Elections

Journalism in the Public Interest

excerpted from the book

The New Progressive Era

Toward a Fair and Deliberative Democracy

by Peter Levine

Rowman and Littlefield, 2000, paper

p113
In order to run for high office, any potential candidate needs enormous funds. Unless he or she is personally rich, these funds must come from individuals or groups that have compelling political interests. And since the bulk of campaign contributions go to incumbent politicians, they can win reelection even when their behavior and decisions have been basically unpopular.

ln total, candidates spent about $10 billion of private money to gain office between 1988 and 1996. Those who pay for the broadcast advertisements, publications, mailing lists, airplane rentals, and phone banks of a modern campaign determine to a significant degree what is said and who wins. These contributors are, by any measure, an extremely affluent slice of the American population. Less than 1 percent of Americans give the vast majority of political contributions. In 1996, 95 percent of the people who contributed at least $200 to congressional campaigns were white; 81 percent were male; 87 percent were older than 45; and 81 percent made over $100,000 per year. More than half made over $25O,000; and more than half belonged to "high status mainline Protestant churches."

Under these conditions, citizens do not have equal weight; candidates have grossly unequal resources; the campaign dialogue is distorted; and true deliberation is rare. On election day, the wheels of public opinion are supposed to interlock with the apparatus of government, so that citizens can control the whole mechanism. However, in privately funded campaigns, a different kind of coupling occurs. Public opinion hardly forms on most issues; it certainly doesn't direct the course of political events. Instead, the market manipulates the political system.

A democracy gives each of its citizens one vote; but a market assigns power in proportion to wealth. In a democracy, majorities pass general, binding rules; but in a market, individuals register immediate, concrete, personal preferences. Since these two mechanisms are fundamentally different, their outcomes often conflict. Those who admire the market should be able to vote against government regulation and taxation, and they can argue for their beliefs in public. But they should not have disproportionate political power as a result of their wealth, or else democracy will be swamped by the marketplace. A privately funded election is not fully democratic; to a large extent, it is a financial transaction.

p115
No government elected under capitalism will even seriously try to change the economic system, and political reform is pointless.

p118
Congress passes more than 7,000 pages of legislation in any two-year period. Only a handful of members help to draft or amend each of these pages; hardly anyone else can say what was in them, let alone influence their details. Particularly in the House of Representatives (where floor amendments are generally prohibited), a vote cannot affect the content of legislation.

In order for a specific provision to be included in a bill, to reach a committee, to receive hearings, to survive a floor vote, and to pass unscathed through a conference committee, it must have active sponsors who are either exceptionally dedicated and focused or else powerful. In some cases, writes Richard Hall, "a standing committee of reputed legislative specialists reduces to only two or three players, who bargain among themselves with relative impunity on significant (though not necessarily salient) matters of public policy." What lobbyists need, therefore, is the active and careful attention of a few members who are willing to draft language, move bills through the committee process, and conduct negotiations. In addition, they want their potential opponents in Congress not to interfere until the formality of a final vote.

This is why lobbyists give most heavily to well-placed incumbents who are either especially friendly or else deeply hostile to their concerns.

p131
James Fishkin, whose experiments in Deliberative Polling have worked well in the United States and Britain.

The idea is simple. Take a . . . random sample of the electorate and transport these people . . . to a single place. Immerse the sample in the issues, with carefully balanced briefing materials, with intensive discussions in small groups, and with the chance to question competing experts and politicians. At the end of several days of working through the issues face to face, poll the participants in detail. The resulting survey offers a representation of the considered judgments of the public.

p131
It is difficult to dispute the merits of voter guides or Deliberative Polling. The next few steps are more controversial, but they are also more important. All levels of government should provide free television and radio time to qualified candidates, requiring them to address the audience in person for periods of at least one minute. Such proposals have generated a debate about whether broadcasters can be forced to provide free time. Proponents note that the industry is granted use of the spectrum in return for serving the "public interest, convenience, and necessity." In response, broadcasters invoke their First Amendment rights and flex their lobbying muscle to prevent meaningful reform. If necessary, the government should subsidize political broadcasts-a reasonable price to pay for real democracy. In any case, the state should buy time on cable television, which is not subject to the same regulations as broadcast media but which attracts a large share of the viewing audience. The government could also buy time for broadcast debates and/or deliberative sessions with voters. After all, nothing is more instructive than a sustained, face-to-face interaction among the candidates.

