What is freedom of the press?
Oct. 28th, 2024 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithAfter the Washington Post incident and its followup, people have been talking about freedom of the press. So far, the Post has lost over 200,000 subscribers -- about 8% of its total -- as well as 2 columnists and 3 of the 9 editorial board members. Kick him where he lives! His wallet.
So what is freedom of the press? What is freedom of thought, of expression? Let's explore...
Freedom of the Press
"This freedom protects the right to gather information and report it to others. While at the time of ratification in 1791, the free press clause addressed newspapers, it now applies to all forms of newsgathering and reporting, independent of medium. Television, radio and online journalists are protected even though they don’t use printing presses. The nation’s founders believed a free press to be one of the basic freedoms necessary for a new, democratic society."
-- Free Speech Center
"Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
-- Human Rights Careers
"Freedom of the press is the foundation of democracy and justice. It gives all of us the facts we need to shape opinions and speak truth to power. But in every corner of the world, freedom of the press is under attack," Mr. Guterres said."
-- United Nations News
"Newspaper editors hardly have to be told about the importance of press freedom. Nor do they need to be lectured on the virtues of peace. But surprisingly, few editors seem to be aware of or articulate the strong connection between the two. Quite simply, a free press promotes peace; creating a universally free press would promote universal peace. The bridge between the two is democracy."
-- University of Hawaii
U.S. Press Freedom Tracker
Freedom of the press means that people can publish ideas, and read or listen to ideas, without fear of reprisal -- even if those ideas are unpopular. Especially if those ideas are unpopular, because that's what most needs protection. Since oppressive governments so often resort to censorship, many people focus on government censorship, but that is far from the only threat.
Freedom of the press is a pipeline. It stretches all the way from the publisher and editor, through writers and carriers or distributors, to your mailbox or viewscreen. Interference anywhere along that pipeline results in the same harm to the writers (they can't get their ideas out) and to the readers (information and ideas are unavailable or adulterated). Just as water may be contaminated in many ways and at many points along its journey, so too can the flow of information.
If the government forcibly prevents something from being published, or seizes and destroys copies, that is censorship. But if a publisher, editor, advertiser, university dean, bishop, rich person, or other individual blocks publication then the end result is the same: the writer's ideas don't get out and the reader can't access them. Each source of censorship is its own subtype of problem. They all amount to someone throwing his power around, maybe different types of power, to manipulate what other people can do, say, read, or think. That's not okay.
Bias tends to damage accuracy. Responsible journalism aims to minimize bias. While it is not possible to get it down to zero, it is possible to aim in that direction and do better than if not trying at all. A publication is free to choose a particular viewpoint -- political, religious, regional, whatever -- and that's fine as long as some other publications aim for objective balance and readers have free choice among widely diverse perspectives. There's value in taking two very slanted publications, and one moderate one aiming for objectivity, to compare how they address different current issues.
A publisher's job is the business end of transmitting information. They own the company, set its overall goals, do the paperwork, pay the rent, hire the staff, etc. to keep things running (or delegate some of that to other employees in a big house). An editor's job is the linguistic end of it. They choose writers and/or content to feature, set themes, hand out assignments, proofread, factcheck, make sure people are writing competently, keep an eye on legalities like slander, etc. A journalist's job is to find and report facts clearly and accurately, or to perform other linguistic services such as humor and opinion which are not necessarily fact-based but should at least refrain from abusing facts (and must be distinguished accordingly). A distributor's job is to transfer products between persons, not lose or delay them, and not fuck up the commerce with their own irrelevant opinions. A reader's job is to select among the many offerings which they find to be reliable (for facts) or amusing (for fiction), then read mindfully and draw their own conclusions -- preferably from a diversity of sources. And it's everybody's responsibility to do their own job and not jostle everyone else's elbow.
What does it matter if a newspaper doesn't endorse a political candidate? Well, they're not required to, but it's helpful when they do. Journalists are trained to analyze data, so they are better at this than most non-journalists. More importantly, they can show the process of working through how to choose a candidate, which is something readers may not have seen. Not everyone's parents took them to party meetings, stuffed envelopes, and talked through politics as a family. So losing that professional, thoughtfully chosen stance has a cost.
