Saving the Free Press

By MARK ANDERSON

A hearing in Washington of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, entitled “Reviving Competition Part 2: Save the Free and Diverse Press,” on March 12 consisted of testimony on legislation that calls for rescuing floundering or failing newspapers, as well as broadcast and digital outlets, of whatever size.

Some of those who testified to the panel, however, including Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), stressed that “responsible” news outlets are only those which avoid “disinformation” and “conspiracy theories.” That might seem OK at first glance, but it could mean that harder-hitting publications that might do the most to expose wrongdoing could be excluded, since, in these days of outrageous political skullduggery, there is a smaller-than-ever difference between scandals, collusion, corruption and “conspiracies.”

And these so-called “factual” and “responsible” outlets, under re-introduced legislation called the Journalism Conservation and Preservation Act, or JCPA, would be empowered to form consortiums in order to negotiate with Facebook and Google to address a major issue cited by the committee—the manner in which the world’s tech giants “vacuum up ad revenue,” as described by hearing participant Glenn Greenwald and others.

That giant vacuum, most committee members and panelists concurred, works in favor of big tech, to the apparent detriment of big media as well as more localized news outlets — digital, print and broadcast. However, one can detect a potential flim-flam here. For, it appears that the big-tech threat, although the threat is credible, is being invoked as the perfect “bogeyman” to pave the way for Congress to rescue large corporate media outlets and make a good old-fashioned bailout look like an act of compassion and mercy.

After all, we cannot sit back and let big tech pillage the media when 200 counties in the US have no newspaper at all, and there are record layoffs at news outlets of all sizes. Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-R.I.) called this layoff and downsizing trend “an extinction-level event.” How’s that for drama?

A noted journalist now with The Intercept, Greenwald questioned some of the premises behind the hearing. That included his concern that involving large legacy news outlets like the New York Times in such consortiums would further empower those news outlets to the detriment of smaller outlets, thereby contradicting the stated intent of the JCPA to help both large and small news outlets as fairly as possible.

Greenwald strongly disputed the notion put forth by chairman Cicilline that, if only Google and Facebook would stop getting the lion’s share of ad revenues, then the current problem of widespread failures of media outlets would cease to exist.

“I think there are reasons why consumers have turned away from journalism,” Greenwald said. “I’m concerned that legislation like this would prevent a self-examination as to why journalism has failed, why people no longer trust it or put their faith in it.”

He didn’t hesitate to point out the irony that, if every one is so worried that Facebook, Google and other tech giants are operating monopolistically to hog ad dollars, then it’s important to realize that “it’s often the journalists themselves” who demand that the power of social media companies should “be exercised in a censorious way” that targets dissident voices who are viewed as competition, and this process shortcircuits the realization and sustenance of an actual free and diverse press.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) took issue with Cicilline’s outlook that all news outlets, merely due to the fact that they’ve existed a long time, deserve to be saved from their own follies.

“I’m a co-sponsor of the JCPA, but after hearing some of the testimony, I’m wondering whether I should be [co-sponsoring it]. Not every failure of every local news entity is a failure of democracy; sometimes it’s just bad news,” Gaetz said, while mainly addressing Greenwald. Gaetz added that sometimes it’s the news organization’s personnel themselves “who are the ones creating unsubstantiated clickbait,” i.e., news of questionable veracity, mainly online.

Is there a better remedy? Probably. While some publications could go nonprofit and depend less on ad dollars, among other models, this writer suggests simply letting Americans wander the vast online ecosystem of liberal, moderate and conservative media voices—edgy and controversial, conspiratorial, or safe and conventional—find what they like, and support it with their time and money. The “mediasphere” is democratizing, so let it. But don’t let Congress define what acceptable news is and then engage in favoritism to save it. We might find that Congress wants to help the media that will do the most to overlook the worst of the corruption on Capitol Hill.

Mark Anderson is a veteran journalist who divides his time between Texas and Michigan. Email him at truthhound2@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2021

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