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I'm very much reminded of the Chavez/RCTV story--that bogeyman "dictator" Chavez was "suppressing free speech" by denying RCTV a license renewal to broadcast on the public's airwaves.
In truth, RCTV execs actively participated in the 2002 coup attempt, and should have been prosecuted for treason. But I think the situation after that attack on Venezuela's democracy--with the Bushwhacks in power, supporting the coupsters--was too shaky for a treason trial. Chavez waited, and when their license came up for renewal (after 20 years) he simply did not renew it--which is the right and power of every government on earth (to regulate use of the public airwaves for the public good).
The corpo-fascist news stories about this always left out what RCTV had done, as well as the basic law about the public airwaves common throughout the world. The airwaves are regulated. We once even had a "Fairness Doctrine" here--which required unbiased news coverage and fair political opinion coverage, in addition to laws against corporate monopolies of the news media (both print and broadcast) It worked very well to keep all news media--including print media (which were not directly regulated)--committed to a philosophy of objective journalism and separation of corporate financial interests from news/opinion divisions.
Indeed, Chavez would have been within his rights--as the duly elected president of Venezuela--to deny RCTV a license renewal merely on the grounds of the extremely rightwing tilt of all news broadcasting in Venezuela at that time. Why should a big corporation be favored over small, independent broadcasting businesses or non-profit broadcasters, who could bring more diversity to the public airwaves? Clout? Money? Power? Global reach? Why should these be an advantage in being granted such a license? The truth--of all broadcasting laws throughout the world--is that there is NO RIGHT to broadcast on the public airwaves, and good governments use their regulatory power to try to promote diversity. They lay down rules. They pick and choose. It is--or is supposed to be--a competition. Broadcasters have to apply for a license and establish that they fulfill requirements of serving the public good. All of the broadcasters being rightwing, corpo-fascist propagandists does NOT serve the public good.
But even more than this--even more than the corporate news suppressing this basic information about the PUBLIC airwaves--RCTV had violated the ONE exception to the U.S. First Amendment that had ever been allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court: "Shouting 'fire!' in a crowded theater"! RCTV not only met with the coupsters, and plotted with them, they gave the public airwaves over to the coupsters for propaganda purposes during the coup, while banning all representatives of the Chavez government from TV, and they broadcast outright lies and extremely inflammatory and contrived information, aimed at getting Chavez government officials and Chavez supporters killed.
Using the public airwaves to instigate a coup against the legitimate government is a crime throughout the world, and inflaming mobs and contributing to violence and panic, on the public airwaves, is not "protected speech."
Besides all this, corporations have no inherent right to "free speech." This human right does not apply to them. They are regulated businesses. But even aside from this general principle, what RCTV did broke many laws and seriously endangered the country.
There is absolutely no argument that holds up, that Chavez was doing anything wrong in de-licensing RCTV--nor that his action even "tended to" dampen "free speech." It did the opposite. It encouraged diversity!
But look how it was "spun"--in 'news' story after 'news' story leaving out all context!
This situation in Ecuador has many similarities--including similarity of treatment by the corpo-fascist press--although there are several differences that give me pause (as to "free speech" theory).
One is that it involves print media--not misuse or treasonous use of the public airwaves. At the time that the Fairness Doctrine was instituted in the U.S., it was recognized by everyone that broadcast media have much more potential for abuse than print media. The broadcast airwaves were thus maintained as public property and were licensed for use but not sold, and their content, and especially their political content, was strictly regulated with the aim of balanced coverage. Print media were not directly regulated--although they were certainly influenced by the Fairness Doctrine--because their potential for mischief is so much less. They aren't endemic in every home, with flashy powers of image and sound. You have to choose to read a newspaper, and you have to be able to read, to read it.
TV/radio is much more passive and insidious, appealing to the emotions, the senses and to subconscious processes, and is thus much more of a danger to the public good, if unscrupulous broadcasters try to stir up mob violence or other disorders, up to and including coup d'etats and wars, and also if they use the public airwaves to brainwash people in ways that enhance the corporation's power and riches.
