5/23/2017 IndependenceofJournalism

Independence of Journalism

By Noam Chomsky

Chomsky.info, January 7, 2017

Mark Twain famously said that it is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those
three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence
never to practice either of them.

In his unpublished introduction to Animal Farm, devoted to literary censorship in free England,
George Orwell added a reason for this prudence: there is, he wrote, a general tacit agreement
that it wouldnt do to mention that particular fact. The tacit agreement imposes a veiled
censorship based on an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all rightthinking
people will accept without question, and anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds
himself silenced with surprising effectiveness even without any official ban.

We witness the exercise of this prudence constantly in free societies. Take the USUK invasion of
Iraq, a textbook case of aggression without credible pretext, the supreme international crime
defined in the Nuremberg judgment. It is legitimate to say that it was a dumb war, a strategic
blunder, even the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy in
President Obamas words, highly praised by liberal opinion. But it wouldnt do to say what it
was, the crime of the century, though there would be no such hesitancy if some official enemy had
carried out even a much lesser crime.
The prevailing orthodoxy does not easily accommodate such a figure as General/President Ulysses
S. Grant, who thought there never was a more wicked war than that waged by the United States
on Mexico, taking over what is now the US Southwest and California, and who expressed his
shame for lacking the moral courage to resign instead of taking part in the crime.

Subordination to the prevailing orthodoxy has consequences. The notsotacit message is that we
should only fight smart wars that are not blunders, wars that succeed in their objectives by
definition just and right according to prevailing orthodoxy even if they are in reality wicked
wars, major crimes. Illustrations are too numerous to mention. In some cases, like the crime of
the century, the practice is virtually without exception in respectable circles.
Another familiar aspect of subordination to prevailing orthodoxy is the casual appropriation of
orthodox demonization of official enemies. To take an almost random example, from the issue of
the New York Times that happens to be in front of me right now, a highly competent economic
journalist warns of the populism of the official demon Hugo Chavez, who, once elected in the late
90s, proceeded to battle any democratic institution that stood in his way.
Turning to the real world, it was the US government, with the enthusiastic support of the New
York Times, that (at the very least) fully supported the military coup that overthrew the Chavez

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government briefly, before it was reversed by a popular uprising. As for Chavez, whatever one
thinks of him, he won repeated elections certified as free and fair by international observers,
including the Carter Foundation, whose founder, exPresident Jimmy Carter, said that of the 92
elections that weve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the
world. And Venezuela under Chavez regularly ranked very high in international polls on public
support for the government, and for democracy (Chilebased Latinobarmetro).

There were doubtless democratic deficits during the Chavez years, such as the repression of the
RCTV channel, which elicited enormous condemnation. I joined, also agreeing that it couldnt
happen in our free society. If a prominent TV channel in the US had supported a military coup as
RCTV did, then it wouldnt be repressed a few years later, because it would not exist: the
executives would be in jail, if they were still alive.
But orthodoxy easily overcomes mere fact.

Failure to provide pertinent information also has consequences. Perhaps Americans should know
that polls run by the leading US polling agency found that a decade after the crime of the century,
world opinion regarded the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, no competitor
even close; surely not Iran, which wins that prize in US commentary. Perhaps instead of
concealing the fact, the press might have performed its duty of bringing it to public attention,
along with some consideration of what it means, what lessons it yields for policy. Again,
dereliction of duty has consequences.

Examples such as these, which abound, are serious enough, but there are others that are far more
momentous. Take the electoral campaign of 2016 in the most powerful country in world history.
Coverage was massive, and instructive. Issues were almost entirely avoided by the candidates,
and virtually ignored in commentary, in accord with the journalistic principle that objectivity
means reporting accurately what the powerful do and say, not what they ignore. The principle
holds even if the fate of the species is at stake as it is: both the rising danger of nuclear war and
the dire threat of environmental catastrophe.
The neglect reached a dramatic peak on November 8, a truly historic day. On that day Donald
Trump won two victories. The less important one received extraordinary media coverage: his
electoral victory, with almost 3 million fewer votes than his opponent, thanks to regressive
features of the US electoral system. The far important victory passed in virtual silence: Trumps
victory in Marrakech, Morocco, where some 200 nations were meeting to put some serious content
into the Paris agreement on climate change a year earlier. On November 8, the proceedings
halted. The remainder of the conference was largely devoted to trying to salvage some hope with
the US not only withdrawing from the enterprise but dedicated to sabotaging it by sharply
increasing the use of fossil fuels, dismantling regulations, and rejecting the pledge to assist
developing countries shift to renewables.

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All that was at stake in Trumps most important victory was the prospects for organized human
life in any form that we know. Accordingly, coverage was virtually zero, keeping to the same
concept of objectivity as determined by the practices and doctrines of power.

A truly independent press rejects the role of subordination to power and authority. It casts the
orthodoxy to the winds, questions what rightthinking people will accept without question,
tears aside the veil of tacit censorship, makes available to the general public the information and
range of opinions and ideas that are a prerequisite for meaningful participation in social and
political life, and beyond that, offers a platform for people to enter into debate and discussion
about the issues that concern them. By doing so it serves its function as a foundation for a truly
free and democratic society.

CHOMSKY.INFO

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