I was happy to see that he doesn't point to some idealized objective and impartial time of press perfection. In fact, he makes it clear that the media have always had their thumbs on the scales. The difference is that it was more overt. He points approvingly to the Revolutionary "printers, pamphleteers, and newspaper publishers [who] were truly brave souls—they were patriots, pioneers, and entrepreneurs, both leaders of and reflective of the colonists and their commitment to liberty and revolution. They risked everything to advance and defend an independent nation and civil society based on the ancient truths and observations of Aristotle and later Cicero, among others; the Enlightenment principles and reasoning of John Locke and Montesquieu, among others; and specifically, the moral underpinnings of natural law and natural rights, the unalienable rights of the individual, liberty, equal justice, property rights, freedom of speech, and yes, freedom of the press—in sum, this is the essence of the Declaration of Independence, the formal proclamation of the united colonies and America's founding." (58-59) The press had a definite bias, but it leaned towards the defining and pushing of quintessential American values.
After the Revolution, both the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans tries to steer America on the best path and the press broke down into two factions, each party with its own mouthpieces. This very political press was arguably worse in its attacks and disinformation than what we see today, but it loudly proclaimed its loyalties. Because of the danger of a French-style revolution invading America's shores, John Adams began to severely limit what could be said, jailing opponents in the press. While we rightly see this as a large infringement on freedom of the press, the fragility of the new nation and the rabid attacks in the press caused Adams to see the need for the Sedition Act. This is the beginning of Levin's multiple examples to prove Trump a lightweight when it comes to suppressing freedom of the press. He continues with tales of suppression involving Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR. He also uses this section to point out myriad examples of the current media's vitriolic treatment of Trump.
Today, the press calls itself objective and unbiased, yet believes it has a duty to interpret the news, making sense of events for the consumer. As such, they create what Levin calls "pseudo-events." With the 24/7 news cycle, small or non-stories are endlessly repeated. The reporters themselves become part of the story. Through the non-stop saturation the media color American's views of what is happening. Also, they choose what to flood the public with and what to leave out. Levin points to the NYT's and others' shameful non-reporting of the Holocaust at the time it was clearly happening and the continued lack of reporting factually on Israel. Finally he details the particularly rabid reporting on Trump and the Russian collusion narrative. All-in-all, Levin is not impressed with the medias ability to present the facts in an objective and unbiased manner.
In the Epilogue, Levin restates his argument: The press was a patriotic shaper of America in the Revolutionary period. The era of Progressivism led to a press concerned with objectivity, not so much in the thinking, but objective in the methodology, a level of professionalism. Modern media has moved beyond even this pretext of unattainable objectivity to activist journalism concerned with advancing a particular narrative to further a pre-determined set of goals. This has led to egregious breaches of trust and some all-out fallacies and serious omissions in pursuit of a higher good. Rather than clean up their act and re-gain the trust of Americans, modern journalists pound their chests and demand respect as members of the "free press." This has become apparent in repeated statements decrying Trumps anti-press statements as the dangerous rantings of a demagogue. But as Levin showed, Trump is doing nothing egregious compared to many previous presidents, and it is in fact the press that is showing an unprecedented predilection to attack the president with false and misleading stories.
He concludes with, "The abandonment of objective truth and, worse, the rejection of the principles and values of America's early press and revolutionaries, is not new for the Times. It long predates the Trump presidency And it has led the Times and other media outlets into a very bleak and dark place, destructive of the press as a crucial institution for a free people. If newsrooms and journalists do not act forthwith and with urgency to "fundamentally transform" their approach to journalism, which, sadly, is highly unlikely, their credibility will continue to erode and may well reach a point soon where it is irreparably damaged with a large portion of the citizenry—rightly so. The media will not only marginalize themselves, but they will continue to be the greatest threat to freedom of the press today—not President Trump or his administration, but the current practitioners of what used to be journalism." (226)
References:
John Adams: Richard Buel, Jr. "Freedom of the Press in Revolutionary America: The Evolution of Libertainanism, 1760-1820," in The Press & the American Revolution, (Bailyn and Hench 1980) p. 61
Abraham Lincoln: Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press (2014) p. 335-336
Woodrow Wilson: Christopher B. Daly, "How Woodrow Wilson's Propaganda Machine Changed American Journalism," The Conversation (website), April 27, 2017
FDR: David Beito, "FDR's War Against the Press," Reason (website), April 5, 2017; The New Deal Witch Hunt," National Review (website), July 30, 2013
Andrew Mellon: David Burnham, A law Unto Itself (1989) p. 229