Print media is interactive. You can agree or disagree. You can toss the paper away or use it for cat litterbox liner. You can unsubscribe to it. You can refuse to let it into your home and your life. TV/radio is NOT interactive--or only minimally so. You can switch channels or turn it off but it will always be turned back on. You don't have to think, to watch it. You can vegetate (and thus absorb its messages without thought). The medium itself is "the problem" in this respect. And it uses very subliminal techniques to get your attention (much harder to spot, make conscious and resist than print media propaganda techniques). TVs have become standard equipment in virtually every home in the world. That, and their multi-sensory impact, make TV (and to some extent radio) easy tools for brainwashing.
One further problem--once addressed by our laws, but with no enforcement since approximately the Reagan era--is monopolistic control of print and broadcast media, often combined in conglomerates with many interests, including war profiteer interests. Thus, the corporate viewpoint can be promulgated from many angles, using many different means.
Based on my knowledge and experience of the Fairness Doctrine, I don't know if it's a wise law, in Ecuador, that bans a threat to the state by print media. That this was a threat to the state is pretty clear. To side with the factions of the police and military who rioted and threatened Correa's life--and assaulted him and held him hostage--and against the legitimate police and military forces who protected the elected president's life, is tantamount to treason and certainly to "Shouting 'fire!' in a crowded theatre"--encouraging mob violence; trying to re-inflame a situation that had been calmed down, with incendiary statements aimed at more disorder and riots. But should such statements be disallowed by law in print media? (Also, how incendiary were the statements? Bloomberg doesn't give a clue--and goes ahead and spins this prosecution as "anti-free speech," very likely as part of their effort to create yet another bogeyman "dictator" because they don't like Correa's policies on oil and social justice.)
There are a lot of unknowns, so it is difficult to judge. And Bloomberg is no help, of course. For instance, is El Universo a print and media monopoly? Is its reach beyond just the editorial page? How tight were the Perez's with the rioting police and military? What else had their newspaper--or, if they have one, their media empire--done to promote disorder and treason?
The corporate 'news' stories about Chavez/RCTV edited out all context. Is that occurring here as well? (Probably--if history is any guide.) What are they editing out (besides the things we know about--such as how serious the riots were, and how serious the threat was to Correa and to the legitimate government)?
Both Chavez and Correa--and the big majorities of people who support them and voted for them--have a legitimate, rightful fear of a too-powerful corpo-fascist press. Indeed, a too-powerful corpo-fascist press is a "clear and present danger" to democracy itself. So I can understand WHY Ecuadorans, in voting by a huge margin in favor of their new constitution, approved a kind of "Fairness Doctrine" that covers print media. (Venezuelan voters also approved something similar, in their vote on their new constitution--but that provision has never been used in Venezuela.) They fear coup d'etats. They have good REASON to fear coup d'etats. And they have had a stark example, in Venezuela, of the media colluding on a coup. It has been called "the first media coup d'etat," so central was RCTV's role in it.
But to my Jeffersonian-schooled mind, it's a bit dicey to regulate print media. It is also a bit dicey, in my opinion, to have laws that allow libel suits by political leaders and other public figures. It is very difficult to draw the line between incitement to a coup, or other disorder, and "free speech"-protected criticism. I have no problem whatsoever with the strict regulation of broadcast media, in the public interest, aimed at diversity. And I have no problem whatsoever with the regulation and busting of media monopolies. Both of these things promote rather than retard free speech.
I also think Jefferson was right that newspaper publishing by anyone who wants to do it should be subsidized by the government (with no control of content), and I would extend that, in our era, to public access to all media and means of communication. If people are too poor to have a computer or a telephone, or if they desire studio facilities and can't afford it, it would be a good use of our taxes to provide such access. We NEED to hear all views. Diverse speech is THAT important. It should not be dependent on MONEY--or else you have what we have now: the very rich controlling all news, opinion and information, in print and broadcast media, with the threat that the Internet will soon be theirs as well (and even now, they have the money to create an untoward presence).
Corpo-fascist promotion of their media monopolies by claiming to support "free speech" is the height of hypocrisy. They have ZERO interest in "free speech" for all, and they are in fact anti-democracy. They want THEIR speech to be the ONLY speech that can be heard. They want total control of our minds, our laws, our tax dollars, our militaries, our schools and everything else. I would bust every corporation in the world down to a small business, if I could. Corporations are a bloody menace to freedom and to life itself, including all life on earth.
