree, and I discuss proposals for direct subsidies for failing media outlets and out-of-work journalists.
We argue taxpayer support for failing outlets and unemployed journalists implicates significant First Amendment concerns. On the whole, subsidies can make “journalists and media operators more dependent upon the State; compromise press independence and diminish public trust in the free press; and result in government discrimination in the politically inescapable dilemma of determining eligibility for subsidies.” Such an agenda would also entail huge cost to taxpayers—initially about $35 billion per year according to advocates—and would represent “a massive wealth transfer from one class of speakers to another…”
We warn that calls for seemingly beneficent bailouts “to save” the media and journalism may actually be driven by those who have something more nefarious in mind: a “post-corporate” world shorn of media capitalists, and “such radicalism must be rejected if we hope to sustain a truly free press and uphold America’s proud tradition of keeping a high and tight wall of separation between Press and State.”
The ideas within these and other essays in the series will be worked into a major PFF filing in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) proceeding on the “Future of Media” on May 7. The paper may be viewed online here and I’ve attached it down below in a Scribd reader.
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As I’ve mentioned here previously, PFF has been rolling out a new series of essays examining proposals that would have the government play a greater role in sustaining struggling media enterprises, “saving journalism,” or promoting more “public interest” content. We’re releasing these as we get ready to submit a big filing in the FCC’s “Future of Media” proceeding (deadline is May 7th). Here’s a podcast Berin Szoka and I did providing an overview of the series and what the FCC is doing.
In the first installment of the series, Berin and I critiqued an old idea that’s suddenly gained new currency: taxing media devices or distribution systems to fund media content. In the second installment, I took a hard look at proposals to impose fees on broadcast spectrum licenses and channeling the proceeds to a “public square channel” or some other type of public media or “public interest” content.
In our latest essay, “The Wrong Way to Reinvent Media, Part 3: Media Vouchers,” Berin and I consider whether it is possible to steer citizens toward so-called “hard news” and get them to financially support it through the use of “news vouchers” or “public interest vouchers”? We argue that using the tax code to “nudge” people to support media — while less problematic than direct subsidies for the press — will likely raise serious issues regarding eligibility and be prone to political meddling. Moreover, it’s unlikely the scheme will actually encourage people to direct more resources to hard news but instead just become a method of subsidizing other content they already consume.
I’ve attached the entire essay down below.
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By Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka
In a series of upcoming essays, we will be examining proposals being put forward today that would have the government play a greater role in sustaining struggling media enterprises, “saving journalism,” or promoting more “public interest” content. The reason we’re working up this multi-part series is because, with many traditional media operators struggling, and questions being raised about how journalism in particular will be supported in the future, Washington policymakers are currently considering what role government can and should play in helping media providers reinvent themselves in the face of tumultuous technological change wrought by the Digital Revolution.
For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently kicked off a new “Future of Media” effort with a workshop on “Serving the Public Interest in the Digital Era.” (The filing deadline for the FCC’s “Future of Media” proceeding is May 7th). Likewise, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has hosted two workshops asking “How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” Meanwhile, the Senate has already held hearings about “the future of journalism,” and Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) recently introduced the “Newspaper Revitalization Act,” which would allow newspapers to become tax-exempt non-profits in an effort to help them stay afloat.
Thus, in light of Washington’s sudden interest in the future of media and journalism, we will be taking a hard look at several issues and proposals that are being floated today, including:
- Taxes on media devices, mobile phones, or broadband bills to channel money to media enterprises / content;
- Taxes / fees on broadcasters to funnel support to their public sector competitors or to public interest programs;
- “News vouchers” or “public interest vouchers” that would encourage citizens to channel support to media providers;
- Taxes on private advertising to subsidize non-commercial / public media content;
- Expanded postal subsidies for media mail; and
- Targeted welfare programs for out-of-work journalists or corporate welfare in the form of bailouts for failing media enterprises.
You won’t be surprised to hear that we are generally quite skeptical of most of these ideas, but we promise to give each one serious consideration. We’ll kick things off tomorrow with our essay on why taxing media devices or distribution systems to fund media content is not a particularly good idea.
Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles;
[The Lord] hath put down the mighty from their seats [of power] and raised up the lowly.
– “Magnificat”
The Internet continues to humble the mighty in journalism. We hear a lot about the humbling of news outlets like the New York Times, but little about the humbling of news-makers. While the media
reformistas would have us believe that dark, shadowy forces control what we hear, see and read, the reality is that it’s becoming increasingly impossible for even the world’s largest companies to “manage” stories because we live in an age of true media abundance. There’s no better sign of this than the fact that Michael Arrington has declared, with good reason, the “news embargo” dead. In the days of media scarcity (which the reformistas like Andrew Keen want to re-create), press releases often declared a story to be “embargoed” until a specific day and time, allowing companies to shape the story by planting releases with the “right” journalists ahead of time. Such embargoes have been breaking down for some time, but now, with the explosion of media abundance, even Google no longer has “the clout to force press to stick to embargoes.”
