The Print Media

The Print Media

PAGE CONTENTS:

The Press

History and the Press

A Free Press

Cheap News

Keeping Sources Secret

Big News Gets Bigger

The Press

Freedom of the press is something that we Americans take seriously. Since it is written right there in the Constitu- tion, nothing should get the press more angry than when their own members are denied of these rights. Sadly enough, this is not true. History shows us that when it comes to freedom of the press for alternate points of view, the mainstream press is silent, and usually sides with the government. This has been the case for the last hundred years.

"The Appeal to Reason" was a highly popular magazine that reached its peak prior to the first world war. Its writers included journalists like Jack Reed and Upton Sinclair and had a circulation that would be comparable to today's "Time Magazine." It was a socialist publication that was very critical of the America's involvement in World War I. For this, it was denied the use of the postal service, and since all publications used the mail service, the effects would eventually destroy the publication. Did anyone in the press speak out in its behalf? No, they did not. In fact, the mainstream press stood by the government's actions and praised them.

The Liberation News Service was an alternative wire service that spoke out against the war in Vietnam. It was very critical of U.S. involvement and provided a service to the mainstream press by providing sources of information for them. The reality was that the mainstream press was so out of touch, that they needed the content and contacts that services such as the Liberation News provided. During the war, the Liberation News became the target of the CIA, the FBI and Military Intelligence. The FBI went so far as to break into their offices, destroy their equipment and set fire to the building. The CIA set up informants to spy on the service, which is forbidden under the CIA's charter, while the FBI moved to discredit them.

What did the mainstream press say to these gross violations of the first amendment? Nothing. Throughout the war in Vietnam underground papers became the target of the government's Gestapo tactics while the press sat by and allowed this to happen without saying a word. Only when the government of Richard Nixon sought to go after the press, in the same fashion as they had done to the alternate press, did the corporate press bring up the rights of reporters. In other words, only when it happened to them did they become alarmed.

During the past year we saw another example of just how contemptuous the press and the government are of the first amendment. It was during the Democratic convention when the offices of the alternative media were raided and shut down by the LAPD. The reason they gave to raid and close alternative coverage of the convention was that there might be violence at a rock concert that night.

A New York Times reporter asked a highly influential Gore operative whether he agreed with the action. The Gore people responded that they supported the police action. So much for the freedom of the press. We don't expect anything for liberal Democratic administrations, since this and all of other incidents that have been mentioned took place under the Democrats. However, did you see any coverage of this gross violation on any of the networks? Of course not. What history tells us is that the corporate press has historically done its job. When they and the government have faced any opposition, the press has allowed the powers of the government to attack and destroy alternative points of view. This is the history of our press.

Sources: Interview with James Weinstein, editor of IN THESE TIMES

BEYOND THE REVOLUTION, Ray Mungo

Unknown author and/or copyright. Used without permission, but with the best of intentions.

History and the Press
By Denis Mueller

One of the problems, which has resulted in the debacle we now face in Iraq, is a press corps that seems to be more interested in cuddling up to the powers that be than giving the public information that it needs. It is a lack of historical context and an unwillingness to ask tough questions that has made our press dupes for those who wish to give us disinformation. Instead of asking tough questions; they sit idly by and allow the administration to broadcast their scenarios without serious analysis as to whether what they say is true or not.

During the election of 2004, the right-wing press vilified John Kerry for his activates in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. They were especially incensed by his charges that American soldiers had committed barbarous acts such as cutting off ears, noses and other unspeakable acts. What was never brought up by the press was whether these actions were true. To find this out all they had to do was ask three reporters for the Toledo Blade whether it was true. The reporters had written a series about a unit that was created especially for terrorizing the Vietnamese countryside and how this was covered up by our government. The men who decided to bury a report from the army on the atrocities were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Sound familiar?

Tiger Force was a special unit that was sent to do commando work but the pressure of the war and the casualties they had suffered caused them to do things that many would rather forget. This is historic fact but the press never asked these reporters, who won a Pulitzer Prize for their work, to appear on one of their shows and answer any questions about what Kerry had said. The truth, and the search for truth, seems to be low on the agenda for the Washington press corps.