Looking at the Washington Post incident, a rich man explicitly forbade an endorsement, very near voting day during a contentious election. That meddles with the election in a way that, at minimum, looks bad and undermines people's confidence in democracy. But there's more. Jeff Bezos has close ties to Donald Trump, and the endorsement would have gone to Trump's opponent, Kamala Harris. This creates a credible threat that Trump tampered with the election and with freedom of the press, maybe through financial influence, maybe because he routinely threatens his opponents. This domino effect of censorship is one of the major shadows over the press.
Ideally, when an election is coming, voters should be able to choose freely among materials in researching their options. These include factual newspaper articles about candidates' past performance in office, criminal convictions, published platforms, etc. as well as opinion pieces by political or other columnists. Blocking such publications, by any means, undermines people's ability to make informed choices. And that's everyone's problem, because we're all stuck with the results of an election whether it is informed or not, fair or not.
Freedom of Thought
"The report examines four proposed attributes of this right:
Freedom not to disclose one’s thoughts
Freedom from punishment for one’s thoughts
Freedom from impermissible alteration of thoughts
The State obligation to foster an enabling environment for thought."
-- University of Essex
"Article 18 of the ICCPR states:
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching."
-- Australian Human Rights Commission
"Freedom of thought "is not only imperative in one’s freedom to choose, develop or change convictions, but also fundamental in thinking on all matters independently of religion or belief systems," said Shaheed."
-- United Nations Human Rights
Freedom of thought is the right to have your own ideas, whether or not they agree with others' ideas, in the privacy of your own mind. It includes forming your own stances on beliefs or issues after examining them. So for most people, in order to exercise this right, they need free access to materials that will help them identify issues and make informed decisions about those. (People like me, with farmemory, may pack in some ideas and information from other lives, but most folks don't have our ulterior resources and should not be denied the materials they need.)
It is among the most intimate of rights, to be yourself, free in your own mind, without having to pretend to be someone else just to avoid others hurting you and without someone trying to reach into your head and rip out parts of you that displease them or shove in things of their own choosing. This is essential for human health and survival, because pretending to be someone else, forcing your mind into patterns unnatural to it, wrecks mental and physical health. It's called Prolonged Adaptive Stress Syndrome, originally framed regarding type-falsification, but just as well applies to gay people pretending to be straight, trans people pretending to be the sex/gender written at birth, autistic people pretending to be neurotypical, and so on. And it can kill you. Also mindrape is evil, whether it is done with superpowers, psychology, drugs, or whatever.
Freedom of thought connects to other rights, including freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Freedom of the press enables you to think more freely by introducing you to new ideas, arguments, discussions, and perspectives. This is especially important if you grew up in a household with very narrow views. You need newspapers, magazines, books, classes, cultural events, and other people to broaden your horizons. Freedom of expression allows you to interact with other people, sharing your ideas and listening to theirs. If you're afraid to speak your mind, or forcibly prevented from doing so, then that curtails your mind, and is harmful.
Freedom of Expression
"Free speech and expression is the lifeblood of democracy, facilitating open debate, the proper consideration of diverse interests and perspectives, and the negotiation and compromise necessary for consensual policy decisions. Efforts to suppress nonviolent expression, far from ensuring peace and stability, can allow unseen problems to fester and erupt in far more dangerous forms."
-- Freedom House
"Principle 1
Freedom of expression in all its forms and manifestations is a fundamental and inalienable right of all individuals. Additionally, it is an indispensable requirement for the very existence of a democratic society.
7. Respect for and protection of freedom of expression plays a fundamental role without which other elements for strengthening democracy and human rights cannot develop. The right to and respect for freedom of expression serves as an instrument for the free exchange of ideas, strengthens democratic processes and offers citizens an indispensable tool for informed participation. Moreover, through the mass media, citizens are empowered to participate in and/or exercise control over the conduct of public officials. As the Inter-American Court of Human Rights stated:
[F]reedom of expression is a cornerstone upon which the very existence of a democratic society rests. . . . It represents, in short, the means that enable the community, when exercising its options, to be sufficiently informed. Consequently, it can be said that a society that is not well informed is not a society that is truly free. Freedom of expression, therefore, is not just the right of individuals, but of society as a whole.[15]"
-- Organization of American States
"Freedom of expression is a core human right which is guaranteed under international law and
by virtually every constitutional bill of rights in the world. It is key to human development, dignity, personal fulfilment and the search for truth, and a fundamental pre-requisite for democracy and good governance. It facilitates free debate about and between competing political parties, enables citizens to raise concerns with authorities and ensures that new policies and legislation may be the subject of careful scrutiny. The quality of government is enhanced by free speech because it helps to ensure that authorities are competent and honest and allows individuals to voice concerns about and debate government action. Put differently, democratic values are under threat when information and ideas are not permitted to flow freely."
