Case Half-Closed: The Hutchins Commission’s Indictment of Pressure Groups for Media Manipulation

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-1-2019

Publication Title

Media History

First page number:

1

Last page number:

14

Abstract

In A Free and Responsible Press (1947), the Commission on Freedom of the Press excoriated the performance of news outlets and laid blame on owners and managers. When the Commission began its work in 1943, though, it focused on an additional culprit. Pressure groups, according to the Commission, were propagandizing, issuing threats, and distorting media coverage. Pressure groups fell off the Commission’s agenda, in part because members and staff were unable to agree on whether the groups were democratic or antidemocratic forces. The Commission missed an opportunity to help shape subsequent debates over the anticommunist blacklists and other forms of nongovernmental media censorship.

Keywords

Journalism and social change; Journalism history; Political communication

Disciplines

Journalism Studies

Language

English

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