Fair-weather friends: when journalists desert from free speech battles

Reason, June, 2004 by Matt Welch

But theoretical ideals aside, Stern was dropped from six Clear Channel stations not because the free market was deserting him (indeed, Stern claims he was No. 1 in all six cities) but because Clear Channel executives felt compelled to change the company's policies on the day before they were scheduled to testify under oath at the congressional indecency hearings.

Similarly, when Cumulus banished the Dixie Chicks from its airwaves after lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience she was "ashamed" to hail from the same state as President Bush, many self-described civil libertarians made the point that, after all, Cumulus is a private company and is free to air whomever it likes. That is true, of course. But defending freedom of speech is more than just respecting private property. It's expressing support for the climate of free-wheeling expression.

When the Chicks were punished even after Maines' immediate apology, it was amazing to see how many of Parker's fellow First Amendment "fans" responded by demonstrating a sudden enthusiasm for music criticism, or career advice for top-selling bands, or for most anything that diverted attention away from the core truth: that an artist's work was being suppressed in response to a mildly intemperate and unpopular political statement.

No, the Chicks-Nix was not a First Amendment issue (as John McCain complained, inaccurately); and yes, it's always fun to mock millionaire celebrities who take their hyperbolic Persecution For Dissent straight to the bank. But a climate in which a popular singer becomes the target of a boycott for a single political sentence is one in which a much less popular singer knows to keep his mouth shut, unless it says something in favor of the Iraq War.

Speech has consequences, obviously, but the ideal consequence is speech in rebuttal, not suppression. This is usually felt most keenly by those who agree with the controversial political statement in question. One of the biggest and most prolific supporters of Howard Stern during the shock jock's FCC trouble this year has been the weblogger Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine.com--who happens to be a longtime fan of Stern.

Yet just a year ago, the same guy, who has been writing an invaluable Daily Stern roundup of all indecency-related news for several weeks running, found it humorous to refer to the Dixie Chicks as "the Vichy chicks," in part no doubt because Jarvis was just as vehemently in favor of the war that Maines was against.

There are two essential preconditions for the government to infringe upon the free press. One is a bureaucracy that values its own political existence higher than the Constitution--a virtual guarantee. The second, much less remarked upon, is a compliant press. When I was getting started in journalism during Ronald Reagan's second term, the ethics and constitutionality of drug testing was a hot topic in the country and especially in newspapers. Now you almost never see it mentioned outside the sports pages, where more urine testing is always better. Not uncoincidentally, most major newspapers now submit new employees to mandatory drug tests. The journalists rolled over, moved on, and quickly grew weary of the topic.