by Justin Sablich, SUNY Cortland
Posted in on Tuesday, Oct 19
Journalist and founder of the online syndication service FeatureWell.com, David Wallis has become an expert on the subject of self-censorship. His new book, Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot to Print, is a collection of writing that never saw the light of day from some of the best-known journalists of our time. The articles range from investigative pieces that expose the inner workings of the Unification Church to the hypocritical business practices that made The Body Shop so successful. In each case, the magazines that commissioned these pieces decided, for various reasons, that their constituencies—be they readers, advertisers, or the government—would not benefit by reading the works. Wallis has compiled these articles and asked each of the their original authors to comment on just what made these articles too hot to print.
In an interview with NeoVox, Wallis discusses what self-censorship is, how it has affected all levels of journalism, and what can be done to change it.
Justin Sablich: Your book contains articles that were killed by various national publications. Have you come across any examples of college newspapers refusing to publish articles due to their content?
David Wallis: Tons. I pose this question: where do journalists learn to be timid? They learn it in college. I found several examples of collegiate censorship. There are a couple of egregious examples I will talk about. LaRoche College in Pennsylvania is a Catholic school. And before homecoming, when a lot of parents visit campus, they confiscated 900 copies of the student newspaper. And why did they do this? Because one opinion column in the paper included the groundbreaking idea that access to condoms may prevent out-of-wedlock birth. So, I guess there was a little too much opinion in the opinion column.
I found another example that I'll talk about. At Long Island University at the Brooklyn campus, the administrators changed the locks on the student newspapers offices because the editor of the paper published the fact that a student government official had resigned because he had poor grades and he published those grades. They said it was a breach of privacy. But to me that’s just old-fashioned good reporting.
I found often that college administrators act as if they’re the commissars and Pravda in the Soviet Union. It troubles me and makes me worried that we’re turning out a breed of neutered journalists, out of the colleges, that will be afraid of authority.
Sablich: Is there a difference in censorship between public and private schools?
Wallis: Yes. Public schools, supposedly, have the protections of the free press in the constitution; expect for California where they enacted a law to protect free speech on college campuses that are private. Most other states, or all other states, do not protect the right of journalists. They basically allow the colleges to censor their writers, their reporters, and their young journalists in training. That’s a terrible thing. I hope one day someone addresses that in a national law. If there were ever something to write your congressman about, it would be some law to protect free speech at private colleges.
Sablich: Now on a national level, does it take more courage to publish controversial material today than compared to 10 years ago?
Wallis: What I'll say is this. I think self-censorship in the media has gone on since there has been a media. Mark Twain, Emma Goldman, Richard Wright, George Orwell, who is included in my book, all had controversial work killed. As a matter of fact, Richard Wright, Ebony killed an essay of his during the Cold War about why he chose exile. He was basically un-publishable in American magazines. He was leftist who had left America in the height of the Cold War. So it’s nothing new.
I do think it ebbs and flows, the level or the pervasiveness of censorship or self-censorship; and I'll explain in a minute the differences between censorship and self-censorship. But I think since 9/11 we’ve seen, without doubt, an up-tick where, consciously or unconsciously, editors are being much more careful about what they publish and who they offend and who they don’t offend. There’s a greater deal of fear.
It’s in every medium. It’s on the radio with the Dixie Chicks. It’s seen on TV when local affiliates of the April 30th edition of “Nightline” wouldn’t carry it because Ted Koppel read the names of soldiers who died in Iraq as the images of the dead soldiers flashed on the screen. It’s on cartoons. Some editorial cartoonists had been fired after 9/11 that were controversial. Aaron McGruder of The Boondockshas had many of his strips pulled. And then of course print. I cite the example of Juan Gonzalez, who was the award winning investigative reporter of the NY Daily News who had a hell of a time publishing his exposes on the dangerous air that was in lower Manhattan after 9/11. And he had a hell of a time because his editors buckled in to pressure from both local and federal government officials. There are serious ramifications sometimes.
Sablich: Can you explain the difference between censorship and self-censorship?
Wallis: Yeah. The difference between censorship and self-censorship is that classically, censorship means government crackdowns on the press. During wartime, they would censor some news reports from the front in order not to give the enemy a clue of where the troops might be and that, of course, people could support. However, it becomes more pernicious when governments decide to lock newspaper offices. That’s more vocative of the Soviet Union. But in this country, recently, I think we’re veering very close to out-and-out government censorship. Recently, the Senate voted to ban news organizations from taking pictures of military coffins.
