Should Government be a Media Publisher?

A very strange thing about all this is that if the people really do have a right to know Government business, then the Government is initially and chiefly responsible (may be totally responsible) for fulfilling this right.

A very strange thing about all this is that if the people really do have a right to know Government business, then the Government is initially and chiefly responsible (may be totally responsible) for fulfilling this right. Not the press. The press cannot really do it, even if it feels it must, for it is impossible for the press to provide the people’s right to know as long as even one Government official is unavailable for comment, is secretive or evasive, or classifies one document so as to withhold it from release.

If, therefore, the Government is principally (or totally) respon­sible for permitting the people to know (after all, the Government, and not the press, represents the people), Merrill says, certain interesting potentialities arise : For instance, should not the Govern­ment-having such a responsibility to let the people know-actually get into the mass communication business ? Should not the Govern­ment take the initiative and make the people know what is going on in its massive workings, not waiting for the commercial press to ferret it out? And, could not the Government through its own publications and resources fill in a multitude of gaps with information and view­points which the people have a right to receive, but presumably are not receiving? In other words, if such a right to know does in fact exist, should not the people’s government-and not a theoretically free and independent press-bear the responsibility for fulfilling or granting this right? Why should the press, any more than any other private or commercial institution, be saddled with the awesome responsibility of providing Government information to the people?

Undoubtedly many will say that the Government has no right to compete with private media. But, strangely, many of these same persons are the ones who talk of the people’s right to know and bemoan the fact that they are not knowing nearly enough.

If the people have such a right, what difference would it make how the rights were fulfilled? One answer might be: Freedom of the press implies a press which is a non-Government press, a commercial press, a libertarian press, a pluralistic press. If the country’s non-Government press is not permitting the people to know and the people have a right to know, what other alternative is there?

It is at this point that the press responsibility devotees would demand that the press should be made more enterprising, less mono­polistic, more imbued with its obligation to let the people know. Who would make the press more responsible in this sense? Why do these social responsibility people think it is easier to reform the press and make journalists see the error of their ways than it is to make the Government decide to change its ways and inform the people? In short, the argument turns again to a critique of the press, and the brunt of the burden falls again on the reporters, editors and publi­shers.

It is a circular, never-ending theoretical game but the emphasis shifts to what precipitated the discussion in the first place: the people. If the people really have this right to know, it should be enforced even to the point of disciplining uncooperative or irresponsible journalists and Government officials. If the people really do not have such a right, then there is really no need to try to enforce-and the situation stays exactly as it has been: the press trying to get some information; the Government trying to keep some away from the press and the people; and the people trying to keep some information from both the press and the Government.

Positive and Negative Freedoms:

Some libertarians refer to two strains of freedom-positive and negative freedom.

Positive freedom is the freedom to achieve some good (generally attributed to Rousseau), whereas negative freedom (usually attributed to Hobbes and Locke) is the freedom from restraint. Many would say that positive freedom is responsible freedom and negative free­dom is not responsible.

This positive-negative dualism is troublesome, for it would appear that if a person were not free of restraint, he would not have the freedom to achieve some good (of his own choice). Therefore, it would seem that the heart of the concept of freedom is really what is called negative freedom. If one is free from restraint, he is automatically free to achieve some good (if he elects to).

The negative freedom implies the freedom to act autonomously. And presumably, when one acts autonomously, he at least thinks he is acting for some good. On the other hand, what is referred to as positive freedom smacks too much of the authoritarian concept of freedom, which grants the people the freedom to carry out what some elite have decided to be good.

It is little wonder that Rousseau, to whom this positive freedom concept is attributed, is so often consi­dered an authoritarian. It is true that a slave is free in the sense that he is free from making choices for himself and, therefore, can provide pre-determined social good. But, as Sydney Harris has put it. “People who live in despotic or dictatorial societies have no true security-even though the despot or the state may provide everything they need-because they lack the freedom to make choices.

The libertarians of the positive freedom school emphasize doing a good; they are really utilitarian and have restricted their concept of freedom to freedom to do something good. This is certainly a Very limited view of freedom and one which only elitist descendants of Plato would approve.

The libertarian supporting negative freedom (regardless of its unfavourable connotation) is the valid libertarian for he views freedom as autonomy (freedom from coercion) and knows that autonomy is really basic to any concept of freedom; beyond this, he recognizes that the truly free person (or journalistic medium) may choose not to act in accord with some social utilitarian objective.

The autonomous man or journalistic medium does not have to do any­thing to be free; it is only necessary that he be unrestrained so that ho can choose whether he wants to do anything or not.

Many people today either prefer the positive freedom position described above or they say that, really, they cannot see any real difference between the two positions. Those who say either of these things are really the people who are setting in motion the machinery of journalistic control. For what they are saying, in effect, is simply this: freedom is freedom to do what society (or some instrumentality of society) demands for the good of society.

They are putting the social good or social responsibility (as they see it) above the concept of freedom. This may be all right in the abstract, but in order to make it mean anything, it must be related to reality: in the context of journalism, for example, it implies some outside (not the media units themselves) person or group defining for the press what is meant by the social good or what is socially responsible journalism.

Those who advocate this positive freedom for journalism certainly think of themselves as libertarians. But many see them as standing in the doorway to authoritarianism urging unsuspecting journalists to enter without warning them what just might be on the other side of the door.

They do not call this door, of course, the door to authoritarianism but the door to social responsibility. They appeal not only to those who desire the comforts of submitting to authority, but also to the many journalists who sincerely want to act altruisti­cally from humanistic motives and are willing to lay aside their free­dom and their autonomous humanism which they evidently feel is inferior to some imposed, outside authoritarian power.