By Shelton Gunaratne, professor of mass communications emeritus, MSUM

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Throughout my 35-year career as a journalism teacher in three countries (Malaysia, Australia and the United States), I have maintained that freedom of the press means much more than the freedom of the media owners and their supplicant editors to maximize profits at the expense of good reporting needed to enhance the democratic ethos of the community they claim to serve. By good reporting I mean the elevation of news as a social good rather than using news as a commodity.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ In 1791, the Congress passed the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, which guaranteed that Congress shall make no law abridging ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the freedom of speech, or of the press.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ As interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, the First Amendment does not permit the government to force newspapers to publish that which they do not desire to publish. In short, the law permits the media to enjoy freedom without concomitant responsibility. Although my view of freedom of the press runs counter to that of the courts, it is consistent with the view of the Hutchins Commission of the late 1940s. ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Time publisher Henry Luce appointed the commission headed by President Robert Hutchins of the University of Chicago to go into the state of the American press in the mid-20^th century. The commission found utter public disappointment with the performance of the putative ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-freeƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ press and the need to instill a sense of social responsibility. In its report published in 1947, the commission concluded:

The press plays an important role in the development and stability of modern society and, as such, it is imperative that a commitment of social responsibility be imposed on mass media.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

These preliminary remarks are relevant to the story on Lee Morris, who resigned this week from the post of top editor of the Valley City Times-Record (The Forum, 18 Aug. 2011). Lee was a student of mine at Minnesota State University Moorhead. I got to know him very well because he was in three of the classes I taught: MC309 Reporting, MC405 Computer Assisted Reporting (fall 2005) and MC310 Copy Editing (fall 2006).

In an interview with reporter Kristen M. Daum, Morris has said that concern about ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-corporate greed and a lack of journalism ethicsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ prompted his resignation. He has alleged that the Illinois-based Horizon Publications, which owns a chain of 35 community newspapers in 16 states and two Canadian provinces, sought to both censor and sway news content.

Prior to MorrisƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s resignation, Horizon had fired Nikke Zinke, publisher of the VC Times-Record, because, according to Morris, she had stood up for independent newsgathering. Thanks to the efforts of Zinke and Morris, the Times-Record won the North Dakota Newspaper AssociationƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s First Amendment Award in 2011. ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ However, HorizonƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s corporate publisher Leonard Martin had issued specific instructions to Morris to desist from pursuing investigative reporting of public officials and not to publish letters critical of officials like the controversial police chief Dean Ross. In short, the company policy was to maintain the status quo and not to rock the boat so as to maintain its saturated readership of 5,300 (or 80 percent) in a community of 6,500 people.

Although Morris and Zinke were trying to implement the journalistic ideals of the muckrakers of the early 20^th century to clean up corruption and create conditions conducive to implementing democratic ideals in Valley City, the corporate mandarins of the newspaper wanted to protect the powerful elite who benefitted from the status quo. ThatƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s why they did not want the editors to publish letters or write opinions critical of public officials. These press mandarins were more concerned with the bottom line than with social responsibility. They feigned the Confucian ideal of the need to maintain social harmony but forgot the equally important Confucian ideal of ethical conduct.

In sum, the mandarins at Horizon Publications passed the Supreme Court interpretation of ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-freedom of the pressƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ when they tried to prevent the publication of critical letters and commentary, but at the same time failed to abide by the social responsibility of the press demanded by the Hutchins Commission. For the mandarins, news is a commodity, not a social good.

I have also taught my students that all reporting involves investigation. All copy published without investigation is mere public relations.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ [This story appeared in the editorial page of The (Fargo, N.D.) Forum on 22 Aug. 2011.]