Sablich: Yeah, I heard about that.
Wallis: Yeah, but not many people did because of self-censorship. The NY Times places it on page A-17 rather than on the front page where that story belonged. And a lot of other news organizations ignored that story totally. So self-censorship is where the media does the job of the government for them and I think that’s more common in America.
Sablich: Do you think that if the Bush Administration were to be removed in November, that there be a change in either censorship of self-censorship?
Wallis: Yes, I believe so. First of all, Bush says he doesn’t read newspapers and Kerry eats them up. And he’s (Kerry) vowed to give monthly press conferences whereas Bush hardly ever peeps in front of or confronts the press. As we’ve seen, he’s not that good on his feet, judging by the first debate. I do think that there’s generally more tolerance under Democrats.
Sablich: Now, I just want to get your comments on a couple of current events. Recently, the Lonestar Iconoclast, a newspaper in President Bush’s hometown of Crawford, Texas, published an editorial endorsing John Kerry. The paper is now facing consequences that include loss of advertising from local businesses. Do you think the editor knew what the reaction would be and how conscious are editors of this in general?
Wallis: I think he’s a brave man! It’s always a challenge for you to publish something that’s going to upset advertisers. But the fact is, there’s supposed to be a public service component of the craft, of journalism. And he’s not in the censorship business at the Lonestar Iconoclast. He’s in the publishing business. And by putting out a high quality product, people and advertisers will ultimately gravitate towards those publications. Will he piss off a few? Sure. But hopefully he’s strong enough to survive that.
I think publishers and advertisers have to take kicks from the advertising department from time to time. That’s sort of the nature of the beast. Yet in a recent survey, I think it was a PEW survey, about one third of journalists avoid stories that will rattle advertisers. And those are the ones who admit it! Think about the ones who don’t admit it. More and more newspapers are part of publicly owned, or publicly traded corporations I should say. We’ve lost two thirds of our independent newspapers since 1975. To a great degree, publishers are looking at the bottom line, and being rewarded for the bottom line, rather than producing Pulitzer Prizes.
Sablich: I’m sure you’ve heard of the Wall Street Journal reporter, Farnaz Fassihi, whose highly critical email of the Iraq war has been circulating the Internet. Though it was meant to be private, some are asking why the information didn’t appear in her reports from Iraq. Do you think the reporter was following a journalistic “code of conduct” to stay objective or was it the Wall Street Journal censoring for political reasons?
Wallis: A little bit of both. Now suddenly that reporter is on an extended vacation. So there are ramifications. Don’t assume that by speaking up you’re not going to get penalized. You probably will. But is it worth speaking up? I mean, how do you sleep at night?
Sablich: In your book, you write that you hope it will “provoke debate and outrage.” Is there anything that journalists or the general public can do to change the system?
Wallis: I thought about that a lot. It’s funny. I think younger people are turning away from the news. In some ways I want more people to be engaged with the news, and read more, and be more aggressive consumers of news. And in other ways I think to myself, the only way that this is going to change is for newspapers to really struggle and hurt.
What I think could be effective is a one day national boycott where you don’t buy your newspaper. Everyone doesn’t buy a newspaper for the first Friday of the month or something. Or actually Sunday! Sunday is the day where the papers make their most money. If there was some sort of national boycott on a Sunday and then people actually wrote letters to the editor saying, “you’re short changing us on content.” Wouldn’t that be interesting if they got like 100,000 letters? Wouldn’t that be interesting if people actually piped up? I’d love to see that happen. You have to hit them where it hurts.
Sablich: And the journalists, is there something they should change in their approach?
Wallis: Yeah. They should speak up and not be so afraid about their gig or job and be able to walk away from something they really want in life.
Links:
Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi’s letters detailing her experiences in Baghdad can be found here
The Lone Star Iconoclast’s endorsement of John Kerry can be found here
More information about Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot to Print can be found here
David Wallis will be SUNY Cortland's guest on October 29, 2004. His talk, entitled "Self-Censorship in the Internet Age" will take place at 3:30 pm in Corey Exhibition Lounge. All are welcome. For further information contact BerryL@cortland.edu.
DESIGNER: Greg Montano, New Media Design, SUNY Cortland, USA
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