I therefore know how difficult it is to design good laws in the present, corporate-dominated world. How do you deal with these very rich and powerful elites, when they trash everything good about democracy, promote coups and wars, and even threaten all life on earth, in order to make themselves richer?
How do you design laws that maximize free speech for all, that encourage diversity, that insure against monopoly of the means of communication by the few, and that discourage promotion of coups and wars and other serious disorders by anti-democratic elites?
It's not easy--nor is it easy to ensure that laws are properly and fairly enforced. Virtually all politicians face the temptations of power--no matter how laudable their intentions may be. How do you create laws--and equally important, a legal and social system--that promotes a good and healthy balance of forces within a government and within a society?
This has been THE problem in Latin American countries--entrenched elites controlling everything including the news media. The new constitutions in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia--all duly argued by the people and voted on by the people--have largely been directed at THIS problem--the breakup of a system of governing elites with too much power. Those elites have worked closely with global corporate predators like Exxon Mobil and Chevron and of course with the U.S. government, acting in the interest of such corporations, to maintain themselves in power, at the expense of the majority poor. This has resulted not only in immense suffering but also in a failure to develop Latin American countries in the interest of the people who live there--for instance, with education and health care systems that serve all, with land reform (promotion of family family and local and national food security), with labor rights (decent salaries, benefits and workplace safety, and bargaining power), and with local manufacturing and economic diversification.
Chevron comes in and takes the oil and most of the profits, and leaves an oil spill the size of Rhode Island behind, and power elites like the Perez's SUPPORT this ravaging of the country. They support "freedom" for global corporations but not life for the people in their own country. They and the rightwing set things up that way, in prior governments. The new Ecuadoran constitution, and the Correa administration, are trying to CHANGE that--to institute government "of, by and for the people"--not "of, by and for" Chevron & brethren and their local operatives.
Maybe trying to regulate print media is a mistake. Maybe it's not wise. Maybe it will result in blowback. (A fascist somehow gets elected and starts throwing leftist newspaper editors out of airplanes, using this same constitutional provision as the excuse and cover?) But one thing you cannot say about this law is that it was IMPOSED. It was VOTED ON, after lengthy discussion. The PEOPLE passed it, by a big majority. It was democratically instituted. And the judge (in so far as we can tell) was merely following the law, which is clearly a reflection of the will of the people.
Can "the People" be wrong, or unwise? Yup! But there is no better system ever created for governing, and for the writing and enforcement of laws, than one that is responsive to the will of the people. Democracy tends to correct wrong decisions, lack of wisdom, mistakes, faulty laws. There is no better system for doing so. And, from what I've seen so far, Ecuador's democracy is alive and well--it is, indeed, in far better shape than our own.
In our system, the corrective functions of democracy have been stopped cold. The final anti-democratic coup was the corporate-run 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, which have produced the worst Congress in our history--an egregiously unrepresentative Congress--as well as some fascist coupsters in state governorships, and an outright coup d'etat, in my opinion, in 2004. Ecuadorans are getting what most Ecuadorans want, in their government. We are not.
We may have better "free speech" laws in theory--but what have we gotten in fact, as to the health of public debate in our country? 'How much to CUT the Social Security pensions of the elderly poor, who already can't put food on the table?' That's what WE get, as political debate! Our poor are going to end up having to EAT newspaper, to live. What has the unregulated "free speech" of the corporate print media monopolies contributed to our democracy and our society other than that? They and their broadcast brethren have led us into ruinous, criminal war. They've led us into bankruptcy. They've led us into Great Depression II. They have helped to dismantle whatever protections we had against their corporate/war profiteer misrule. Are they worth preserving in some kind of "sacred cow" status? No, they are not. They blow all "First Amendment" theory away. They should all be, at the very least, dismantled--all the print/broadcast monopolies--and we would do well to use tax revenues, as well as regulatory functions, to create diversity in both print and broadcast media. Jefferson wanted subsidies but no control of content. He is probably right. In theory. Faced with a Murdoch, though--something he can't have imagined, and would be aghast at--would he have been such a purist on "free speech"? He tried to prevent "organized money" from controlling news and opinion. He failed. And we have failed, as a democracy, with one of the chief causes of our failure being this kind of moneyed control of news/opinion--evident all over Latin America, as here. They have transparent vote counting, however! Something to think about!
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