Power of Corporate America and Free Speech

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Table of Contents

Press Freedom
How the Government wants the News Media to affect American Voters?
The ‘Poor’ Media – Who is Responsible?
Obstructions to American Press
References

Most Americans who keep themselves updated and rely on the news remain unaware of the influence and reach of American journalism beyond the borders of their nation. They are unaware of the fact that during the past 50 years, the U.S. news media has contributed towards the political pitfalls and therefore in doing their basic job of reporting the news for local audiences, they have not lagged behind and have participated in and helped shape a world that is economically more interdependent more politically fractured and threatening. The news media has contributed so much in shaping the ‘democratic’ image of the United States that many reporters have conducted strikes while others did not mind quitting their news casting jobs for the reporters are unable to bear the threats they receive from various political parties.

Since the events of September 11, free speech have been in a constant attack by the American Government (New African, Jan 2002) not only in the U.S, but all the countries which are somehow state themselves democratic. Because of such American ‘democracy’, the anti-American significance plays a vital role in choking the entire media from freedom of speech and expression. This in fact is elicited from writers, politicians, government officials, and managers of media businesses who are dutiful yet luminous recitals of traditional liberal formulations of free-press theory. On the other hand this is also true that America successfully deals hands-in-hand with businesses to choke media freedom.

Press Freedom

Censorship whether of media or press, has always occurred whenever America has involved in conducting war. On September 28 the Times ran a front page story, “In Patriotic Time, Dissent is Muted”, that recounted the fate that had befallen Americans, both prominent and obscure, who had not toed the patriotic line. At least two small-town journalists had been fired for impolitic expression, and several corporations withdrew their sponsorship of Bill Maher’s TV program, Politically Incorrect. In another front page story, Washington correspondent Robin Toner wrote of the decline of bipartisanship after its initial rush and of how the Congress was “taking a second look-and a third and a fourth-at the administration’s proposals for new law enforcement powers to fight terrorism”.

That was not the end to a series of unfortunate events for American media. A story from San Francisco reported how Japanese-Americans, remembering the internment camps of World War II, took it upon themselves to speak out against attacks on Arab-Americans. A local story reported that some Americans responded to September 11 with newly devised charity scams to exploit the generous spirit of their fellow citizens. Another local story reported that 8,000 frustrated residents were still displaced from their apartments near the World Trade Centre. The residents were reported to be highly critical of the city administration (Zelizer & Allan, 2003, p. 37).

The relationship between the media and democracy which according to America, has been set free, is very different from that which occurred in the countries of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and African and Asian countries with traditions of state control and ownership of the media. The American media which has been privately controlled and commercially operated is now facing threats in the form of various bans on behalf of the U.S. Government. Even the most repressive authoritarian military regimes rarely took over domestic radio and television stations, although they routinely shut down and censored newspapers, and journalists often numbered among the disappeared (Neil & Rienner, 1998, p. 21). The role of the American media under authoritarianism and democratization must be understood as part of a longer tradition of state media relations. These relations are marked by complicity, compromise, and mutually shared goals, culminating today in the emergence of monopolistic, largely unregulated domestic media giants.

How the Government wants the News Media to affect American Voters?

The government understands that media’s role is important because citizens’ knowledge and participation in elections are necessary to the success of democratic government. Therefore the amount and quality of information that the media supply to voters during an election campaign influences what they know and whether they participate. The voters’ evaluation of the news media provides an indication of whether news organizations are providing this information in a way that is appealing and useful to voters, and voters’ assessment of the news media may impact the confidence in the news media and the likelihood that they will continue to use the news media as a source of information. That clearly indicates that American democratic government wants the news media to obey what they are required to say in front of the public and not what they discover the sources say.

According to Solomon (May-June 2002) “As soon as the U.S. government initiated with extensive bombing of Afghanistan, media outlets throughout the U.S. felt the increased pressure both abroad and at home. Few days later when journalist ‘Colin Powell’ decided to interview the ameer of Qatar, Condoleezza Rice asked TV networks to immediately censor tapes of messages from al-Qaeda leaders” (Solomon, 2002).

News organizations are not one among many sources of information on which American public relies. However for most of the voters, news is a credible primary source of information. Since the Government is well aware of this fact, therefore it knows the increasingly important role of the news to voters would make the news media in a lofty position in U.S. democracy, and makes voters’ evaluation of the news a vital concern.

The ‘Poor’ Media – Who is Responsible?

Western audiences have never been well informed about what is going on behind the ‘War on terrorism’ scenes by their media about terrorism and about the geopolitical role of the United States in Asia and Africa. However the U.S. media is bound to show and support the fake public opinions in polls regarding President Bush’s ‘War on Terrorism’. It has also effected and has provided similar support in Europe which raises the issue of the relation between liberal democracy and warfare. The Media is bound to support the rational political debate in the public sphere, as it is forced by the U.S. Government to do with the weighty decision to wage war than war propaganda and the manufacturing of public consent.

