MIM Notes No. 198, November 15, 1999

USA Today attacks Internet, makes admissions

For some time, print journalism has been attacking the Internet, 
usually with scare stories about stalkers and child pornography, 
as if the Internet were any worse than the rest of the world. Now 
USA Today admits that the U.$. idea of "free speech" is based on 
giving power only to the rich to speak.

USA Today member of the board of contributors Philip Meyer said, 
"Before the Internet, the maximum number of information providers 
was limited by the cost of a printing press or a broadcast 
transmitter. Now there is no theoretical limit to the number of 
message senders." The Internet makes it much cheaper to run a 
press.

Somehow Meyer attributes the decline of public confidence in print 
journalism to the Internet. "When freedom of the press was limited 
to persons rich enough to own one, enough of those owners saw the 
importance of keeping the long-term trust of the public to 
maintain a tradition of responsible use of the power of the 
press."

Between 1973 and 1998, the percentage of the public willing to say 
it has "hardly any" confidence in the press has risen from 14% to 
43%. We have to agree with Meyer that having to compete with Jerry 
Springer is hurting credibility of the monopoly capitalist media.

However, that is the problem with media-for-profit. Just as there 
is a drug-trade, arms-trade and pornography-trade for profit, the 
media is bound by the same compulsions of capitalism. If no one 
could make profit from pornography and Jerry Springer type stunts, 
the media would change instantly.

There is a reaction going on against change and the print 
journalists want the Internet muzzled. They are going to aim their 
fire there. Already 53% of the public says this year that the 
media has too much freedom, up from 38% two years earlier. The 
monopoly capitalist journalists are going to suggest restrictions 
on competition, so that they themselves can afford to behave 
better.

We prefer the routes of Catharine MacKinnon, who seeks to sue 
pornographers, and Geoffrey Fieger, who sued the Jenny Jones show 
in the case of the murder of a gay man sparked by the 
sensationalist show. Also, we have to point out there is no 
solution for profit-run media's problems.

Note: USA Today, 5 October 1999, p. 17a.