Binding: Hardcover
Description: A detailed argument of how our government has interfered in the direction of America's media landscape that traces major transformations in media since the printing press and charts a path for reform. In The Changing Ecosystem of the News Martha Minow takes stock of the new media landscape. She focuses on the extent to which our constitutional system is to blame for the current parlous state of affairs and on our government's responsibilities for alleviating the problem. 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 not merely plausible ideas; they 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.
Title: Saving The News Why The Constitution Calls For Government Action To Preserve Freedom Of Speech
Author(s): Minow Martha (Professor Of Law And Former Dean Professor Of Law And Former Dean Harvard Law School)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Barcode: 9780190948412
Pages: 256 Pages
Publication Date: 7/1/2021
Series: Inalienable Rights
Category: Social Law