September

THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY FEATURES 596 Must the News Media Be Inimical to Freedom? by Sheldon Richman Reasons behind the news bias against the market process. 602 Freedom and Language by Aeon James Skoble The importance of linguistic integrity and precision. 605 Two Cases of Press Malpractice by Tibor R. Machan How broadcast journalists mishandle economic news. 610 Obscenity: The Case for a Free Market in Free Speech by T. Franklin Harris, Jr. Defending the undefendable. 616 Who Put the E in E-Mail? byA. M. Rogers Epistolary Excitement! 618 Is the Public Served by the Public Interest Standard? by Adam D. Thierer Consumers benefit more from market competition. 621 The Virtues of Free Speech by Mark Turiano The connection to human excellence. 627 The Entrepreneur as a Defender of Liberty by Felix R. Livingston Pursuit of private interests in a competitive environment can further the cause of freedom.

631 Charles James Fox,Valiant Voice for Liberty by Jim Powell A portrait of "the greatest parliamentary defender of civil and religious liberty." COLUMNS Center NOTES from FEE-Growing Income Disparity by Hans F: Sennholz 608 IDEAS and CONSEQUENCES-Reviving a Civil Society by Lawrence W Reed 624 POTOMAC PRINCIPLES-In Service of a Boondoggle by Doug Bandow 639 ECONOMICS on TRIAL-New Keynesians Finally Reject Keynes's "General" Theory by Mark Skousen DEPARTMENTS 594 Perspective-Tibor R. Machan, David Kelley 642 Book Reviews -Restoring Hope in America: The Social Security Solution by Sam Beard, and Let's Get Rid of Social Security: How Americans Can Take Charge of Their Own Future by E. 1. Myers, reviewed by John Attarian; Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington by Richard Brookhiser, reviewed by Clarence B. Carson; The Flat Tax: Freedom, Fairness, Jobs, and Growth by Daniel Mitchell, reviewed by William H. Peterson; The Anatomy ofan International Monetary Regime: The Classical Gold Standard 1880-1914 by Giulio M. Gallarotti, reviewed by Raymond 1. Keating; The Future of Capitalism by Lester C. Thurow, reviewed by Don Bellante; It's No Gamble: The Economic and Social Benefits ofStock Markets by Lewis D. Johnson and Bohumir Pazderka, reviewed by Robert Batemarco.

THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY Published by The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 Phone (914) 591-7230 FAX (914) 591-8910 E-mail: freeman@westnet.com President: Hans F. Sennholz ManagingEditor: Beth A. Hoffman GuestEditor: Tibor R. Machan EditorEmeritus Paul L. Poirot Lewisburg, Pennsylvania Book ReviewEditor Robert Batemarco Marymount College, Tarrytown, New York AssociateEditor Gregory P. Pavlik AssistantEditor William J. Watkins, Jr. Editoritd Assistant Mary Ann Murphy Columnists Doug Bandow Cato Institute, Washington, D.C. Lawrence W. Reed Mackinac Center for Public Policy Midland, Michigan Mark Skousen Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida ContributingEditors Charles W. Baird California State University, Hayward Peter J. Boettke New York University Clarence B. Carson American Textbook Committee Wadley, Alabama Thomas J. DiLorenzo Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland Joseph S. Fulda New York, New York Bettina Bien Greaves Resident Scholar, FEE Robert Higgs The Independent Institute, Oakland, California John Hospers University of Southern California Tibor R. Machan Auburn University Ronald Nash Reformed Theological Seminary Edmund A. Opitz Chatham, Massachusetts James L. Payne Sandpoint, Idaho Jim Powell Westport, Connecticut William H. Peterson Adjunct Scholar, HeritageFoundation, Washington,D.C.

Jane S. Shaw PERC, Bozeman, Montana Richard H. Timberlake University of Georgia Lawrence H. White University of Georgia The Freeman is the monthly publication of The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533. FEE, established in 1946 by Leonard E. Read, is a nonpolitical, educa tional champion of private property, the free market, and limited government. FEE is classified as a 26 USC 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Copyright © 1996 by The Foundation for Economic Education. Permission is granted to reprint any article in this issue, except "Charles James Fox, Valiant Voice for Liberty," provided credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material are sent to FEE. The costs of Foundation projects and services are met through donations, which are invited in any amount. Donors of$30.oo or more receive a subscription to TheFreeman. Student subscriptions are $10.00 for the nine-month academic year; $5.00 per semester. Additional copies ofthis issue of TheFreeman are $3.00each. For foreigndelivery, a donation of $45.00a year is suggested to cover mailingcosts.

