Communication
THE May issue of Seminar Media Matters is a gem of information and views.
The media is often accused of being manipulated by lobbies environmental lobbies, business lobbies, and the like, which reminds me of the story I read the other day about Stephen Walt, the Dean of the Harvard School of Government, who roundly accused the American media of being manipulated by the Jewish lobby. A prominent journalist of New York Daily Times (Mortimer Zuckerman) responded with the scorching remark: The allegations remind me of the 92 year old man sued in a paternity suit. He said he was so proud that he pleaded guilty.
But seriously, what about abuses of information, circulation of false information and character assassination by the press? Are the blessings of a free press really worthwhile?
There are several answers to this, but the two that I like best are: first, the sophisticated answer, one that was given by our Supreme Court way back in 1950 the year of the birth of our Constitution in the case of Romesh Thapar, the founder of Seminar. Justice Patanjali Sastri, speaking for five Justices (himself and Chief Justice Kania, and for Justices Mehr Chand Mahajan, B.K.Mukherjee and S.R. Das in Romesh Thapar vs The State of Madras [AIR 1950 s.c.124] a landmark case on the freedom of the press) spoke eloquently about the fundamental right of free speech and expression in our Constitution, and then added: A freedom of such amplitude might involve risks of abuse. But the framers of the Constitution may well have reflected, with Madison who was the leading spirit in the preparation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution that "it is better to leave a few of its noxious branches to their luxuriant growth, than, by pruning them away, to injure the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits" (quoted in Near v. Minnesota, 233 US 607 at 717-8).
The other answer less sophisticated and more practical was given by an experienced political figure, Mario Cuomo. He was Governor of New York for many years, and a wily politician. He once addressed a prestigious body, the New York Press Club, soon after The New York Times in an editorial had accused him of exercising political patronage as Governor through a law firm run by his son.
Cuomo spoke about press freedom and this is what he said when speaking of the First Amendment to the Constitution to the United States:
The Founding Fathers knew precisely what they were dealing with. They had a press. And the press of their time was not only guilty of bad taste and inaccuracy, it was partisan, reckless, sometimes vicious. Indeed, the founding fathers were themselves often at the point end of the press sword.
In view of that experience, they might have written amendments that never mentioned freedom of the press. Or they might have tried to protect against an imperfect press like the one they dealt with, with conditions, qualifications, requirements, penalties.
They knew the dangers. They knew that broad freedoms would be inevitably accompanied by some abuse and even harm to innocent people.
Knowing all the odds, they chose to gamble on liberty. And the gamble has made us all rich and happy.
Overall, the press has been a force for good educating our people, guarding our freedom, watching our government challenging it, goading it, revealing it, forcing it into the open.
I suggest then that we adopt Governor Cuomos message and gamble on liberty there is no other democratic way.
Fali S. Nariman
Delhi
