Sunwater Institute Rights and Liberties Project

Utilitarian / Fairness Assessments

Is there a cost attached to protecting and enforcing this right? What kinds of costs are implicated?

Long-term economic cost in general

American Free Press and Its Consequences Freedom of the Press, as granted by 1st amendment in the Constitution of the United States of America, is “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” (Madison 1789). Freedom of the Press is a key component of the right to freedom of expression. It will be defined as a press free from unreasonable government censorship or government control. The founders demonstrated the importance of freedom of the press through their writings pre and post revolution. Levvy says in Emergence of a free press, “only those who supported the American cause against England had a right to freedom of speech and press” (Levvy 1985, 156). What were the consequences of American freedom of press gained through freedom from Britain. In this paper, firstly, I argue that freedom of the press decreases poverty and increases development. Then, I will discuss why Amartya Sen believes the effects of decreased poverty and increased development occur. Finally, I will discuss possible short-term costs that derive from a free press. The American press is undoubtedly subject to little interference from the government; there are three main laws that have been put on the press that have either been discontinued or have major loops: the FCC Fairness Doctrine, the Communications Act, and the Equal Time Rule. The Fairness Doctrine required holders of broadcast licenses to cover controversial issues of public interest in a manner that reflected different viewpoints. This rule was replaced in 1987 with the Communications Act, which removed the important provisions of the Fairness doctrine in regard to the press and removed the FCC’s ability to censoring or regulating broadcasted material. Finally, the Equal Time Rule requires if a broadcast sell airtime to one candidate it must offer to sell the same amount of airtime to the other candidate. However, there are numerous ways of circumventing this such as before the candidate officially runs, not having the political party endorse the appearance, debates, and interviews. The rules describes no longer apply, except for the Communications Act, which only rules on equal access to media. Therefore, the current day legal framework of the American press is extremely free and unregulated by the government and has no strong censorship or burdensome regulation of the press. The freedom of the press granted by the United States government allows for many economic benefits including decreases poverty and increase development. In 2008, a UNESCO funded research paper described dozens of experiments and models to show the possible effects of a free press had on the economy due to the correlations found. The paper found that “no country concurrently has a free press and a high percentage of its population living below the poverty line”(2008). The paper also showed a good correlation between free press and lower rates of poverty. Development was more complex in its relationship with free press, “once the education prerequisites have been met, freedom of the press can genuinely develop. It can thus be readily appreciated that all the other dimensions of development will in turn benefit as a result and that a positive dynamic can be established”(2008). Development, in terms of food, health care, and economic security, had a good correlation with free press when is was model in countries that also had good education. Therefore, for a free press to have a strong positive correlation with development, it is likely that education is necessary. A free press correlates with decreasing poverty, and when paired with education increasing human development. Amartya Sen also agrees with these positive correlations of free press and describes the theory behind it. Sen says, “these deprivations restrict social and political lives, and must be seen as repressive even without their leading to other afflictions (such as economic disasters)”(Sen 1999). Amartya Sen believes that the lack of social and political freedoms, like a free press, led to economic disasters because they are repressive. This repression leads to worse policy, Amartya Sen says, “the role of a free press in disseminating knowledge and facilitating critical scrutiny is a necessary requirement of informed politics and cannot but be important for the formulation of development policies”(2003). Press also gives the public access to knowledge, which strengthens debates over policy, allowing policy to be more effective and well-made. Because the lack of a free press is repressive and a free press strengthens public discussion, creates better policy, which likely causes the good correlations between a free press and poverty and development. The costs of a free or nongovernment-controlled press come from the influence of profit driven motives from the press, which cause bias. Amartya Sen says about the right to a free press, “press freedom can be most effective only when that freedom is utilised by the media fully, rather than in a biased or slanted way. Freedom is a permissive condition, and permission is not enough to make a success of the use of the opportunity available”(Sen 2013). Sen believes that the right or permission to a free press does not make the freedom successful because the press can be biased. Habermas describes how the profit motive of the press causes bias, saying, “Press developed from a business in pure news reporting to one involving ideologies and viewpoints, however, and the compiling of items of information encountered the competition of literary journalism, a new element—political in the broader sense—was joined to the economic one” (Habermas 1991, 182). Habermas is describing how once the press started selling opinion pieces and giving takes on the news, instead of pure news and facts of the day, the press began a dealing in selling ideologies and viewpoints. The American free press is free to report the news in a broad way and can also release opinion pieces, if done in a biased way the media will be more focused on shaping public opinion. The press profit driven motive allows the press to be more interested in shaping public opinion than reporting facts, this shaping of public opinions has real economic costs. Killian J. McCarthy describes these effects, saying, “ from a conscious, commercial perspective, the media has an incentive to be intentionally negative. In a state of uncertainty, sentiment- the willingness of the consumer and the business to invest—will be reduced”( McCarty 2013). A free press has increased reporting on negative news as it is more profitable, but this causes a decreased willingness to invest. The negative press coverage can also affect spending through media coverage, McCarthy says, “the media shapes consumer sentiment and the consumers' willingness to spend”(2013). The free press affects consumer sentiment and consumptions. The press will cover more negative news because it is more lucrative, which will negatively impact consumptions, investments, and sentiments because it will cause public opinion to be skewed more pessimistically on the economy. A free press likely increases development, decreases poverty, but may decrease consumer spending and investment during times of negative coverage. Press freedom was shown to have good correlations to development and lower rates of poverty. This was data was explained by Amartya Sen to likely be due to repression from not having a free press and the better policy made from stronger debates with a free press. Habermas and Sen discussed how the press bias could be damaging, while McCarthy described out the negative media bias causes decreased investment and consumer spending.

Works Cited . Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Enquiry into a Category of Bouergeois Society. Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 1991. Levy, Leonard Williams. Emergence of a Free Press. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004. McCarthy, Killian J., and Wilfred Dolfsma. “Neutral Media? Evidence of Media Bias and Its Economic Impact.” Review of Social Economy 72, no. 1 (2013): 42–54. Kumat), Sen Amartya (Amartya. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Sen, Amartya. “Press Freedom: What Is It Good For?” Index on Censorship 42, no. 3 (September 2013): 6–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306422013503105

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