-- Centre for Law and Democracy
Freedom of expression is the ability to share ideas, even unpopular ones, with other people and without suffering consequences for disagreeing. This is crucial to human health and happiness. But it's also crucial to the survival of the species and its civilizations. Sometimes the popular opinion is wrong. Like say, "The Earth is flat" or "Climate change is a hoax" or "Genocide is an okay way to solve problems." If people are not allowed to think differently and debate with each other, then wrong ideas propagate with often disastrous consequences. It does minimal good for someone to have free thought if they can't share it: better than nothing, but not sufficient.
And a writer's freedom of expression loops back around to the reader's freedom of thought, because if the writer is not allowed to speak out, or is punished for doing so, then the reader is deprived of the opportunity to entertain those ideas. It doesn't matter whether it's the government, publisher, editor, university dean, town mayor, uptight parent, or whomever taking the book out of your hands -- you still don't have the damn book. That's a problem. And now that's everyone's problem.
Look at America today. The government is corrupt to the point that, while it still claims to be a democracy, it does not function as a democracy but rather a plutocracy (if you care more than the people in charge are all rich) or an oligarchy (if you care more that they are few in number). If you do not belong to the 1% then your wishes have a "statistically insignificant" influence on what the government does.
If we can't talk about this, we can't fix it. We have government censorship like the "Don't Say Gay" law. We have corporate censorship like Jeff Bezos blocking the Washington Post endorsement. We have tightass censorship by parents who think it's okay to take books they don't want to read out of public libraries so nobody else can read them either. They're all different and they're all destructive, each hacking at a root of liberty.
Fight back. Speak up. Piss people off. Free ALL the things!
So what is freedom of the press? What is freedom of thought, of expression? Let's explore...
Freedom of the Press
"This freedom protects the right to gather information and report it to others. While at the time of ratification in 1791, the free press clause addressed newspapers, it now applies to all forms of newsgathering and reporting, independent of medium. Television, radio and online journalists are protected even though they don’t use printing presses. The nation’s founders believed a free press to be one of the basic freedoms necessary for a new, democratic society."
-- Free Speech Center
"Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
-- Human Rights Careers
"Freedom of the press is the foundation of democracy and justice. It gives all of us the facts we need to shape opinions and speak truth to power. But in every corner of the world, freedom of the press is under attack," Mr. Guterres said."
-- United Nations News
"Newspaper editors hardly have to be told about the importance of press freedom. Nor do they need to be lectured on the virtues of peace. But surprisingly, few editors seem to be aware of or articulate the strong connection between the two. Quite simply, a free press promotes peace; creating a universally free press would promote universal peace. The bridge between the two is democracy."
-- University of Hawaii
U.S. Press Freedom Tracker
Freedom of the press means that people can publish ideas, and read or listen to ideas, without fear of reprisal -- even if those ideas are unpopular. Especially if those ideas are unpopular, because that's what most needs protection. Since oppressive governments so often resort to censorship, many people focus on government censorship, but that is far from the only threat.
Freedom of the press is a pipeline. It stretches all the way from the publisher and editor, through writers and carriers or distributors, to your mailbox or viewscreen. Interference anywhere along that pipeline results in the same harm to the writers (they can't get their ideas out) and to the readers (information and ideas are unavailable or adulterated). Just as water may be contaminated in many ways and at many points along its journey, so too can the flow of information.
If the government forcibly prevents something from being published, or seizes and destroys copies, that is censorship. But if a publisher, editor, advertiser, university dean, bishop, rich person, or other individual blocks publication then the end result is the same: the writer's ideas don't get out and the reader can't access them. Each source of censorship is its own subtype of problem. They all amount to someone throwing his power around, maybe different types of power, to manipulate what other people can do, say, read, or think. That's not okay.
