Free Speech and Unfree News: The Paradox of Press Freedom in America

by Sam Lebovic

Overview

Does America have a free press? Many who answer yes appeal to First Amendment protections that shield the press from government censorship. But in this comprehensive history of American press freedom as it has existed in theory, law, and practice, Sam Lebovic shows that, on its own, the right of free speech has been insufficient to guarantee a free press.

Lebovic recovers a vision of press freedom, prevalent in the mid-twentieth century, based on the idea of unfettered public access to accurate information. This “right to the news” responded to persistent worries about the quality and diversity of the information circulating in the nation’s news. Yet as the meaning of press freedom was contested in various arenas—Supreme Court cases on government censorship, efforts to regulate the corporate newspaper industry, the drafting of state secrecy and freedom of information laws, the unionization of journalists, and the rise of the New Journalism—Americans chose to define freedom of the press as nothing more than the right to publish without government censorship. The idea of a public right to all the news and information was abandoned, and is today largely forgotten.

Free Speech and Unfree News compels us to reexamine assumptions about what freedom of the press means in a democratic society—and helps us make better sense of the crises that beset the press in an age of aggressive corporate consolidation in media industries, an increasingly secretive national security state, and the daily newspaper’s continued decline.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674659773
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/14/2016
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Sam Lebovic is Assistant Professor of History at George Mason University.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Problem of Press Freedom 1

1 The Inadequacy of Speech Rights 7

2 Interwar Threats to Press Freedom 37

3 A New Deal for the Corporate Press? 64

4 Dependent Journalists, Independent Journalism? 88

5 The Weapon of Information in the Good War 111

6 The Cold War Dilemma of a Free Press 138

7 The Rise of State Secrecy 164

8 Leaks, Mergers, and Nixon's Assault on the News 190

9 Sprawling Secrecy and Dying Newsrooms 227

Abbreviations 251

Notes 253

Acknowledgments 323

Index 327

Editorial Reviews

Interesting, nuanced, and thoughtful…A relevant and thought provoking book.

Journal of Communication - Bonnie Brennen

At every stop on this wide-ranging tour of twentieth-century America, Lebovic’s research is deep and persuasive…Free Speech and Unfree News is a splendid history of the travails of twentieth-century American journalism.

Journal of Social History - David Paul Nord

Examines the hazy relationship between press freedoms and the actual execution of the press’s democratic mission…An engaging, well-written book about an enduring problem in American democracy.

Jared Schroeder

[Lebovic] argue[s] that the dominant conception of civil liberties is insufficiently ambitious. [He] worr[ies] that as formulated, civil liberties are as much a tool for the powerful as for the powerless…Offer[s] important correctives to the celebratory accounts of civil liberties that we so often tell ourselves.

New York Review of Books - David Cole

Free Speech and Unfree News: The Paradox of Press Freedom in America appears at an opportune moment in history…This is a thorough historical analysis that highlights the tension between an American commitment to a narrow definition of press freedom and access to, and reporting of, news that contributes to democratic self-government. It is superbly organized and very readable.

Journalism & Mass Communications Quarterly - Joseph Russomanno

Lebovic’s book is compelling reading. Well researched and written, it does a masterful job of logically weaving together the legal, social, economic, and political threads that have created the fabric of American press freedom.

Karie Hollerbachn Journalism

One of the virtues of Free Speech and Unfree News is its resurrection of mid-century arguments long buried by the conventional wisdom of the media industries…Those hoping for a happier history will have a hard time dismissing this book. Its research, both historical and legal, is broad and deep.

International Journal of Press/Politics - John Nerone

How could a nation proud of its commitment to free expression also be a place where journalists must scour through leaked documents to learn basic facts about government policies? Sam Lebovic’s spectacular and important book shows how the idea of a ‘right to know’ dropped out of twentieth-century understandings of the First Amendment. Essential for understanding what has become of an American free press.

Mary L. Dudziak

Provocative and stimulating. Lebovic shows that, although the American press has grown unusually free from government interference, it is constrained by the vast expansion of government secrecy and the intensification of the profit motive in the shifting news marketplace.

Michael Schudson

[A] smart—and timely—book.

U.S. News and World Report - Nicole Hemmer

Extremely original and well-written…[Lebovic] shows fascinating relationships among many different topics that have not previously been juxtaposed.

Reviews in American History - David M. Rabban

A deep examination of the legal, political, social, and cultural discussions of the role of the press in America in the twentieth century…It [offers] a narrative that is lacking in other classic press freedom books.

Journalism History - Daxton R. “Chip” Stewart

Lebovic’s book is compelling reading. Well researched and written, it does a masterful job of logically weaving together the legal, social, economic, and political threads that have created the fabric of American press freedom.

American Journalism - Karie Hollerbach

A deep examination of the legal, political, social, and cultural discussions of the role of the press in America in the twentieth century…It [offers] a narrative that is lacking in other classic press freedom books.

Journalism History - Daxton R. “Chip” Stewart