The territory we’re walking into today scares me down to my bones and makes me eternally thankful for the wisdom of the Founding Fathers.
I’m talking about the results of the annual survey from the First Amendment Center, a nonpartisan organization that studies free-expression issues, including freedom of speech, the press and religion.
Each year, it asks Americans to agree or disagree with this question: “The First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.”
This year, 29 percent strongly agreed with that statement, with another 10 percent mildly agreeing. That means nearly four in 10 Americans believe the First Amendment provides too much freedom, up dramatically from one in five last year.
A big driver in this attitude seems to be the public’s distrust of the media. The survey found that:
- 71 percent think it’s important for the government to hold the media in check.
- 46 percent believe the press has too much freedom to do what it wants.
- 41 percent are more concerned about media excesses than about government censorship.
I’m far from alone in my worry about this dangerous trend, in which many Americans seem sympathetic to the notion of hogtying the media simply because they don’t agree with something they read in the newspaper or see on TV.
Just as concerned is Ken Paulson, the First Amendment Center’s executive director, who also is a former executive editor at Florida Today.
Paulson says there is a now a core of about 40 percent of Americans who view the press negatively, a “stunning number” of people who form many of their perceptions through the prism of 24-hour cable TV news and its tendency to sensationalize stories.
“A good percentage of the American public makes up their mind on the First Amendment by what they see on TV, and they don’t like what they see,” Paulson says.
Last November’s election night debacle, where the TV networks repeatedly called the wrong winner for president, has added to the problem.
The survey showed that 80 percent of those polled said the networks should not be allowed to project winners of an election while people are still voting, up from 70 percent a year ago.
“A highly visible and reckless error – like predicting the wrong winner in a presidential election – can have devastating consequences for the First Amendment” by causing people to want to limit constitutionally protected information, Paulson says.
That erosion of credibility is diminishing the public’s belief in the media’s role as government watchdog.
“People don’t understand that the First Amendment belongs to us, to Americans, to protect us from government,” says Paulson. Nowadays, he adds, some people “want less protection from government abuses and more protection from media abuses.”
And politicians, whose fingers are always in the wind for new issues, are using that to try to crimp free speech in areas such as music lyrics and getting into public brawls with their local newspapers, Paulson says.
“It’s now OK to fight with the guy who buys ink by the barrel because the guy who buys ink by the barrel is no longer seen as the good guy. They say the press is biased, it isn’t fair and the public buys that,” he says.
Paulson doesn’t live in a vacuum. He’s concerned about the excesses of the press, just as I am, but also knows Americans have never had more information at their fingertips with which to stay informed and make their own decisions.
If you don’t like this newspaper, read another one. If you don’t like a TV news program, flip to a different channel or turn off the tube. If you’re still not satisfied, go online and search nationally or worldwide for the material that suits you.
The press most certainly has troubles and sometimes doesn’t show the best judgment, but I think people dissatisfied with the media hold the solution in their own hands. It’s called freedom of choice.
To that end, I’ll add this word from Thomas Jefferson. He was often vilified in the press, yet helped give us our First Amendment freedoms and was uncompromising in his beliefs. Said Jefferson:
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