Some people have objected to free-time proposals that require politicians to appear in person without expensive video presentations. Indeed, this is not a neutral provision: it discriminates in favor of good speakers and reduces the power of media consultants. It rewards positive presentations and discourages personal attacks. Candidates who lack personal charisma may suffer as a result, and some capable people may be kept out of public office. But no campaign system is neutral, and effective speaking is a worthy skill in a deliberative democracy. In any event, it is better to have good speakers than skillful fundraisers in Congress. As Woodrow Wilson wrote, "It is natural that orators should be the leaders of a self-governing people." Still, candidates have a First Amendment right to opt out of any particular forum, so they should not be required to attend deliberative sessions or to use publicly funded broadcast time.

In addition to free broadcast time, qualifying candidates could be given free postage to mail campaign letters written over their own signatures. Currently, members of Congress have this privilege (known as "the frank"), which helps to protect their incumbency. The House Republicans cut the average frank allowance to $216,000 per two-year term, but this amount still exceeds the entire budget of an average major-party challenger in 1998.75 The frank should be granted to both sides, not just to incumbents.

These ideas have limited value-they are just components of a definitive solution. Sooner or later, we will have to offer full (but optional) public financing to all qualified candidates. This is already done in presidential general-election campaigns-now marred by soft money-and in Maine's legislative and gubernatorial races. Public funding could be combined with more modest ideas like voter guides and government-sponsored Internet sites and debates. This is not an unrealistic goal. In 1997, 50 percent of Americans agreed that "public financing of campaigns would reduce the influence of special interests." To qualify for public funds, candidates would file petitions signed by a specified number of registered voters. The signature requirement should be set high enough to exclude marginal candidates, but low enough that teams of volunteers could manage petition drives. Campaigns would be able to use their public funds to buy any combination of broadcast advertisements, mailings, travel, and printing. In addition, they could spend limited sums on rent, salaries, telephone charges, lawyers and accountants, outside contracts, and miscellaneous expenses. But they would not be able to raise or spend a penny of private money.

As a result, two kinds of candidate would compete in American elections. One type would continue to use private donations to buy professional campaign services. Such candidates would no doubt attack their opponents for receiving public funds, and voters would be free to agree with them. On the other hand, they would have to spend time and money raising contributions, and they would be beholden to their contributors. Politicians with large personal fortunes would be able to avoid fundraising burdens, but very few millionaires have political ambitions and are acceptable to the electorate.

The other type of candidate would use public funds to run truly independent campaigns. These candidates would have to defend their use of tax money, but they would owe nothing to special-interest donors, so they could freely choose their themes and agendas. Although their spending would be limited, they would be given sufficient funds to compete. Beyond a certain point, campaign spending hardly affects election results, so publicly funded candidates would fare reasonably well against opponents with very large war chests. Candidates who accepted government money could not spend much on professional advice. If they were successful, then the political consulting industry would shrink-perhaps below sustainable levels.

Some people object to public financing of campaigns by arguing that it is . "welfare for politicians," a waste of taxpayers' money. But imagine the most expensive possible outcome: that all campaigns from school board to pre dent were covered all eligible candidates participated, the broadcast industry bore none of the expense and current spending patterns were sustained. Even then, ._, the total cost of public financing would be about $20 per capita. That is not a high price to pay for democracy. In any case, billions of dollars might be saved if lobbyists were not able to purchase government subsidies and tax breaks.

p141
"The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." So wrote Thomas Jefferson in typically provocative style.' Thanks in part to him, the Bill of Rights declares: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Justice Potter Stewart once noted that the press is "the only organized private business that is given explicit constitutional protection."

Freedom of the press is important because most of us have little direct contact , with politics; what we know comes from reading newspapers and magazines, listening to the radio, or watching television. James Madison argued that American J journalists had performed an invaluable service by "canvassing the merits and measures of public men." Politicians' "merits and measures" presumably included their records, platforms, beliefs, and at least their public behavior. Without a free press, voters would not know the "comparative merits and demerits of the candidates for public trust," and consequently their right to govern would be without "value and efficacy."