History gives us other examples as well. During the Gulf War the story that said Iraqi soldiers had thrown babies into incinerators after they had invaded Kuwait. The truth was far different as no such incident had ever occurred. A public relations firm was hired to spread this story and it became the official truth. But this story was used in the debate that led to the war. The press today remains silent about the effects of Depleted Uranium, which has resulted in the loss of life for hundreds of thousands of people, preferring to let the Pentagon deny that DU has anything to do with Gulf War syndrome.

Another example of this is the press coverage and the lack of historical perspective when it comes to the Israeli-Palestine conflict. How often is it mentioned how Israel acquired the land it now posses? Do you ever hear about how the Palestinians were driven from their land by brutal methods that should be described as ethnic cleansing? How often do you hear that term when it comes to examing the roots of the conflict? The results of this have been a disaster for our country.

The question becomes what can we do as citizens regarding this negligence on the part of the press. First, we should ignore the mainstream media and seek other sources. Second, we can ask questions of the press themselves and why they continue to spread disinformation as if was the gospel truth. History and historical context are important because if you know nothing about history; then anyone can tell you anything and you will believe them. The press reports the point of view of the administration and it is time we demand that they present things within a historical context. Our lives, and our children's lives, depend on it.

A Free Press

Friends, we're traveling back in time today to 1735. What happened in 1735 that still matters to today's media? That was the year a principled printer, an able attorney, and a colonial jury flouted the law to free the press.

Think back to the 1730s. In those days, "freeborn Englishmen" enjoyed more civil liberties than most folk, but freedom to criticize the crown wasn't among them. Badmouthing the government was "seditious libel."

Yet in 1733, a handful of enterprising New Yorkers launched an independent political newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal, aimed squarely at the colony's widely detested governor, William Cosby. The Journal's printer--and the man legally responsible for its contents--was John Peter Zenger.

Governor Cosby had taken up his post in New York Province in 1732. That same year, he had appointed a censor for the local newspaper, who made sure the rag ran flattering stories about the grand English governor. By 1733, Cosby had appointed a new provincial chief justice, too, after the old one ruled against him.

With the courts and media squarely in the governor's corner, his opponents did what any blogger might do today: they launched their own publication--the New York Weekly Journal. In the paper, they dared to criticize Cosby. The governor, of course, tried to shut the paper down.

Unfortunately for Cosby, the local colonials weren't very compliant. Twice, Cosby's new chief justice asked grand juries to return indictments for seditious libel. Twice, the grand juries refused. Eventually, the court issued a bench warrant for Zenger's arrest. The day after Zenger was arrested, the Journal failed to publish. Thanks to his wife, that was the only missed issue, though the printer himself spent 10 months in jail.

Things looked bad for Zenger. He had little room to defend himself against the charge of seditious libel. His paper had printed criticisms of the government, and that was against the law. It didn't matter whether the criticisms were true or not. (In fact, as the prosecutor pointed out at the trial, "the law says their being true is an aggravation of the crime.")

But Zenger had a legal ace in his corner--Philadelphia's Andrew Hamilton, perhaps the best attorney in the colonies. Hamilton's defense strategy was simple, brilliant, and risky. Rather than dispute the facts of the case, which were well known, he attacked the very notion that a person should be punished for telling the truth:

It is a right, which all free men claim, that they are entitled to complain when they are hurt. They have a right publicly to remonstrate against the abuses of power in the strongest terms, to put their neighbors upon their guard against the craft or open violence of men in authority, and to assert with courage the sense they have of the blessings of liberty, the value they put upon it, and their resolution at all hazards to preserve it.

Hamilton's strategy worked. Despite directions from the judge--Cosby's handpicked chief justice--that practically demanded a guilty verdict, the jury acquitted Zenger. According to reports, spectators at the court responded with "three huzzas" and "shouts of joy."

