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"Freedom of the Press" Bares Suppressed Facts Concerning Journalism
- University of Wisconsin Press
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We have made education free, from the kindergarten to the primary, from the primary to the secondary schools, and on through the state universities. This system of education—the most wonderful in all the world, with its hundreds of thousands of devoted teachers—has for its primary purpose the training of men and women for the grave responsibilities of citizenship. All the way from the kindergarten to the university, the founders determined that the public school must be jealously protected against error and bias in textbook and teaching. It was believed that the youth of the land would come from the public schools with open, unprejudiced minds trained to decide the issues of self-government as presented by an intelligent press. But of what avail is our splendid system of education in preparing the voters to meet their responsibilities when the sources of current news are poisoned, and editorial comment controlled by sordid and mercenary inXuences. That control need not be through open ownership of the newspaper or magazine, though in many instances it is. But it is more frequently achieved through that community of interests, that interdependence of investments and credits which ties the publisher up to the banks, the advertisers, and the Special Interests. The power that controls the press controls the American market. It is doubtful if the American people can ever emancipate themselves from the merciless exploitation of the colossal monopoly which controls markets and prices, until they shall establish a free and independent press. Men and women of America, do you want to break the stranglehold of monopoly, that takes toll, to the limit of its greed, out of your daily life? Do you want to be free, economically and politically free? Then begin at once. Organize! Organize in every state for a free and independent press. “Freedom of the Press” Bares Suppressed Facts Concerning Journalism George Seldes march 21, 1936 There is a growing suspicion that the press is no longer what it claims to be, the “Tribune of the People,” the “Voice of the Public,” the “Upholder of Truth,” the “Defender of Public Liberty,” as thousands of newspaper mastheads daily proclaim it. In the 1920s millions undergoing disillusion vaguely realized that they had been deceived by newspaper war propaganda. In the 1930s the myths of cyclical depressions and prosperity-around-the-corner again shook the conWdence of the public. 186 part 9 freeing the media “You can’t believe a thing you read in the papers nowadays” has become a commonplace . In the early days of 1935 mass meetings and conventions attended by thousands of persons have applauded general attacks on the press and speciWc charges against certain newspaper owners as agents of Fascism and breeders of war. There has been popular resentment against certain editors in the past but never to my knowledge as general an indictment against the press of the nation as we have today. There are powerful forces which do not want the facts, from a millionaire’s divorce to a war scare, presented truthfully. There are corrupting inXuences. Many newspapermen are subject to them without even realizing it. As a reporter, I turned in the story of Andrew Mellon’s divorce, stories of strikes, interviews with politicians and statesmen and news items concerning large corporations ; eighteen months in the American army and ten years among the dictators of Europe made the newspaper game for me something like the thrilling thing it is in Wction. But from the Wrst day to the last there was censorship, there was suppression of news, there was distortion and there was coloring of news, there was always an attempt by someone to mislead the public. I do not say that the integrity of the world press has broken down completely: I do insist that attacks upon it are stronger than ever in the history of newspaper printing, and although this statement becomes self-evident when it is known that ten large nations, the dictatorships of continental Europe, no longer have a free press, I want to go further and show the attack upon its integrity in the free nations, France, Britain, and the United States especially, where, Deo volente, dictatorship may be avoided but where, unfortunately, another oligarchy, dictatorial big money and big business of the public utilities and the Teapot Dome kind, is always trying to destroy the foundations upon which free government is built. —George Seldes, journalist and media critic, was red-baited by Senator Joe McCarthy. Seldes wrote for mainstream...