Bound volumes of The Freeman are available from The Foundation for calendar years 1972to date. The Freeman is available in microform from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106. PERSPECTIVE Individual Liberty and the Media The task in this issue of The Freeman has been to bring together some good discus sions of the relationship between individual liberty and the nature and conduct of the media. It was tempting to go beyond this rather narrow focus because of the media's many dimensions. Poor reporting vis-a.-visscience, religion, and politics is legion and much space could be devoted to the subject of journalistic ethics alone. Editorial and business deci sions also deserve scrutiny. The task here, however, was narrower. We decided to explore the ways in which various members and institutions of the media treat the free marketplace as a reflec tion of their regard for individual liberty.

A few additional observations are in or der. First, the printed press itself is a fairly special case of the media, although broad cast news programs and magazines show similarities. Print journalists are completely protected from government regulation, un like, say, doctors or auto mechanics. In deed, it is arguable that government (at various levels) discriminates against a great many professionals in our country-except those who work for the press. Yet, curi ously, those folks generally lack any con cern for any threat to the liberty of other professionals. One need but read the tran scripts of press conferences with powerful politicians to discover that members of the press are not much concerned with freedom. Instead~ as a group, they pretty much em brace the urgent need for more and more government regulation of all other facets of our culture, except, of course, the press.

Second, with so many organs of the media located near centers of political power, the press is inclined to champion public policies that further shift "the action" to govern ments. Washington, Albany, Sacramento, and other capitals are where journalists work and live and where they can draw on cheap raw materials for their productive 594 purposes, namely, politicians and bureau crats. The Sunday morning news programs on the major networks rarely if ever fea ture commentators from Shreveport, Loui siana, or Bowling Green, Ohio. The same folks who write for the major weeklies or the dailies are the ones who show up to offer their comments on world and national af fairs, week after week. It is pretty inconsis tent for a group of professionals so commit ted to egalitarian principles to almost never call upon commentators from beyond the Washington, D.C., Beltway. Given the inclination of the press and the special protection it enjoys, it is fairly clear that there is a serious threat to human liberty. It would certainly be a wonderful sign of progress if at least some of the top journalists recognized this and made some attempt to remedy matters, not by calling for regulation and censorship of the press but by advocating greater freedom for other professionals who now do not enjoy protections comparable to the First Amend ment.

Finally, it never hurts to stress a familiar point about freedom and the media, one that defenders of freedom of expression speech, art, entertainment, news, scholar ship, and the rest-tend to forget: the inti mate connection between the right to property and the right to free expression. This is especially germane because of the current growth of the Internet and other sorts of electronic communication and in formation storage. A significant problem with the Internet, for example, is the muddiness of its owner ship status. There is a parallel between the way corporate commerce started in history, namely, within the framework of mercan tilist political economic systems, and how PERSPECTIVE the Internet was established by the Depart ment of Defense. The historical origin of corporate commerce has given many foes of freedom the chance to advocate govern ment control by reference to the "creature of the State" argument. People who want to censor the Internet now make similar argu ments.

In the defense of all types of liberty, the freedom to privately own and use property is crucial. The freedom of the media itself depends, ironically, on something about which the media's professionals ignore: the right to private property! -TIBOR R. MACHAN Guest Editor Specific Forms of Liberty Freedom of speech and of the press are specific forms of liberty, with special rele vance for the work of intellectuals; but there . is no valid distinction in importance be tween these and other forms of liberty. Intellectual freedom is necessary because man needs knowledge of reality, and such knowledge is the product of independent minds. But material goods are no less im portant, and they too are the products of independent minds. An intellectual properly objects when he is prevented from speak ing because someone else does not like the content of his thought. But exactly the same injustice occurs when a businessman is prevented from offering a new product, or completing a merger, or firing a worker.

He is being prevented from translating an idea into reality because someone else does not like the content of his thought; he is being prevented from using his mind freely. -DAVID KELLEY The Freeman, October 1975 595 TREmEEMAN IDEASON UBERTY Must the News MediaBe Inimical to Freedom? by Sheldon Richman I t would be easy to conclude that there is an intrinsic conflict of interest between the news media and liberty. Whether in tended or not, news coverage by and large seems consistently to undermine the classi cal liberal premise that society essentially runs itself without central direction. There are multiple explanations for that phenom enon. It has long been observed that people who like business go into business, and people who dislike business go into (among other opinion-molding professions) journalism. That creates a problem for those concerned with making the intellectual case for free enterprise. The people providing lay citi zens with their daily diet of news about the economy, policymaking, and politics tend to be prejudiced against enterprise. There have been some notable exceptions, but the key word here is exceptions.