Saving the News, Martha Minow
Saving the News, Martha Minow
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Saving the News
Why the Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech

Author: Martha Minow

Narrator: Eliza Foss

Unabridged: 6 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Kalorama

Published: 07/06/2021


Synopsis

In Saving the News, Martha Minow takes stock of the new media landscape. As Minow shows, the First Amendment of the US Constitution assumes the existence and durability of a private industry. Although the First Amendment does not govern the conduct of entirely private enterprises, nothing in the Constitution forecloses government action to regulate concentrated economic power, to require disclosure of who is financing communications, or to support news initiatives where there are market failures. Moreover, the federal government has contributed financial resources, laws, and regulations to develop and shape media in the United States. Thus, Minow argues that the transformation of media from printing presses to the internet was shaped by deliberate government policies that influenced the direction of private enterprise. In short, the government has crafted the direction and contours of America's media ecosystem.

Building upon this basic argument, Minow outlines an array of reforms, including a new fairness doctrine, regulating digital platforms as public utilities, using antitrust authority to regulate the media, policing fraud, and more robust funding of public media. As she stresses, such reforms are the kinds of initiatives needed if the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press continues to hold meaning in the twenty-first century.

About Martha Minow

Martha Minow is professor of law and former dean of Harvard Law School. She is the author of several books, including When Should Law Forgive?, Making All the Difference, and Upstanders, Whistle-Blowers, and Rescuers.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Charles on December 15, 2021

Good information about the current constitutional environment of the press with respect to the First Amendment. The recommendations are good to start conversations - I'd be (pleasantly) surprised to see these actually implemented.......more

Goodreads review by April on June 23, 2022

Journalism and Constitutional scholars should pick up this book- while it is a little dry at times, Minow makes both a good argument as to why the Constitution supports the government taking a more proactive role in supporting legacy news media and the work of news reporting, and how the country cou......more