Bias tends to damage accuracy. Responsible journalism aims to minimize bias. While it is not possible to get it down to zero, it is possible to aim in that direction and do better than if not trying at all. A publication is free to choose a particular viewpoint -- political, religious, regional, whatever -- and that's fine as long as some other publications aim for objective balance and readers have free choice among widely diverse perspectives. There's value in taking two very slanted publications, and one moderate one aiming for objectivity, to compare how they address different current issues.
A publisher's job is the business end of transmitting information. They own the company, set its overall goals, do the paperwork, pay the rent, hire the staff, etc. to keep things running (or delegate some of that to other employees in a big house). An editor's job is the linguistic end of it. They choose writers and/or content to feature, set themes, hand out assignments, proofread, factcheck, make sure people are writing competently, keep an eye on legalities like slander, etc. A journalist's job is to find and report facts clearly and accurately, or to perform other linguistic services such as humor and opinion which are not necessarily fact-based but should at least refrain from abusing facts (and must be distinguished accordingly). A distributor's job is to transfer products between persons, not lose or delay them, and not fuck up the commerce with their own irrelevant opinions. A reader's job is to select among the many offerings which they find to be reliable (for facts) or amusing (for fiction), then read mindfully and draw their own conclusions -- preferably from a diversity of sources. And it's everybody's responsibility to do their own job and not jostle everyone else's elbow.
What does it matter if a newspaper doesn't endorse a political candidate? Well, they're not required to, but it's helpful when they do. Journalists are trained to analyze data, so they are better at this than most non-journalists. More importantly, they can show the process of working through how to choose a candidate, which is something readers may not have seen. Not everyone's parents took them to party meetings, stuffed envelopes, and talked through politics as a family. So losing that professional, thoughtfully chosen stance has a cost.
Looking at the Washington Post incident, a rich man explicitly forbade an endorsement, very near voting day during a contentious election. That meddles with the election in a way that, at minimum, looks bad and undermines people's confidence in democracy. But there's more. Jeff Bezos has close ties to Donald Trump, and the endorsement would have gone to Trump's opponent, Kamala Harris. This creates a credible threat that Trump tampered with the election and with freedom of the press, maybe through financial influence, maybe because he routinely threatens his opponents. This domino effect of censorship is one of the major shadows over the press.
Ideally, when an election is coming, voters should be able to choose freely among materials in researching their options. These include factual newspaper articles about candidates' past performance in office, criminal convictions, published platforms, etc. as well as opinion pieces by political or other columnists. Blocking such publications, by any means, undermines people's ability to make informed choices. And that's everyone's problem, because we're all stuck with the results of an election whether it is informed or not, fair or not.
Freedom of Thought
"The report examines four proposed attributes of this right:
Freedom not to disclose one’s thoughts
Freedom from punishment for one’s thoughts
Freedom from impermissible alteration of thoughts
The State obligation to foster an enabling environment for thought."
-- University of Essex
"Article 18 of the ICCPR states:
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching."
-- Australian Human Rights Commission
"Freedom of thought "is not only imperative in one’s freedom to choose, develop or change convictions, but also fundamental in thinking on all matters independently of religion or belief systems," said Shaheed."
-- United Nations Human Rights
Freedom of thought is the right to have your own ideas, whether or not they agree with others' ideas, in the privacy of your own mind. It includes forming your own stances on beliefs or issues after examining them. So for most people, in order to exercise this right, they need free access to materials that will help them identify issues and make informed decisions about those. (People like me, with farmemory, may pack in some ideas and information from other lives, but most folks don't have our ulterior resources and should not be denied the materials they need.)
It is among the most intimate of rights, to be yourself, free in your own mind, without having to pretend to be someone else just to avoid others hurting you and without someone trying to reach into your head and rip out parts of you that displease them or shove in things of their own choosing. This is essential for human health and survival, because pretending to be someone else, forcing your mind into patterns unnatural to it, wrecks mental and physical health. It's called Prolonged Adaptive Stress Syndrome, originally framed regarding type-falsification, but just as well applies to gay people pretending to be straight, trans people pretending to be the sex/gender written at birth, autistic people pretending to be neurotypical, and so on. And it can kill you. Also mindrape is evil, whether it is done with superpowers, psychology, drugs, or whatever.