Zenger went on to serve as public printer in both New York and New Jersey. And colonial prosecutors thought twice before bringing more charges of seditious libel, for fear of further jury nullifications. Truth became a defense against a libel charge, and freedom of the press took root in America.

--Steve Sampson

Cheap News

Sensational stories, made to shock and scandalize, are nothing new to the news business.

Long before today's mass media, there were penny papers--cheap, mass-produced dailies that churned out sensational news stories and survived on ever-expanding ads. Among the pioneers of such publications was a young New York printer named Benjamin Day. In 1833, Day launched the New York Sun, the first successful penny paper, and showed the world the value of cheap.

Newspapers had been around America since colonial times, and in Europe even longer, but before the 1830s they were mainly small circulation affairs, read by a few thousand people at most. Day capitalized on technological advances--including steam presses that could crank out thousands of copies per hour--to produce an inexpensive paper targeted to an untapped market: the literate working class.

Mass circulation was key to keeping a penny paper afloat: it actually cost a penny, as opposed to the six cents other papers charged. And Day and his colleagues quickly learned that nothing sells papers like a sensational story. In 1835, the Sun's daily circulation reached nearly 20,000--making it the world's largest newspaper--thanks largely to the discovery of life on the moon.

The "Great Moon Hoax" began on August 25, 1835, with a Sun headline that read "GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES LATELY MADE BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL". Essentially, the Sun claimed to have discovered a story of cosmic importance in an obscure Scottish science journal (which had actually stopped publishing at the time).

For six days, the paper filled its front pages with marvelous accounts of vast lunar forests, purple quartz pyramids, beautiful blue unicorns, bipedal beavers, and even a species of winged aliens dubbed Vespertilio homo ("man bat").

Competitors rushed to copy the Sun's story, and a team of experts reportedly hurried from New York to examine the evidence. When the smoke cleared, the story turned out to be the work not of Sir John Herschel (an actual British astronomer of the time, who knew nothing of the hoax), but of Richard Adams Locke, a reporter who worked for the Sun. No matter. The Sun maintained its increased readership.

Nine years later, the Sun still hadn't learned its journalistic lesson (or, perhaps, it had learned its circulation lesson all too well). On April 13, 1844, the paper published a broadside extra topped by a screaming headline:

ASTOUNDING NEWS!
BY EXPRESS VIA NORFOLK!
* * * * * * *
THE ATLANTIC CROSSED
IN THREE DAYS!
* * * * * * *
SIGNAL TRIUMPH OF
MR. MONCK MASON'S
FLYING MACHINE!!!

The 5,000-word story that followed described an astounding aeronautical adventure in minute detail. It recounted how Mason--a renowned balloonist of the time--had set off with seven friends to float from Wales to France, only to wind up in South Carolina three days later (thanks to a mechanical failure and a northeasterly wind).

The author of the story was Edgar Allen Poe, who evidently put one over on the Sun to pick up a few bucks--and to prove a point. Poe had recently returned to New York with a sick wife and very little money. An experienced newspaperman (and hoaxer) himself, Poe knew the Sun would be anxious to scoop its competitors.

Prior to the age of the telegraph, papers in New York had to wait on the mail for confirmation of stories from faraway lands like South Carolina. Poe exploited that time lag, passing his balloon story off as late-breaking news and selling it to the headline-hungry Sun, reportedly for $50. The story now appears in collections of Poe's short fiction.

Over the years, the Sun became considerably more respectable. So much so that, in 1897, an 8-year-old girl named Virginia O'Hanlon entrusted the paper with her most pressing question. Virginia's father had told her that "if you see it in the Sun, it's so." So she wrote the editors to ask whether there really was a Santa Claus.

The Sun's reply, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," is one of the most famous columns in newspaper history. The original Sun closed its doors in 1950. A new paper, operating under the same name, began publishing in 2002. And Santa? He never stopped delivering.

--Steve Sampson

Keeping Sources Secret

First, let's expose the sources journalists now keep secret--starting with yours.