The U.S. Government wants media representations to take and perceive the term ‘warfare’ from the eyes of the Government as these would allow the representations to adopt a global capitalist system of production, circulation, and consumption. On the other hand the American citizens deserve to know how the U.S intelligence evaluates the criteria for war. (Orakwue, 2004) The example is that of 1991 Gulf War in which the White House along with Pentagon censored media coverage by putting off the journalists from American military activities. The American wars crimes were never revealed and exposed until it was found that ‘small bombs’ used by American military were actually guided missiles which wreaked havoc in Iraq. However, what came on media coverage were the demonizing Iraqi forces fighting the American military. (Michaels, 2003) Some of the common examples of White House efforts to win public support are the U.S. bombing of Libya in 1986, U.S. intervention to counter the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991, and U.S. intervention in Haiti in 1994. Therefore it is clear that not all media events are so readily reported, for politics determines what is to be communicated to the public and what is not. News that the citizens of the global village see or read about is skewed toward events in nations that permit independent journalists and give them free movement.

Obstructions to American Press

The newspaper is today read by nearly the whole family among all classes. In the past ten years the circulation of the daily newspapers of the United States has grown two and one-half times as fast as population as a whole. Its power is more decisive and irresistible than any other agency; consequently it overshadows them all in importance. Corporate Government knows that and therefore pressurizes the press to use its power to suggest to the people what they should think and do. Even those who do not take their opinions direct from the newspaper have their intellectual standards and their method of reasoning influenced by it. The average person is tremendously affected by the newspaper.

The following are among the commonest faults of the contemporary newspaper when considered as a factor in the formation of public opinion:

Distortion and suppression of news: This seems to be done in a servile attempt to protect the private interests of persons controlling the paper, or advertisers using it, business associations or business in general, or the class represented by the paper or controlling it. The Newspapers, not wanting the steel strikers to win, gave a distorted account of the steel strike, the news syndicates, because of the nature of their control, felt justified in garbling and misrepresenting news about America. Again, the newspapers may err in exaggerating news like any item of news that appears to favour the policy of the paper is seized upon, written up, and enlarged beyond its importance. Now, the personal equation of the writer cannot be eliminated, and obviously, the suppression of certain news is necessary, but there is so much distortion and suppression along certain lines where these are not socially necessary that one is forced to conclude that it is done as a matter of deliberate policy in order to withhold certain information from the public.
Propaganda: The Corporate American politics uses ‘Propaganda’ as to over-emphasize fake facts. Dominant interests, political parties, nationalistic or imperialistic groups have always used or sought to use the press as a means of control. The propaganda of the press is the most dangerous kind; it is the covert, unproclaiming type. The press is apparently impartial, and therefore not recognizable as propaganda. The newspaper stands before the community as a public teacher, and the first qualification of a public teacher is that he shall be sincere and disinterested.

Corporate Government wants to exert influence through the news media. For citizens who are the object of White House public-relations campaigns, the news media are of great significance, as most Americans get no information on U.S. foreign-policy initiatives except what is reported in the news. It is through this way media plays a significant role in shaping the so called democracy in the country. But to every part they play, they have to manage a fixed price to pay to the Government in the form of delivering untrue events with ignoring the harsh facts.

The government wants to raise constitutional concerns during war time not only to pressurize the press but also to restrict the press freedom and impose battlefield press restrictions. In this way the result would be in favour of the corporate Government which most of the nations would follow and would not let the international media to practice important values as safety and free expression. The extent to which the press and the military have cooperated in the past with the media is worth mentioned.

When for the first time in U. S. history the American people watched their nation at war the press was free. Into their living rooms, through their television sets, came the reality of Vietnam, of American soldiers being killed and maimed in Southeast Asia. At the same time, the arguments of antiwar activism were reported on television as a sort of counterpoint to United States involvement in the war. As a result the American people were generally well informed on the war after about 1965, at least as well informed as Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, and Harry Reasoner could inform them on the network evening news. (Donaldson, 1996, p. 110) Add to that the print media coverage of the events, and the American people came to understand their war in Vietnam. And they began to ask questions: ‘Why are we there?’ ‘What is the war strategy?’ ‘What is the American plan for withdrawal?’ ‘When?’ ‘On what conditions?’ Often the answers were disconcerting at best.

The role of the American press in the Vietnam War evoked a great deal of controversy. Certainly, the press brought the war home; it showed the agony and the reality of war for the first time in history. It also exposed what was known as the ‘credibility gap’ the government’s reluctance to be entirely honest with the American people on the prosecution of the war. The press exposed that several of the troop escalations of 1965 were not revealed to the American people, that casualty statistics throughout the war were fabricated, that secret wars in Laos and Cambodia raged on without the knowledge of the American people or Congress, and that the rationale for the initial involvement was part fabrication and part overreaction. But the war, in all its reality, existed as the press presented it; the press did not show a war that was not there. Initially the administration presented reality before the public which was perpetuated by the decision makers in Washington. But later on when the press declared the American people about the realities of the war, the American populace turned against it.