Freedom of thought connects to other rights, including freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Freedom of the press enables you to think more freely by introducing you to new ideas, arguments, discussions, and perspectives. This is especially important if you grew up in a household with very narrow views. You need newspapers, magazines, books, classes, cultural events, and other people to broaden your horizons. Freedom of expression allows you to interact with other people, sharing your ideas and listening to theirs. If you're afraid to speak your mind, or forcibly prevented from doing so, then that curtails your mind, and is harmful.
Freedom of Expression
"Free speech and expression is the lifeblood of democracy, facilitating open debate, the proper consideration of diverse interests and perspectives, and the negotiation and compromise necessary for consensual policy decisions. Efforts to suppress nonviolent expression, far from ensuring peace and stability, can allow unseen problems to fester and erupt in far more dangerous forms."
-- Freedom House
"Principle 1
Freedom of expression in all its forms and manifestations is a fundamental and inalienable right of all individuals. Additionally, it is an indispensable requirement for the very existence of a democratic society.
7. Respect for and protection of freedom of expression plays a fundamental role without which other elements for strengthening democracy and human rights cannot develop. The right to and respect for freedom of expression serves as an instrument for the free exchange of ideas, strengthens democratic processes and offers citizens an indispensable tool for informed participation. Moreover, through the mass media, citizens are empowered to participate in and/or exercise control over the conduct of public officials. As the Inter-American Court of Human Rights stated:
[F]reedom of expression is a cornerstone upon which the very existence of a democratic society rests. . . . It represents, in short, the means that enable the community, when exercising its options, to be sufficiently informed. Consequently, it can be said that a society that is not well informed is not a society that is truly free. Freedom of expression, therefore, is not just the right of individuals, but of society as a whole.[15]"
-- Organization of American States
"Freedom of expression is a core human right which is guaranteed under international law and
by virtually every constitutional bill of rights in the world. It is key to human development, dignity, personal fulfilment and the search for truth, and a fundamental pre-requisite for democracy and good governance. It facilitates free debate about and between competing political parties, enables citizens to raise concerns with authorities and ensures that new policies and legislation may be the subject of careful scrutiny. The quality of government is enhanced by free speech because it helps to ensure that authorities are competent and honest and allows individuals to voice concerns about and debate government action. Put differently, democratic values are under threat when information and ideas are not permitted to flow freely."
-- Centre for Law and Democracy
Freedom of expression is the ability to share ideas, even unpopular ones, with other people and without suffering consequences for disagreeing. This is crucial to human health and happiness. But it's also crucial to the survival of the species and its civilizations. Sometimes the popular opinion is wrong. Like say, "The Earth is flat" or "Climate change is a hoax" or "Genocide is an okay way to solve problems." If people are not allowed to think differently and debate with each other, then wrong ideas propagate with often disastrous consequences. It does minimal good for someone to have free thought if they can't share it: better than nothing, but not sufficient.
And a writer's freedom of expression loops back around to the reader's freedom of thought, because if the writer is not allowed to speak out, or is punished for doing so, then the reader is deprived of the opportunity to entertain those ideas. It doesn't matter whether it's the government, publisher, editor, university dean, town mayor, uptight parent, or whomever taking the book out of your hands -- you still don't have the damn book. That's a problem. And now that's everyone's problem.
Look at America today. The government is corrupt to the point that, while it still claims to be a democracy, it does not function as a democracy but rather a plutocracy (if you care more than the people in charge are all rich) or an oligarchy (if you care more that they are few in number). If you do not belong to the 1% then your wishes have a "statistically insignificant" influence on what the government does.
If we can't talk about this, we can't fix it. We have government censorship like the "Don't Say Gay" law. We have corporate censorship like Jeff Bezos blocking the Washington Post endorsement. We have tightass censorship by parents who think it's okay to take books they don't want to read out of public libraries so nobody else can read them either. They're all different and they're all destructive, each hacking at a root of liberty.
Fight back. Speak up. Piss people off. Free ALL the things!