It’s not my favorite recording but this clip of Bach’s “Magnificat” (BWV 243) should sear into your brain the irrepressibility of the Internet as the greatest leveling force since the invention of the printing press. The two are not unrelated: Bach’s Lutheranism was made possible only by the ready availability of the printed word.
Who among us does not like the bitch about their least favorite journalists, or reporting that we find disagreeable? Indeed, we Americans are all armchair media critics at heart. That’s generally a healthy thing in a democracy, but how often do we step back and appreciate those who provide us with in-depth reporting and journalistic excellence? Not enough, I dare say. Perhaps my early pursuit of a career in journalism and a college degree in the subject has left me more sensitive to this, but I think it is important on occasion to send out a big “thank you” to those whose investigative reporting — especially on niche subjects — contributes greatly to societal knowledge and a better understanding of important issues.
In the case of journalist Dennis McCauley, long-time editor of
Game Politics.com, I wish I would have gotten around to thanking him publicly sooner, because he has just announced his departure from Game Politics and the journalism profession in general. That’s a shame because Dennis was a trailblazer in a field that desperately needed attention from serious journalists. Until Dennis came on the beat, no wait, strike that… until Dennis created the beat, most journalists just didn’t bother taking a serious look at “where politics and video games collide,” which is the motto of Game Politics.com (which is now part of the Entertainment Consumers Association). Before Dennis, most journalists looked a video games as a “kiddie” thing, and to the extent they reported on developments in this field at all, their stories where typically relegated to the back pages of most papers or magazines. And there wasn’t much serious reporting by online sources either.
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Doug Feaver, a former Washington Post reporter and editor, has published a very interesting editorial today entitled “Listening to the Dot-Commenters.” In the piece, Feaver discusses his personal change of heart about “the anonymous, unmoderated, often appallingly inaccurate, sometimes profane, frequently off point and occasionally racist reader comments that washingtonpost.com allows to be published at the end of articles and blogs.” When he worked at the Post, he fought to keep anonymous and unmoderated comments off the WP.com site entirely because it was too difficult to pre-screen them all and “the bigger problem with The Post’s comment policy, many in the newsroom have told me, is that the comments are anonymous. Anonymity is what gives cover to racists, sexists and others to say inappropriate things without having to say who they are.”
But Feaver now believes those anonymous, unmoderated comment have value because:
I believe that it is useful to be reminded bluntly that the dark forces are out there and that it is too easy to forget that truth by imposing rules that obscure it. As Oscar Wilde wrote in a different context, “Man is least in himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” Too many of us like to think that we have made great progress in human relations and that little remains to be done. Unmoderated comments provide an antidote to such ridiculous conclusions. It’s not like the rest of us don’t know those words and hear them occasionally, depending on where we choose to tread, but most of us don’t want to have to confront them.
It seems a bit depressing that the best argument in favor of allowing unmoderated, anonymous comments is that it allows us to see the dark underbelly of mankind, but the good news, Feaver points out, is that:
But I am heartened by the fact that such comments do not go unchallenged by readers. In fact, comment strings are often self-correcting and provide informative exchanges. If somebody says something ridiculous, somebody else will challenge it. And there is wit.
He goes on to provide some good examples. And he also notes how unmoderated comments let readers provide their heartfelt views on the substance of sensitive issues and let journalists and editorialists know how they feel about what is being reported or
how it is being reported. “We journalists need to pay attention to what our readers say, even if we don’t like it,” he argues. “There are things to learn.”
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
Anonymity, Reader Comments & Section 230
by Adam Thierer on April 9, 2009 · 18 comments
Doug Feaver, a former Washington Post reporter and editor, has published a very interesting editorial today entitled “Listening to the Dot-Commenters.” In the piece, Feaver discusses his personal change of heart about “the anonymous, unmoderated, often appallingly inaccurate, sometimes profane, frequently off point and occasionally racist reader comments that washingtonpost.com allows to be published at the end of articles and blogs.” When he worked at the Post, he fought to keep anonymous and unmoderated comments off the WP.com site entirely because it was too difficult to pre-screen them all and “the bigger problem with The Post’s comment policy, many in the newsroom have told me, is that the comments are anonymous. Anonymity is what gives cover to racists, sexists and others to say inappropriate things without having to say who they are.”
But Feaver now believes those anonymous, unmoderated comment have value because:
It seems a bit depressing that the best argument in favor of allowing unmoderated, anonymous comments is that it allows us to see the dark underbelly of mankind, but the good news, Feaver points out, is that:
He goes on to provide some good examples. And he also notes how unmoderated comments let readers provide their heartfelt views on the substance of sensitive issues and let journalists and editorialists know how they feel about what is being reported or how it is being reported. “We journalists need to pay attention to what our readers say, even if we don’t like it,” he argues. “There are things to learn.”
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