It was not only the Vietnam War to which the press reported every fact fairly, the press throughout other wars reported the outrageous casualty figures released by the Defence Department that later turned out to be largely concocted for public consumption. It was not until the Pentagon Papers were published that the press was well aware of the political circumstances and start asking questions about incidents in the Tonkin Gulf, the unannounced troop escalations in the mid-1960s, and the reason behind the secret wars in Laos and Cambodia.

The corporate Government inside was shocked at to what extent the reporters are taking interest in the internal war politics. Therefore, they sought evidences against those reporters and when they came to know that those reporters are simply defaming and repeating the military’s war versions, the nation’s top correspondents were called home, leaving in the press room at Riyadh some less-than-experienced reporters to send back the information being doled out by the military.

The government was though able to hold back the censored news bulletin, so the news was censored, but somehow the American people at home were bombarded with information about the war. Live telecast was followed by showing many reporters with Iraqi Missiles from cities like Riyadh and Dhahran, with the fear of death in their eyes American public sensed fear. There were reporters covering their faces with gas masks became a national pastime. At that time news media did not know that press freedom given to them is temporary. With new heroes and some villains, press coverage was representing a battlefield in which emerged among the press corps: Bernard Shaw of Cable News Network (CNN) who reported under fire from a bunker in Baghdad the night the air war began.

The media’s democratic role has been slow poisoned and intimately bound up with a debate about the media’s organization and regulation. Indeed, the classic liberal theory of a free press is no longer followed in the presence of Corporate Government hold on media and power on which we still rely. Rethinking classic liberal theory necessarily implies a rethinking rather remaking of media policy which must not be bound by Corporate Government legislations.

The U.S ‘ideal’ democratic system where on one hand ensures freedom of speech and media, on the other hand it is reluctant to support the media in updating its public. Therefore what is required is a watchdog role which would ensure the traditional liberal theory to override in all other functions of the media. Such a role would allow the media to dictate the form in which the media system should be organized. The media can only attain independence from the corporate government if it is provided freedom to anchor the media to the free market.

This orthodox view of ‘having watchdogs’ is rejected by two American political scientists, of conservative sympathies. They argue that any reform of the media that start or ends up in ‘independence’, however desirable, is unacceptable if it is ‘at the cost of the watchdog function. That means the government wants to choke the press freedom completely in a manner that a press that is licensed, franchised or regulated is subject to political pressures when it deals with issues affecting the interests of those in power’.

Many American analysts with strongly reformist views share the same fear that allows any kind of indirect content regulation aimed at opening channels for freer expression that would allow post government in the intolerable role of super-gatekeeper’. Even in circumstance where the news media is allocated only a small part of the content to the public affairs, the Government liberal orthodoxy limits the democracy of media in terms of those fears that they do not do most of the time. Traditionally, Government takes advantage of the liberal theory for holding up the sole object of press vigilance. This derives from a period when government was commonly thought to be the ‘seat’ of power. According to the Columbia Journalism Review the gap between a media establishment and ordinary working American simply negates on the part of democracy. (Kaplan, Nov 2004) However, such a traditional view which fails to take account of the exercise of economic power by the corporate sector needs a revised conception in which the media are conceived as being a check on both public and private sector.

References

Donaldson A. Gary, (1996) America at War since 1945: Politics and Diplomacy in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War: Greenwood Press: Westport, CT.
Kaplan D. Robert, (2004) “The Media and the Military: American Reporters Would Shudder to Think That They Harbor Class Prejudice-But They Do” In Magazine Title: The Atlantic Monthly. Volume: 294. Issue: 4.
Mermin Jonathon, (1999) Debating War and Peace: Media Coverage of U.S. Intervention in the Post-Vietnam Era: Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Michaels Henry, (2003) Pentagon, media agree on Iraq War censorship. Web.
Orakwue Stella, (2004) “Oh, the Poor Spies! ‘We Got It Wrong’. Who Did? British Secret Service Officials Start Leaking to the Press When Politicians Start Insinuating.
American Ones Say: ‘You Looking at Me? You Looking at Me?’ Get out of Here” In Magazine Title: New African. Issue: 427.
“Paragons of Press Freedom?” (2002) In: Magazine Title New African. Publication Page Number: 22
Smith A. Jeffrey, (1999) War & Press Freedom: The Problem of Prerogative Power: Oxford University Press: New York.
Solomon Norman (2002) “Profiles in Media Courage” In Magazine Title: The Humanist. Volume: 62. Issue: 3.
Zelizer Barbie & Allan Stuart, (2003) Journalism after September 11: Routledge: New York.

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