Perhaps the grossest ongoing censorship of all is the culturally conditioned, narrow range of opinion fed to the vast majority of Americans by their own media. The differences in story lines and opinions in the "news" given by well-watched television channels such as ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, or those of the nation's major newspapers and news magazines, is minuscule. One venue that stands out is Fox TV, and its "news" and opinion offerings verge on the mendacious. The narrow range of views offered creates a uniform background noise hiding most of what is at variance with the standard message. In other words, media practices constitute de facto censorship.
So well does this process work that it is probably the case that many news editors and broadcasters and most of the public taking in their reporting do not understand that their reductionism has rendered the constitutional right of free press ineffectual. Really meaningful contrary opinion and reporting (particularly of the progressive persuasion) is so infrequent and marginalized that it stands little chance of competing with the orthodox point of view.
An exception is to be found on the TV channel Comedy Central. There Americans can find the popular Daily Show with Jon Stewart. This show presents the only ongoing, nationally televised critique of the foibles of U.S. government leaders and their policies. But, of course, it all must be done in the form of comical political satire.
As successful as media conditioning is, some elements of the U.S. government feel they must go the extra mile to guarantee that the public receives an acceptable view of events. Take the revelations given in a recent report by Amnesty International on the trial of the so-called Cuban Five (five Cuban residents of Florida arrested for espionage on the part of the Cuban government). Amnesty's official report on the trial of the five defendants alleges that "the United States [government] paid journalists hostile to Cuba to cover the trial and provide prejudicial articles in the local media asserting the guilt of the accused." Under such circumstances the "free press" was transformed into a vehicle for government propaganda and this, in turn, helped to generally devalue the right of free speech. We do not know how often the government acts in this corruptive way.
Part III -- Et Tu, Obama?
In a report issued late in 2013 by the Committee to Protect Journalists, President Obama, a liberal within our political spectrum, has been accused of pressuring journalists to tow the line. He has done this by "attacking sources, conducting surveillance, creating a climate of fear, and prosecuting double the amount of cases for alleged leaks of classified information as all previous administrations combined."
As a consequence the global index on media freedom issued annually by the conservative Freedom House alleges that in 2014 the U.S. suffered a sharp erosion of press freedom and the right of the citizen to know what his or her country is doing. The report cites "attempts by the government to inhibit reporting on national security issues" as a major reason for this situation.
At the same time, President Obama makes speeches critiquing foreign governments, such as that in Egypt, for limiting freedom of the press and speech. There is no doubt that the governments he targets are guilty of gross violation of these rights and many more besides. But what is equally true is that the vast majority of Americans can listen to the president castigate these governments with no sense of cognitive dissonance. They do not know that they too are victims of propaganda and manipulation. How could they? They are culturally conditioned to believe that their country is the foundation of freedom and truth. And, beyond their local area, they haven't the knowledge, or often the interest, to fact-check what their leaders and media agents tell them. That is why it is accurate to describe the U.S. information environment as closed.
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