Government Regulation of Mass Media Communication; B. B. Greaves

Bettina Bien Greaves Government Regulation of Mass Media Communication PEACEFUL RELATIONS among people depend on voluntary social coopera tion. And the success of social coop eration rests in large part on ease of communication. With the develop ment, many millennia ago, of primi tive language and, in time, of the written word, interpersonal com munication and cooperation could begin. Much more sophisticated and efficient ways of relaying ideas and knowledge have since been de veloped and communication techniques have changed radically since the time of footrunning couriers and town criers. Our modern mass media of com munication have been made possible by countless inventions and imMrs. Greaves is a member of the senior staff of The Foundation for Economic Education and the author of the two-volume Basic Reader and Syllabus-Free Market Economics. For many years she has assem bled material on national high school and college debate topics.

This essay deals with the SUbject of the current college debate resolutions. provements made by unnumbered individuals over the years. Printing techniques and the production of paper, books and newspapers have been considerably improved. To day's very remarkable radio, TV, print and film industries are prod ucts of extremely complicated capital-intensi ve electrical, electron ic and photographic technologies and equipment. Readers, listeners and viewers everywhere want these me chanical techniques of communica tion to be continually improved still more. They also want the quality of the material published, produced and broadcast to be upgraded so as to satisfy better their own personal interests. 1. What information do people want to communicate and to have communicated to them? One thinks first off of personal messages, letters and daily newspapers. But communication involves much more 141 142 THE FREEMAN March than that. Access to theoretical, fac tual and historical knowledge ac cumulated throughout the centuries is most important. People also want to learn what others have been doing recently. They want reports on current events with comments, often critical of specific persons and their actions. They want to learn what their government is doing, or may do. They are interested in political events. They want to know about laws, proposed or enacted, and about actual or likely administrative deci sions. They want reports on judicial procedures and court trials. They want to be able to petition their government. They want reports on business, production, trade and other economic activities. They want to know likely production costs, as well as what prices producers and retail ers are asking for goods and ser vices. They want to hear weather reports and forecasts. They want in formation on new products and sci entific developments. They want en tertainment. They follow competi tive sports closely. They want to know about social events, as well as disasters, accidents, crimes. People now rely on mass media communi cation facilities for all these and many other kinds of information and entertainment.

2. What forms of communication are used to transmit all this mate rial? The traditional mass media of communication are television, radio, print and/or film. But ideas, knowl edge, factual data and entertain ment are also transmitted by other means. Personal messages are de livered by hand, through the mails, by word of mouth and by telephone. Printed messages and commentaries appear in books, newspapers, pam phlets and on billboards. Radio and television offer news of all kinds, sports and entertainment, films, fic tional and documentary, interviews with prominent personalities, ad vertising and much more. Modern loud speakers, often with radio and/or TV hook-up, enable speakers to be heard by hundreds, thousands, even millions, from outdoor lecture platforms or even a soap box, as well as in theaters or auditoriums. Although not usually classified as communications media, schools and universities are among the most im portant means for transmitting from one generation to another the vast body of theoretical know ledge and factual data accumulated over cen turies. And businessmen everywhere look to daily prices and stock market reports for information about antic ipated prices and future demands for products throughout the world.

3. How have communications media changed over the years? Inventors and investors have sub stantially modified and improved communication facilities. Many more 1980 GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF MASS MEDIA 143 individuals may now transmit more messages to more people more quickly and more easily than ever before. We no longer need rely on direct word of mouth communica tion or hand-to-hand transmission of original messages. Improvements in distribution came first. By wagon, coach, pony express, train, automobile and plane, messages could be delivered much faster than men could run, over much longer distances. Print ing presses, rag and woodpulp pa pers, book binding equipment, strong glues, etc., improved the pub lishing of printed books and news papers. With the development of electricity, photography, electronics, transistors, and so forth, the tele graph, ticker tape, telephone, radio, television, teletype, communication satellites, etc., became possible, permitting spoken words and pic tures to be sent through the air.

Using these modern techniques, any arrangement of words and photos may be transmitted promptly and accurately all around the world. Books, newspapers, statistics, films, radio broadcasts, TV shows, and the like, may be transmitted in precise and accurate reproduction. Lies, distortions, propaganda and misinterpretations of truth are re layed just as faithfully as are truths, accurate data and reliable knowl edge. The media themselves are merely tools created by individuals to facilitate communication. The media are not selective; they may be used for good or evil. 4. How can we best assure that the media transmit truths, not lies? The eagerness to know and to com municate often conflicts with the desire of individuals to live in pri vacy and to keep unpleasant mat ters hidden. Yet freedom of the press has been traditional in this country. Generally speaking, reporters have been free to write as they chose, so long as they were responsible for what they wrote. The broadcasting of libelous (defamatory) statements that destroy a person's reputation was generally considered a form of theft. Yet, since the trial of jour nalist John Peter Zenger (1697 1764) in colonial New York, a de rogatory statement that was true was not considered libelous; to de fend himself against charges of Hbel, an author had only to demonstrate his statement was true.

