Journalists have learned nothing and call for Chinese-style censorship – Washington Examiner

I never thought I'd see the day that journalism professors would petition for censorship or that a liberal magazine would advocate we become more like China.

But I guess 2016 really broke their brains.

Writing in the Atlantic on Saturday, two law professors declared that online speech can "never go back to normal" after the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the United States must follow China's lead and police the internet with an iron fist, they said.

Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a societys norms and values, argued Harvards Jack Goldsmith and University of Arizonas Andrew Keane Woods.

Meanwhile, journalism professors blasted out a petition urging TV networks to police President Trumps COVID-19 press conferences. (I was asked Sunday to sign it but declined.)

The petition stated: We ask that all cable channels, broadcast stations, and networks (with the exception of C-SPAN) stop airing these briefings live. Instead, they should first review the briefings and, after editing, present only that information that provides updates from health officials about the progress and ongoing mitigation of the disease. Many journalists agreed.

In other words, the chattering class must control discourse because people are too stupid to think for themselves.

Goldsmith and Woods explain in the Atlantic: Ten years ago, speech on the American Internet was a free-for-all various forms of weaponized speech and misinformation had not yet emerged," but a wake-up call was Russias interference in the 2016 election. Though "not particularly sophisticated," it exposed the "legal limitations grounded in the First Amendment."

Mind you, Goldsmith is the same "expert" who was a legal adviser to President George W. Bush and the Department of Defense during the disastrous Iraq War, which was premised on Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. The damage done by that disinformation at a time when the internet had already displaced the traditional media as a news source incomparably outweighed the pittance Russia spent on farcical Facebook ads during the 2016 presidential campaign. Even famed election forecaster Nate Silver and Trump critic the Nation agree Russia was a nonfactor.

Yet, Goldsmith somehow believes this nothingburger warrants Americans abdicating their two-centuries-old free speech rights to the government. Moreover, he believes the U.S. should model its cyber crackdown after China, which detained doctors and censored social media users who dared warn the public about COVID-19. "In the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong," he and Woods wrote.

By contrast, the authors of the petition to censor Trumps press conferences said they believe that our government cant be trusted as a steward of information. While they may be right, their solution to misinformation is as questionable as the Atlantic's.

The petition demands Trumps briefings be blacked out: Because Donald Trump uses them as a platform for misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19, they have become a serious public health hazard a matter of life and death for viewers who cannot easily identify his falsehoods, lies and exaggerations.

News flash: The public knows Trump lies. But they dont need to be told that by the media, which ranks 16 points lower than the president in handling the crisis. Many of the same journalists who would filter Trumps words have exacerbated the infodemic by spreading their share of misinformation about COVID-19. A CNN anchor was caught staging fake news about his quarantine. On multiple occasions, journalists have misrepresented Trump's statements related to the virus. No, he didn't call it a hoax or prescribe fish tank cleaner.

That's why TV networks should show exactly what the president says, unedited, and let the public evaluate for themselves. In fact, networks have a duty to do so. For nearly a century, radio and TV have been governed by a public interest standard. In exchange for the privilege of an FCC license to broadcast, stations have an obligation to cultivate a more informed citizenry through democratic dialogue and diversity of expression.

While this public interest standard is ill-defined, airing a presidents press conferences during an unprecedented crisis would seem to fit the bill. If Trump is lying, as many journalists and journalism professors contend, thats all the more reason to air his press conferences and expose his lies so voters can be aware, especially as an election looms.

Sunlight may not help fight COVID-19, as Trump claims. But, as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously remarked, it is the best of disinfectants when it comes to public policy. At a time when many don't trust the government or the press, it's imperative to demand transparency from both.

Mark Grabowski is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He teaches communications law at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y.

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Journalists have learned nothing and call for Chinese-style censorship - Washington Examiner