Media Chatter

Paula Rogers
COM 101
November 29, 2009
Chapter 16, Question #3

3.) The writer A.J. Liebling once said that freedom of the press belonged only to those who owned one. Explain why you agree or disagree.

The First Amendment guarantees to every American citizen the right to freedom of the press. However, this freedom is not absolute due to the censorship imposed on the media by the American government and other institutions. As A.J. Liebling pointed out, freedom of the press does indeed belong to those who own one.

Within American media, a Libertarian Theory is mainly employed. The Libertarian Theory states that no one power has a monopoly on the truth, and that truth can be discovered through competing claims. This theory is the basis of America’s First Amendment. However, even though within this type of theory there is no monopoly of powers, the same cannot be said about a monopoly of the source and amount of information.

An example of monopolies on information amount and source can be seen in the lack of diversity among American newsgroups present on the frontlines of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars; with the main source being CNN. These monopolies can also be seen in not only the control of information, but also the censorship of it was well.

One example of this censorship being put into practice within can be seen in the way the American media was forced to handle the H1N1 flu scare. The H1N1 virus was not made widely known to the public until it had resulted in the death of over five American citizens. The censorship control was blamed not on the media itself, but rather the Government’s control of the information and censoring of it.

Although it is evident that I agree with Liebling’s theory, I also contend that there is an exception to this rule. This exception can be found in the form of blogs. Blogs allow anyone to freely express as well as publicize one’s own thoughts and ideas. In this sense anyone can become a facet of the press with little fear of censorship. Freedom of the press is for those that own one, and with blogs anyone can own one.