Unfreedom of the Press

Lesson 1. Introduction.

Mark R. Levin’s primary argument is that mainstream American media has long lost its objective neutrality. It simply continues to maintain a garb of neutrality, while actually presenting nothing but propaganda of the Democratic Party. And their sole aim is to paint a negative picture of President Trump, and make his job as difficult as possible. 

Despite claims from mainstream media that their voices are being muzzled by the government, in reality, the state poses no threat to the freedom of the press. In fact, mainstream media outlets are undermining the First Amendment and the role of the Fourth Estate, by publishing inaccurate stories, based on speculations and rumours. 

In the course of this book, Levin provides some radical theories to support his claims.

Lesson 2. Mainstream American media has lost its objective neutrality.

Freedom of press is integral to the functioning of a healthy democracy. Journalists should be as objective as possible, while reporting news. They should detach themselves from partisan interests. However, this is no longer the case with mainstream American media. 

In 1947, the Commission on Freedom of Press had released a report on the contemporary state of American media. The Commission had concluded that, even though their reach had increased, mainstream media had become more sensationalistic in its reportage. 

The Commission had also issued a set of guidelines outlining the ethics of journalism. One guideline highlighted that, journalists should make sure that the readers are able to discern opinion from fact. Although it had acknowledged the difficulty in removing subjective opinions, the report had instructed that, all efforts should be made to eschew bias and speculations from news articles.     

More steps have been taken, in recent times, to delineate the responsibilities of a free press. In their 2007 book called The Elements of Journalism, former journalists Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel had argued that, the most important duty of a free press is to feed information to the general public, which would allow them to be “free and self-governing”.

However, this is hardly the case with current American mainstream media. Some journalists have even questioned the need to be objective. Independent journalist Lewis Raven, in his podcast The View From Somewhere, asserts that being objective is not possible, if you are a journalist from a minority group. The podcast highlights the work of journalists from African-American, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, in documenting stories that affect their communities. It also applauds them for openly espousing their own agendas while reporting on the events. 

Another problem is media outlets voicing