Madison rightly thought that citizens who have values and preferences should be able to obtain the information necessary to assess and control their leaders. He did not, however, explain how voters can acquire preferences in the first place.

p142
The original Progressives sought to preserve and enhance the freedom, independence, and effectiveness of the press, so that it could survey government on the public's behalf. First of all, Progressive writers and editors developed a new approach to political journalism, which influenced the leading publications of the day. Traditionally, newspapers and magazines had been partisan outlets, often controlled by politicians or parties. But the Progressives wanted their publications to be independent and nonpartisan. In the popular press, nonpartisanship meant a continuous crusade against powerful people-politicians and industrialists alike-sparing only the publishing magnates themselves. Joseph Pulitzer captured the philosophy of muckraking Progressive journalism in 1907, saying that his newspapers would:

always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.

The fact that Pulitzer himself could be considered a "predatory plutocrat" did not negate the importance of his creed. His commitment to reform, independence of mind, and the public welfare was classically Progressive, and he turned these ideas into an effective strategy for selling newspapers. Although Pulitzer, Hearst, Scripps, and others of their ilk often protected their friends and harassed their personal enemies, they also competed fiercely for readers who now wanted the press to serve as a public watchdog. In the long run, a newspaper that spared anyone lost subscribers. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of investigative journalism in exposing financial scandals, corporate misconduct, and poverty; and many Progressive reforms were the direct result of these muckraking articles. Jacob Riis, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, and David Graham Phillips were major figures in the Progressive movement.

Meanwhile, in the more highbrow press, nonpartisanship meant an effort to present a balanced, judicious debate about the public good, unencumbered by partisan loyalties. Progressive reporters were not free of ideology and bias, nor did the sophisticated ones claim to be. Croly and Lippmann of The New Republic were men of strong political opinions, as were the nonjournalists who frequently contributed to their journal, including Dewey. But they thought that a permanent identification with individuals and parties would undermine their objectivity. The Progressive-Era cult of neutrality, independence, and objectivity has been widely criticized. But there is such a thing as good independent reporting, and journalists like Lippmann set a high standard.

It was also the Progressives who invented modern First-Amendment law. They _~ developed their position, in part, as a reaction to the oppressive sedition acts that Woodrow Wilson signed during the First World War. Wilson's postmaster general. Burleson, announced that no one could print and mail any document saying:

that this government got in the war wrong, that it is in it for the wrong purposes, or anything that will impugn the motives of the Government for going into the war. They can not say that this Government is the tool of Wall Street or the munitions makers. That kind of thing makes for insubordination in the Army and Navy and breeds a spirit of disloyalty through the country.

Protected by his senatorial immunity, La Follette often said just what Burleson forbade. As a result, the Senate seriously considered impeaching him. La Follette also argued that the war should be financed with higher taxes instead of loans, but an issue of The Public that took the same line was suppressed. The experience of being denounced for his political opinions-while others were jailed for expressing the same views-turned La Follette into a militant critic of government censorship. Many Progressives agreed, since public deliberation required a completely free flow of information and ideas. During the war, the Supreme Court upheld the federal sedition acts, but Justices Holmes and Brandeis prepared the ground for a more liberal constitutional doctrine. Just as La Follette made his last run for president, Brandeis summarized the Progressive position on freedom of speech:

Those who won our independence . . . believed that freedom to think as you will and ) to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussions would be futile; [and] that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine.

In the 1960s and '70s, the Supreme Court fully articulated a concept that was latent in Madison's and Brandeis's writings: the press as public watchdog. For example, in New York Times v. United States, the Court upheld the right of newspapers to publish classified national-security documents that had come into their possession. Where Madison had praised journalists for revealing the "merits and measures" of public officials, Justice Hugo Black now wrote:

The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly."