Keeping Your Source Secret

Suppose you're an investigative reporter and you've just published a story about a crime that could topple a high government official. You've covered every angle, verified every claim, and wrapped it in Pulitzer prose.

As the story goes to press, you congratulate yourself on a job well done. There's only one problem: your story depends on claims by a government official whose identity you've promised to keep secret. Within weeks, a grand jury is issuing subpoenas. Before you can say "freedom of the press," they've subpoenaed you. You'd like to cooperate, but you know they're going to ask who your source was. Do you have to give up your source? Will you go to jail if you don't?

If you're thinking you can just wrap yourself in the Constitution's First Amendment, think again. In a 1972 case, Branzburg v. Hayes, the Supreme Court determined that the First Amendment doesn't relieve reporters of the obligation all citizens have to testify before grand juries in criminal cases--even if they've promised confidentiality to their sources.

Basically, the Court held that your promise to your source is like one friend's promise to keep another's secret: you're free to make it, and it's admirable that you want to keep it, but a grand jury can force you to break it. You may be able to think of good arguments against this ruling, but the Court hasn't revisited it in over 30 years, so hoping to prevail on those arguments alone probably isn't your best bet.

But don't despair. The Court was deeply split in the Branzburg case, and that split could still help you. Four of the nine justices joined in a dissent, and one who concurred in the majority ruling wrote a separate opinion arguing for a qualified privilege for reporters. In other words, despite the Court's majority ruling, five out of nine justices recognized some kind of qualified privilege for journalists. (Under certain conditions, lawyers, doctors, and the clergy can all invoke confidentiality privileges, so there were precedents.)

The dissenters suggested that when reporters are asked to break confidences before grand juries, the government should have to pass a three-part test:

(1) "show that there is probable cause to believe that the newsman has information that is clearly relevant to a specific probable violation of law;"

(2) "demonstrate that the information sought cannot be obtained by alternative means less destructive of First Amendment rights; and"

(3) "demonstrate a compelling and overriding interest in the information."

Officially, it's the majority opinion that matters, not the dissent. But many state courts--and even some federal circuit courts--now recognize qualified confidentiality privileges for reporters, based on similar three-part tests. (That such things happen is one reason justices bother to write dissents.)

What's more, the Department of Justice now operates under rules that require federal agents to balance "the free flow of information" against the needs of effective law enforcement. Federal prosecutors are required to try to get information from alternate sources, or to negotiate with reporters for it, before issuing subpoenas.

Unfortunately, Justice Department rules don't mean much when you're already staring at a subpoena. But look closely at where that subpoena came from. If it came from a state court, rather than a federal one, you could be in better shape--as 32 states, plus the District of Columbia, already have shield laws to prevent reporters from being forced to reveal their sources. (Shield laws aren't a newfangled experiment, either. Maryland's dates back to 1896.)

State shield laws provide varying degrees of protection to various types of journalists. If your state has a shield law, and you're a full-time reporter for the local newspaper or TV station, you and your source are probably better protected than you would be in federal court. If you're a freelance writer, or you publish on your own website, you may not fit the state's definition of "journalist." So you'd better ask yourself whether you're really willing to go to jail to protect your source, because it may well come to that.

--Steve Sampson

Big News Gets Bigger

The Federal Communications Commission voted to let media companies own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the nation's 20 largest media markets. The controversial decision reverses a longstanding ban on such cross-media conglomeration.

Opponents of the change say the old rule helped prevent major media companies from becoming too dominant. Supporters say the new rule simply recognizes a changing media landscape, in which newspapers are struggling to find readers and more folks find the information they need online.

Either way, we say it's a good time to look back at American media's roots--to a time when local voices like Ben Franklin's dominated. After all, before he messed around with lightning or charmed French royalty, old Ben was a newspaperman.

Back then, printers did it all--interviewing recently arrived ship captains for out-of-town news, writing articles, plagiarizing stories from other newspapers, selling ads, printing the pages, and distributing the final product. In fact, most colonial newspapers sprang from small printshops that employed just the owner and his teenage apprentice.

