The public who care less and less about press freedom

If advertiser support is one crucial (if deeply flawed) leg that supports the U.S.media system, then public support for journalists' First Amendment protections is another. And if public support erodes - as it is doing - then the First Amendment loses much of its meaning. This is another issue that has elicited much navel-gazing on the part of the media (well, at any rate that part of the media that still cares about journalism over mindless entertainment).

The latest warning salvo comes from the New York Times's Nicholas Kristof. He notes the travails of Matt Cooper, Judith Miller, and Jim Taricani, a less-well-know NBC television journalist, who was finally "freed last weekend after four months of house arrest for refusing to reveal his sources." Miller and Cooper, the victims of a government witchhunt for refusing to name sources in the Valerie Plame leak investigation (see here for a Slate backgrounder) "have been ordered to jail for up to 18 months for protecting their sources, although they remain free until their appeals run out."

As Kristof points out, "the climate for freedom of the press in the U.S. feels more ominous than it has for decades." Now it would be great if there was some outpouring of public support for an embattled press - something like the groundswell of public outrage that greeted the FCC's 2003-2004 attempts to roll back media cross-ownership rules. But that hasn't happened. In fact, much of the public thinks the press a.) has too much freedom, and b.) abuses that freedom. Kristof notes the stunning result of the Pew Research Center's "Trends 2005" report, which shows "that 45 percent of Americans believe little or nothing in their daily newspapers, up from 16 percent two decades ago." He also notes research by the National Opinion Research Center that has "measured public confidence in 13 institutions, including the press. All of the other institutions have generally retained a good measure of public respect, but confidence in the press has fallen sharply since 1990." For good measure I also noted in a March 1 post a USA Today survey of 112,000 American high school students, which showed "that 32% of them believe that there is too much freedom of the press, versus 10% only who believe that there is not enough. Even worse, "no less than 36% would prefer that the media be subject to government authorization beforehand." And the results of that poll seemed in line with many oher recent studies of adult attitutudes.

Of course, the press itself has to take much of blame for its dwindling credibility. But at the same time, that doesn't help. No matter how messed up our major media institutions are, and how poorly they serve the citizens, it's still much more dangerous when people give up on the media and accede to the principle of greater press restriction. And as for the First Amendment and the protection of the courts? Kristof correctly identifies just how flimsy these protections really are. He notes that while "Judges don't exactly decide cases based on public sentiment, . . . their decisions do reflect the values of their society. And in our society, public support for the news media has all but evaporated." And he reminds us: "The safety net for American journalism throughout history has been not so much the First Amendment - rather, it's been public approval of the role of the free press. Public approval is our life-support system, and it is now at risk."

The only hope, as I see it, is for the big press/news media organizations to get off their arrogant high horses and recognize that they can't expect to forever wield the First Amendment as a "shield" - purely on their own terms - against allcomers, while pushing for ever-higher profits. They need to reconnect with the broad public and reconvince that skeptical public of their relevance. And they need to do that in such a way as to relegate the desperate search for profits to second place.

The way things are these days, I just don't know if they can succeed.