Although Justice Black was a civil libertarian, his view of press freedom was not strictly a libertarian one. According to civil libertarians, all citizens have perfect rights of thought and speech; journalists are citizens, too, so they can write anything they like. Reporters who exercise their right to free expression need not accept any special responsibilities. By the same token, the libertarian position offers journalists no special privileges, such as guaranteed access to government information, automatic admission to courtrooms and legislatures, immunity when called to testify, the right to protect sources and publish classified documents, and so on. Justice Black, by contrast, argued that journalists gain unique rights in return for their service as public watchdogs. The state, as a potential menace, cannot restrain the press with any kind of leash or muzzle. But in return journalists acquire both the power and the responsibility to bare official secrets, expose corruption, and reveal the policies and characters of public officials. Black's position derived from Madisonian ideas, but especially from Progressive ones: Charles Evans Hughes had argued, for example, that the public required I a "vigilant and courageous press" to overcome government "malfeasance and corruption."

p144
The state always poses a threat to free speech because of its power to censor, but so does capital. Newspapers, magazines-and now, broadcast networks-are privately owned, and their owners have economic interests. In 1912, La Follette gave a speech in Philadelphia, in which he charged that "the money power ... controls the newspaper press." The public, he said, "is fast coming to understand that wherever news items bear in any way upon the control of government by business, the news is colored; so confidence in the newspaper as a newspaper is being undermined."

La Follette delivered this speech during a hectic presidential campaign and immediately after he had learned that his daughter required a dangerous operation. Speaking before an audience of magazine publishers, he received a hostile welcome and responded by losing his temper and lecturing for two hours. The next morning's press reported that he had suffered a nervous breakdown; editorial writers assailed him for his radical ideas. Although an editor of the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph told him that his view of the press was correct, most coverage of his speech was scathing. In fact, it was the ruin of his presidential campaign: prominent Republicans used the news of his "breakdown" or "collapse" as an excuse to back Roosevelt.

But La Follette kept making the same case throughout his career. In 1918, for example, he wrote: "Except for the subserviency of most of the metropolitan newspapers, . . . 65 percent of all the wealth of this country would not now be centralized in the hands of two percent of all the people. And we might today be industrially and commercially a free people, enjoying the blessings of a real democracy." La Follette implied the following argument: the owners of newspapers influenced what was printed; what was printed influenced public opinion; and public opinion influenced policy. Therefore, to some unknown but disproportionate extent, the people who owned the mass media influenced public policy to serve their own interests. As a result, democracy was corrupted.

p148
... the electronic media-television and radio-are in some ways more important than print, since 70 percent of Americans cite TV as their major source of news, compared to 20 percent who cite newspapers. However, the electronic media are much less diverse and accessible than books and newspapers. This is primarily because the electromagnetic spectrum has room for only a limited number of channels. Moreover, a television station is not a bundle of separate products, like a newspaper. It can only broadcast one program at a time, and if people don't like it, they will switch channels-perhaps for good. Therefore, broadcasting, more than print, is subject to majority tyranny and a decline to the lowest common denominator.

The government's response to the poor quality of commercial television has been typical of interest-group liberalism. Instead of deliberating about what good TV would look like, Congress has delegated vague powers to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), which negotiates with broadcasters and the industry lobby. The FCC is supposed to grant free use of the spectrum to whichever applicant would best serve "the public interest, convenience, and necessity." Until deregulation in the 1980s, the FCC translated this general formula into a few significant regulations, notably the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to cover all issues that were of public importance and to cover them fairly Thus a local television station could not, in theory, refuse to cover a major strike in its area, nor slant its coverage in favor of one side in the strike. If it did, it would be subject to lawsuits.

It should not be surprising that the FCC has never demanded much under the public interest clause or the now-defunct Fairness Doctrine. Appointed regulators do not have the mandate to debate values, conflicting interests, or public priorities. Besides, they are subject to manipulation by powerful lobbyists who can influence their selection, threaten to erase their rulings through legislation, and hire them after they leave the government. Congress should take the bull by the horns, publicly debate what "the public interest" means in broadcasting, and pass content-neutral requirements for licensees (such as a certain number of minutes devoted to public-affairs programming). Federal courts should then uphold such requirements as enhancements of free speech.

At the same time, Congress should be generous in its subsidies of public television and radio, which present minority views and highly substantive programming. The government could also distribute broadcasting rights in a different way. Since passage of the Communications Act of 1934, the FCC has granted one company total control over each part of the spectrum in each geographical area. Instead, the government could give part of the day to commercial broadcasters and reserve part for nonprofit or public use. Or it could retain control of the spectrum and give out individual broadcast slots to private groups, both commercial and nonprofit. A very modest reform would be to provide free broadcast time for political candidates. The high cost of TV advertising is one cause of politicians' dependence on private money. Along with Sri Lanka, the United States is one of only two countries in the world that do not give politicians free broadcast time.

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