With recent technological ad vances, .freedom of press principles have been expanded to apply to radio, TV, even films and all printed matter, as well as traditional news papers. However, the principle of reporter responsibility has been di luted. Since New York Times v. Sul livan I (1964), reporters have been free to publish almost anything, true or false, about~~public figures," confident that they could not be 144 THE FREEMAN March charged with libel unless ((actual malice" were proved. Some reporters now refuse to reveal the sources on which they base a story, claiming they promised anonymity to obtain information to satisfy their readers' ((right to know." Some reporters have lost their jobs as a result. Some have even been jailed. Marie Torre, William T. Farr, Daniel Schorr, M. A. Farber are a few who refused to reveal sources. However, the principle of a free press is not simply protecting the freedom of reporters to publish what they choose. How about the readers' ((right to know" the source of a story, so as to judge bias and reliability in a particular instance? How about the constitutional right (Amend ment VI) of a person being accused ((to be confronted with the witnesses against him"? What will happen if reporters may write what they choose without any obligation to demonstrate its truth or to reveal sources? What assurance will the public then have of the reliability of news reporting?

5. Suppose the federal govern ment assumed responsibility for the quality and reliability of com munications by strengthening its regulation of the media? Govern ment officials, like private individ uals, would prefer at times not to be in the public eye; they would like to hide their mistakes, misjudgments and indiscretions. Yet private report ers want to uncover and publicize precisely the informat!on govern ment officials are most intent on concealing. Thus reporters and offi cials frequently become adversaries. If more power is given government, the officials gain the upper hand and can threaten recalcitrant reporters with reprisals. Classification of gov ernm~nt documents as SECRET or CONFIDENTIAL (viz. the Pentagon Papers, released in 1971 by Daniel Ellsberg) may sometimes be used simply to avoid government embar rassment. Such a situation could lead, on the one hand, to censorship with the concealment of any infor mation unfavorable to the govern ment and, on the other hand, to propaganda with the release of pro government handouts only.

6. How does the federal govern ment now influence the communi cations media? The federal gov ernment now exercises considerable control over the private media, often by the back door-through FCC re quirements with respect to licens ing, radio-TV programming, allot ment of time to public service and news programs, equal time provi sions in political campaigns, free time for persons to answer criticism under the ~~faimess doctrine," adver tising limitations, and so on. Gov ernment may also interfere through antitrust regulations, labor1980 GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF MASS MEDIA 145 IT is a sad fact that some people try to exploit their fellow men's plight by offering them patent medicines .... It would not impair the operation of the market if the authorities were to prevent such advertising .... But whoever is ready to grant to the government this power would be inconsistent if he objected to the demand to submit the statements of churches and sects to the same examination.

Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop. If one assigns to the government the task of making truth prevail in the advertising of perfumes and tooth paste, one cannot contest it the right to look after truth in the more important matters of religion, philosophy, and social ideology. LUDWIG VON MISES, Human Action management relations, the SEC, CIA and FBI surveillance activities, etc. Government directly subsidizes some communications-through USIA, Radio Free Europe, CETA, the poverty program, aid to the arts, etc. Government is also concerned, necessarily, with publicity given court cases, for it may contribute to, or hamper, fair trials for defendants. All in all, the influence of the fed eral government over the media is considerably more pervasive than appears at first glance. 7. What authority should the fed eral government have to regulate communications media? The First Amendment to the Constitution provides that the Congress shall ((make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ..."Generally speaking, the princi ples of a free press should prevail throughout the communications in dustry. Radio, television, printing, film production, etc., should all be completely private enterprises, fi nanced entirely by the savings of private investors. They should be subject to free and open competition on the market, free to experiment, to tryout new ideas, dependent for survival, like any other enterprise, on satisfying consumers.

In a completely free system, the communications media would rely for news of production costs and the demand for goods and services on pricing information communicated through the market. Government's obligation to them would be the same as to any other private enterprise-to protect them from 146 THE FREEMAN those who would use force, fraud or threat of either to destroy life and property. In war, truth inevitably becomes The First Casualty, as Phillip Knightley demonstrates in his book of that title. For patriotic and mili tary reasons, reporters then usually submit willingly to censorship. But once war ends, freedom of the press principles should prevail. The com munications media should then be come once more the eternally vigi lant ((watchdog," reporting the news as accurately and as responsibly as possible. Thomas Jefferson had profound confidence in a free press. He wrote, nWere it left to me to decide whether we should have a government with out newspapers, or newspapers without· a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter .... Rea son and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error." If all our communications media today -not only radio, TV, film and printing industries, but also schools, libraries, churches, theaters, adver tisers, politicians, and so on-were relieved of the hampering effects of government regulations, controls, red tape and excess taxes, they would have to become more respon sible to the ever-changing wishes of consumers, or go out of business.

Those enterprises that succeeded best in presenting sound principle, truth and lively entertainment to their customers, in· free and open competition with all other enter prises, would become increasingly more effective and vigorous communicators. @ DEBATE TOPICS OF RECENT. YEARS Government Regulation of Mass Media Communications Foreign Policy Employment Opportunities Energy Federal Law Enforcement-Investigation and Prosecution of Felony Crimes Consumer "Protection" or Consumer Sovereignty Mrs. Greaves has a limited supply of her suggested study questions and references for each of these topics, available on request while the supply lasts. Send requests (specify topic or topics desired) to: The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. 30 South Broadway Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y. 10533 P. Dean Russell HOW TO PRODUCE HUMAN BEINGS A FEATURE of our tour of a collective farm in China was a visit to the home of a worker. To my astonish ment, our host had five children.