Can America Save the News?
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2021
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The news business in America is in crisis. Between 2008 and 2019, newspapers in the U.S. lost half of their newsroom employees. Journalism jobs cut during the pandemic number in the tens of thousands. Local news is suffering the most, with cutbacks across the country and many communities left without a reliable source of information for what’s going on in their area.
Why is this a crisis not just for journalists, but also for democracy?
In today’s episode of our Arbiters of Truth series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic turn to that question with Martha Minow, the 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard Law School. She’s written a new book, titled “Saving the News: Why the Constitution Calls for Government Action to Protect Freedom of Speech.” How should we understand the crisis facing American newsrooms? How has the U.S. government historically used its power to create a hospitable environment for news--and how should that history shape our understanding of what interventions are possible today? And what role does the First Amendment play in all this?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:34.0 | With all of this choice, the predicate for that minimal regulation, public interest regulation, |
| 0:40.2 | was challenged because the predicate was the scarcity of the airwaves and with cable and |
| 0:46.5 | now the internet, that scarcity argument is gone. |
| 0:50.5 | So for legal reasons, the constitution, the First Amendment, as well as political reasons, |
| 0:59.1 | the government's regulation, the government's involvement in the media has really declined |
| 1:04.4 | radically. |
| 1:05.4 | I'm Quintitjurezik and this is the LawFair podcast July 8, 2021. |
| 1:14.3 | The news business in America is in crisis. |
| 1:17.6 | In 2008 and 2019, newspapers in the US lost half of their newsrooms. |
| 1:24.5 | Journalism jobs lost during the pandemic number in the tens of thousands. |
| 1:29.4 | Local news is suffering the most with cutbacks across the country and many communities left |
| 1:33.9 | without a reliable source of information for what's going on in their area. |
| 1:38.8 | Why is this a crisis not just for journalists but also for democracy? |
| 1:43.5 | We turned to that question this week and today's episode of our Arbitus of Truth series on |
| 1:48.2 | the online information ecosystem. |
| 1:51.4 | Evelyn Duac and I spoke with Martha Minow, the 300th anniversary university professor at |
| 1:56.6 | Harvard Law School. |
... |
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