Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

The question of how much freedom the press should enjoy has been debated throughout US history.

In 1942 an impartial commission was formed to study mass communication, evaluate the performance of the media, & make recommendations for possible regulation of the press.

The result of the Commission on Freedom of the Press was a book: 'A Free & Responsible Press - A General Report on Mass Communication: Newspapers, Radio, Motion Pictures, Magazines, & Books'.

Amazing that the US is having the same debate 80 years later.

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…

The Commission began with the premise that freedom of the press is essential to political liberty; it is unique among the freedoms, for it promotes & protects all the rest.

At the same time the commission feared the concentration of media control into fewer & fewer hands.

“It [is] imperative that the great agencies of mass communication show hospitality to ideas which their owners do not share.” The commission excoriated the performance of news outlets, blaming owners & managers, but concluded media regulation must come from within, not from Govt.

But when the Commission began its work in 1943, it focused on an additional culprit: pressure groups, according to the Commission, were propagandizing, issuing threats, & distorting media coverage.

Nothing changes eh!

Pressure groups fell off the Commission’s agenda, in part because it couldn't agree on whether they were democratic or antidemocratic forces!

The Commission missed an opportunity to help shape subsequent debates over anticommunist blacklists & other forms of media censorship.