Ben Franklin started in the printing trade as an apprentice to his older brother, James, who ran a small printshop in Boston. Working there exposed the young Franklin to different kinds of writing and gave him a chance to borrow books on the sly from booksellers' apprentices.

In those days, printers had to be smart and strong. Composing the pages was a mental feat--type was set letter by letter, using little blocks of metal, and for the page to appear correctly when printed, every line had to be composed in reverse. (Many printers were as adept at reading backward as forward.) After the pages were made, the printer personally pulled the lever on the heavy wooden press to stamp the image--one page at a time. No wonder few colonial newspapers had a press run of more than 300.

James Franklin wanted his publication, the New-England Courant, to be more than the usual collection of 6-month-old news that appeared in other colonial newspapers. So he solicited articles. In 1722, 14 letters appeared in the New-England Courant signed by "Silence Dogood." The middle-aged widow had a lot to say about the clergy, fashion, and political matters, and people loved it--even if they didn't know who the Widow Dogood really was.

Using a pen name was common at the time, so everyone knew "Dogood" wasn't her real name. But no one knew that 16-year-old Ben had actually written the letters, sliding them under the printshop's door at night.

A year after the Silence Dogood letters were published, Ben ran away from his brother's employ. (Things got rough for James after he was thrown in jail for suggesting the local authorities were in cahoots with pirates.) Still in his teens, Ben apprenticed with a Philadelphia printer before sailing for London and working there for two years. By 1729, he was back in Philadelphia and publishing his own newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette.

The Gazette was like most newspapers of its day--no headlines, few illustrations, and it ran only four pages. What set it apart was Franklin's lively version of local news. He filled the columns with anecdotes like this one: "And sometime last Week, we are informed, that one Piles a Fidler, with his Wife, were overset in a Canoo near Newtown Creek. The good Man, 'tis said, prudently secur'd his Fiddle, and let his Wife go to the Bottom." The Pennsylvania Gazette became one of the most successful newspapers of its time.

Colonial newspapers had no separate editorial pages, but they were packed with opinions. Just as he had done in his Silence Dogood days, Franklin often wrote an article in the voice of a fictional citizen. In 1735, he printed a letter purportedly written by an elderly gentleman, who encouraged his fellow Philadelphians to establish a volunteer fire department. The imaginary old man described leaping out the window of a burning house. By the end of the year, the Union Fire Company of Philadelphia had formed.

Franklin's most successful editorial alter ego was "Poor Richard" Saunders, the pen name Franklin used for the 25 years he published Poor Richard's Almanack. In the colonies, practically every printer published an annual almanac. These thick pamphlets, showing the phases of the moon and predicting the weather, were moneymakers because most literate households purchased one every year.

In 1732, Franklin threw together a 24-page publication with a first-person preface signed by Richard Saunders. The "author," a destitute stargazer whose shrewish wife threatened to burn all his books and astronomy instruments if he didn't "make some profitable use of them," admitted the reason he wrote the almanac was to make a little money and get her off his back.

From 1732 to 1757, Poor Richard's grew in popularity as readers found more than the usual astronomical charts and tidal tables. Tucked into this almanac were proverbs such as "Early to Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy and wise." Franklin said he saw the almanac as a way to educate folks who might not buy any other books and so "filled all the little spaces that occurred between the Remarkable Days in the Calendar, with Proverbial Sentences, chiefly such as inculcated Industry and Frugality."

Some years Franklin sold 10,000 copies. Combined with good investments and lucrative printing contracts, the profits from the almanac allowed him to retire from printing at the ripe old age of 42. Of course, Franklin's "retirement" was more active than many a person's working life. And though he was hailed as a scientist, diplomat, patriot, and philosopher, at the end of his days, Franklin was still proud of his printshop roots. When he wrote his will at the age of 82, he began: "I, Benjamin Franklin, printer, . . . "

--Colleen Kelly

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