Hey, did you guys see this story?
I saw it. It was at the top of the main page with a star saying “Member Preview”. This is the first paragraph:
“You’re not going to read this in a tweet from President Donald Trump; but it can be said in a Twitter-length post: The free press is not an optional part of our democracy, it is an integral part of it. Without it, our political system can never be its best.”
We are losing the free press.
We have forgotten what the free press is. Everyone knows that phrase. It comes from the First Amendment:
“Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Now, let’s all think here for a second. What did “press” mean in 1776?
This is what:
This is a state press:
“In 1736, Ann petitioned the General Assembly of Rhode Island, seeking printing work in order to support her family. She was awarded the contract, becoming the General Assembly’s official printer to the colony,[2] a position she held until she died.[4] In this official capacity, she printed the colony’s charter granted by Charles II of England.[7] To supplement her income, she printed sermons for ministers, advertisements for merchants, as well as popular British novels. Ann’s most notable work was compiling and publishing five editions of the Rhode Island Almanack, for the years 1737–1741. In 1741, she began selling her brother-in-law Benjamin’s alamanac, Poor Richard’s Alamanac, and in 1745, she printed 500 copies of the Acts and Laws of Rhode Island as a folio edition, her largest commission.[2]”
That is why the First Amendment guarantees the right to a free press: one not monitored, controlled or censored by the government.
We however, are using the term very differently today, and that is a huge problem for people concerned with civil rights. And more importantly, Julian Zelizer also uses the term that way. Here:
“The role of the watchdog remains the most well-known function of the media — the press has the responsibility to speak truth to power.”
Here he means “the press” as in “the media” as in “the corporations who publish the news”.
And here’s the thing, Julian. CNN has failed to speak truth to power. A lot. In fact, I would argue that we are facing the existential crisis we see today, because CNN enjoys a privileged position based on its consistent choice to tolerate bullshit instead of being a fierce defender of truth.
CNN was launched in 1980. Slogans have included “Go There”, “This is CNN”, and “The Most Trusted Name in News”.
There are very good reasons to be angry at CNN this year and to find this post from them deeply ironic.
I am not the only one who has noticed.
“Zucker has already conceded that CNN likely aired a few too many unfiltered Trump rallies and speeches during the election, though CNN certainly wasn’t alone in the media when it came to outsized coverage of Trump’s campaign. At least one analysis, from media tracking firm mediaQuant, said that Trump received roughly $3 billion in free advertising in the form of news coverage during his campaign.”
But this is really beside the point. I only want to establish that CNN as an entity is failing to stand up for this role it wants us to see it in. I wish it would. I would love nothing better than a ferocious presence calling the Trump Administration out every single time it was needed. But CNN is not and will never be that presence. It can’t. It is too reliant on the access it enjoys to celebrities and politicians. It can’t risk its spot in the hierarchy to do truly courageous reporting as often as it should, and more frequently functions as a podium available 24–7 to promote things Trump or members of his administration want us to hear.
Not only is CNN never going to be the fierce opponent of Trump we need, we are also not going to be rescued by The New York Times, The Washington Post or any other networks that are valuable enough to merit space in the press corps.
Want to know why they get that privilege? This is why:
Because when Trump went golfing with the Japanese PM he told the members of the press pool to stay in a room with black trashbags taped over the windows AND THEY DID.
That’s the hook here, Mr. Zelizer. All they had to do was walk out that door and they didn’t.
Let’s look at that title again… “What Trump won’t tweet: 4 reasons for a free press”
When the press pool was hanging out in that room diligently covering black trash bags, Trump tweeted his own coverage of the meeting.
I don’t really know how many experiments we ought to run here. One was already too many. It’s interesting to see how different this looks for a guy who works for CNN:
“Perhaps the most troubling moment this year came when President Trump retweeted a faked video of him body-slamming and punching a man in a suit with the CNN logo plastered over his face, and many journalists trembled. As in earlier incidents, the President seemed to be intimidating and threatening the news industry in an attempt to scare them away from honest reporting.”
Why would he have to threaten you guys? He already knows he can stick you in a room with blacked out windows and you won’t leave.
So forgive me if I have to object. I can’t just sit here and watch you portray yourselves so heroically when we know that you are not. The reason I am writing this today though, is because you aren’t content just to sit over on CNN.com spinning this story about how courageous you are.
No, the reason I am writing this today is because you gave us a brilliant demonstration of how we are losing the First Amendment. You see, I can’t write stuff on CNN.com. I can write stuff on Medium, but Medium is changing. When I joined it was mostly blogs. There were a few pieces from major professional sources on the site, but it was almost entirely individuals who were not represented on large media platforms.
Then they launched the membership part of Medium, and for a small fee, you got a green circle and the ability to monetize your content. I have so far chosen not to do this because I think we are losing a lot of content behind paywalls and I don’t want to be a part of the trend to disincentivize reading and sharing stories with friends. (as always, I feel compelled to note that I don’t resent paying journalists, I resent making it hard for people who are poor to stay informed. Some of whom happen to also be journalists ;) )
At the same time though, something else happened: a lot of professional entities with their own sites started colonizing Medium. Suddenly my feed is full of stuff that isn’t original content, it’s content repopulated from other sites because they want to get in front of the audience monetized by Medium.
It is, in some ways, moving to read this piece from CNN. It is a well-crafted defense of the concepts underpinning the First Amendment and I wish the people who needed that background would read it and really get it. But for people who do value the role the press plays in our system, it is also a thorough indictment of how CNN has failed to live up to its reasons for existing. It is not a watchdog. And as a filter it also leaves a lot to be desired. This article, for example, leads with the idea that Trump is attacking CNN to keep journalists in line, and then it goes on to tie journalistic integrity to a whole bunch of historical figures. None of whom worked for CNN. As a filter, that’s a sneaky trick: to link your work and your position today to the work of people who were far more independent and willing to risk their careers.
The truly damning section though, is “The Civic Arena”. Here is where he defines it:
“In the ideal situation, the press should offer a national commons where Americans can learn about and debate the great issues of the day. Even when there are many issues that divide us and many voices in newspapers and television, the goal of the press should be to create a shared environment where we understand who we are and what we need to do as a society.
One of the great costs of the current system is the immense fragmentation that Americans have in where they get their news. During the era of network television, for instance, there were only three major networks — and a handful of major metro papers — that commanded national attention.”
Hey everybody, remember what year CNN was created? In 1980. But Ted Turner was already fairly successful with a new broadcast model at that point. He was a pioneer in the media consolidation that is now so rampant.
Today, when the FCC is allowing Sinclair Media to buy Tribune, we can look back and thank Ted Turner for the brilliant idea of squishing local papers and networks together so you don’t have to spend so much money paying journalists. He was the one who made news profitable. Airing news shows used to lose money and now there are circuses following every politician, all the time, 24 hours a day, unless he asks very nicely for them to all stay in a room looking at garbage bags.
CNN and the companies who mimicked their model steamrollered what used to be a robust system of local networks and print media. This national commons? Where we all read one thing that doesn’t talk about our school boards or our garbage strikes or how many fire fighters our city can afford to pay? It sucks. It’s fragile. It’s beholden to power. It’s expensive. And most importantly?
On an article that claims to be about how important a free press is, you have to be a member of Medium to leave or read comments on this story.
Which is why I wrote it here. Where it will be buried by all the more priveleged members of Medium who have bled over from the sites that bear their names, to more thoroughly stifle the voices of people who are actually willing to use their rights to say what they think, instead of what someone will pay to hear.
You know the worst thing about this? Now I’ve spent my last Medium freebie reading something that is actually on CNN.com for free.
But you don’t have to.
