Think back to your earliest civics class, the one where you learned the warm and fuzzy version of American history in brightly colored textbooks. I’m willing to bet that one of the first things they taught you about what made America special was the freedom of our press.
By high school, you were reading about Tom Paine and Watergate; in college, you might have watched Good Night and Good Luck. It all probably made you feel pretty good about American journalistic freedom and its role in democracy, but now is an opportune moment for the First Amendment to take a longlook at our government and ask, what have you done for me lately?
An annual report released last week, Reporters Without Borders Worldwide Press Freedom Index, ranked the United States 53rd in the world in the freedom of its press, slipping ninespots since last year’s survey. When the survey began in 2002, the United States ranked 17th. It’s not hard to draw a link between the plummeting ranking and the Bush administration’s active and legally questionable pursuit of any journalist they think might be impeding the war on terror—blogger Josh Wolf, for instance, was imprisoned for his refusal to hand over video footage he shot on a grand jury investigation of an anti-G8 demonstration in July 2005. Unsurprisingly, Northern European countries like Finland, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands are the leaders while North Korea bottoms out the list at 168.
The United States is tied with Botswana, Croatia and Tonga, which—no offense intended to those fine geographic locales—aren’t usually held up as pillars of modern development. Since this generation of leaders has clearly not protected the sanctity of press freedom, it’s natural to look ahead. What has the next generation, post-elementary school civics, learned about the role of journalism?
Since so many Georgetown students harbor secret fantasies of becoming the next Bill Clinton, it’s worthwhile to consider what practical conception of journalism they have absorbed at Georgetown.
Neither The Voice nor The Hoya is currently an independent newspaper, meaning that both publications must ask a panel known as the Media Board for all funding—the University essentially owns both of the papers, and it’s inherently problematic to report on whoever is holding the coffers. While the administration has been consistently supportive of the student press at Georgetown, it is certainly utmost in their minds that they are legally liable for anything that is written. On very rare occasions in the past, it has flexed its muscle and squashed a story—most recently was a planned article in The Voice several years ago divulging how financial wealth was tied to admission. While this was an exception rather than the rule, the threat of this hammer from above does certainly have the effect, however subtle, of making the student press censor itself for fear of rocking the boat too violently.
Georgetown is one of only two schools in the nation’s top 25 without an independent newspaper. Even Boston College and Notre Dame, two schools which have been making headlines recently for their restriction of free speech regarding campus speakers, both have independent student papers. Georgetown likes to style itself as a leading Jesuit center of intellectual openness, and lagging behind Notre Dame on freedom of the press is like the United States being tied to Botswana—the product doesn’t match the advertising.
While the University has stated its support for The Hoya’s push for independence, it refused to relinquish the name, and that proved a fatal sticking point. While their Editor-in-Chief Aaron Terrazas told me that independence is still certainly an option they’re examining, it’s one of many ways they would like to continue to improve their publication. Terrazas was probably choosing his words carefully, but the blunt truth is that the only way for a paper to make a true leap in journalistic quality is to gain greater latitude in selecting and reporting its stories. You can nibble on the hand that feeds you, but chomp too hard and its bound to get mad. An independent paper on campus would have a trickle-down effect on the rest of the student-run media—competition would increase and more stories would be fair game.
Of course, in some ways, a journalist is only as good as the sources they cultivate, and the University works fairly hard in that area as well to anesthetize the student press. The Office of Communications, headed by Eric Smulson, provides reporters with the official University comment on any issue. While Smulson is excellent at his job, there is simply no way one man can be an expert on every story. His position is a device that allows other officials to avoid commenting on their area of expertise and to hold the party line— something might slip in a one-on-one interview. All too often, Smulson has referred reporters to an expert who refers them back to him. The cruel loop never ends. Asking Smulson to be the flak for every aspect of the University is like asking Tony Snow to be press secretary for every single division of the federal government. The University either needs to designate more sub-officers who do what Smulson does, or ideally, simply allow sources to talk freely.
Sports writers have it even worse, though—they can’t even approach a student athlete unless they first ask a Sports Information officer, who must be present for an interview. Any email questions must first be read by that same officer before being passed onto the athlete. After a tough loss, the officers have been known to push writers into interviewing only coaches. It’s their job to protect the athletes, but these students are adults and are able to handle such situations on their own. A reporter can’t push it too hard if they want to be able to get those all-important interviews in the future.
The analogy between Georgetown and the U.S. government isn’t a perfect one, of course. The Voice isn’t sitting on a story about Jack DeGioa tapping your cell phone (but could I write it if we were? Ponder that one, kids). The administrators who deal with the student press are helpful, good at their jobs and fair—the problem doesn’t lie with them, but rather with the system as it currently exists. One can safely assume that at least a few of the student journalists here will go on to play in the big leagues someday soon, and probably a few editors at The Hoya and The Voice are harboring secret political ambitions. This climate of subtle institutional censorship is the one in which both budding politicians and journalists learn to practice their craft. Assuming that Georgetown students will someday hold these positions of power, any hope that the U.S freedom of the press rankings seems questionable.
