Readers can now figuratively stand behind journalists at the newsstand, even though there are hardly any newsstands anymore. (cc photo: Ray Dehler/Wikimedia)
Samuel Freedman, author and long-time New York Times writer, often told his journalism students that they needed to keep in mind while writing copy that they wouldn’t be able to literally stand behind their reader at the newsstand. A writer must make their copy as clean as possible, the lesson was, because once it’s printed, they won’t be able to clarify what they meant, or even have any kind of dialogue with the reader.
Journalists don’t live in that cloistered world anymore. The readers, and their reactions, are everywhere. They’re in the comment section, on Reddit and on Twitter. They know what you look like, and they know how to tag you on social media when denouncing your last article. Unlike the typewriter clackers of yore, today’s journalists instantly hit publish, and within minutes their articles are torn apart on social media, both a sign of our advancing technology and the consequences of living in a free society.
Most writers, unsurprisingly, hate this. But over the last few years, this annoyance at the rabble’s elevation in the discourse has evolved into hand-wringing over the future of liberalism. The commentators aren’t just filling our inboxes, they are threatening the enlightenment and free discourse.
‘Fear of being shamed or shunned’
The “free speech problem” identified by the New York Times (3/18/22) is “fear of being shamed or shunned”—with actual government bans on speech discussing racism or LGBT issues treated as a subsidiary issue caused by “the language of harm that some liberals used in the past to restrict speech.”
Hyperbole? Hardly. A New York Times editorial (3/18/22) denouncing liberal “cancel culture” as a threat to free speech has been widely ridiculed. It begins by asserting that the people’s “right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public” must be “without fear of being shamed or shunned.”
As many pointed out, this is a profound misunderstanding of free speech. As press critic Dan Froomkin (Press Watchers, 3/18/22) put it: “The fundamental right is to be able to engage in spirited debate without government intervention. There is no right not to be ratioed on Twitter.”
At FAIR, I have examined the backlash against so-called “cancel culture” for a while now. In coverage of the infamous “Harper’s letter” (7/7/20), I explored (10/23/20) how conservative outrage over social justice “cancel culture” was a form of projection, as the right has a long record of using its power to censor left-wing speech, for example on on the subject of Israel/Palestine. I also pointed out (5/20/21) how a group of conservative Jewish writers participated in the same deceit, painting themselves as the victims of censorship when they have been forceful in their efforts to cancel liberals and leftists–again, especially when it comes to Israel/Palestine.
And recently I have shown (11/17/21) how the Times joined the Wall Street Journal in running a constant stream of attacks against “woke” politics, rendering the word almost meaningless, except the vague idea that any politics west of Clintonian liberalism constituted a threat to Baby Boomers’ opinions on cultural issues.
The most recent editorial is based on a survey of how often Americans have bit their tongues on voicing controversial ideas for fear of a backlash, which is supposed to underscore the fact that we live in an unprecedented age of darkness. The board tells us that we are living under a “destructive loop of condemnation and recrimination around cancel culture,” with people on “the left refus[ing] to acknowledge that cancel culture exists at all, believing that those who complain about it are offering cover for bigots to peddle hate speech.” The paper laments that the “full-throated defense of free speech was once a liberal ideal,” but that this has devolved into intolerance, because criticizing
people in the workplace, on campus, on social media and elsewhere who express unpopular views from a place of good faith is the practice of a closed society.
The Weisman warning
FAIR (8/14/19) pointed out that New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman has a long history of making dubious claims—but generally in the service of conventional wisdom, and therefore unobjectionable.
This latest salvo against “cancel culture” by the Times isn’t a case of hypocrisy or about disempowering the AOC wing of the Democratic Party, but a rather telling case of how establishment media have failed to cope with a changing media landscape that has punctured their cocoons, because, if anything, we live in a media age defined by profound openness.
Consider the case of Jonathan Weisman, a Times Washington editor demoted and relieved of overseeing “the paper’s congressional correspondents because he repeatedly posted messages on social media about race and politics” (New York Times, 8/13/19). In particular, he had said on Twitter (7/31/19) that representatives Rashida Tlaib (D.–Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D.–Minn.) did not represent the Midwest, just like Lloyd Doggett (D.–Texas) didn’t represent Texas and the late John Lewis (D.–Georgia) didn’t represent the Deep South.
Thanks to social media, condemnation was swift (The Hill, 7/31/19; Salon, 7/31/19). Part of the outrage stemmed from the fact that Weisman singled out non-white lawmakers. But even giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming he was referring to the fact that they represent urban areas, the idea that these are somehow culturally detached from their surrounding regions is so asinine that anyone who believes it probably shouldn’t be dictating US political coverage at the Paper of Record. There was probably a time when an editor could have made this elitist comment among friends over cocktails without consequence, but in the age of social media, exposing oneself like this is a liability.
The right to offend—not to take offense
Weisman made a particularly stupid error, but the incident reminded writers at the Times and other establishment papers that an intense backlash to their work could result in editors questioning their roles. Readers amplified by social media have at least a limited sort of check on the power of the press.
The Times admits that the legal challenges against speech are coming mostly from the right. But then the editorial board says:
On college campuses and in many workplaces, speech that others find harmful or offensive can result not only in online shaming but also in the loss of livelihood. Some progressives believe this has provided a necessary, and even welcome, check on those in power. But when social norms around acceptable speech are constantly shifting and when there is no clear definition of harm, these constraints on speech can turn into arbitrary rules with disproportionate consequences.
The irony of people complaining about how they are spoken to posing as free speech martyrs is lost on the New York Times (7/14/20).
Translation: There is too much speech. Conservative writer Bari Weiss wrote in her resignation letter (New York Times, 7/14/20) from the Times: “Twitter is not on the masthead of the New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor.” At first, it seemed that Weiss was either just overly sensitive to tweets criticizing her work, or she was looking for a way to make herself out to be a martyr. But the recent Times editorial indicates that this idea that negative commentary on Twitter towards professional journalists is simply too intimidating, and thus has a chilling effect, is more widely held at Weiss’s former employer.
In fact, the Times editorial deploys the same kind of thinking as the conservative Jewish magazine Tablet (7/21/20), finding the attack on free speech coming from “woke believers” and the “secular left”:
They do not (yet) control the highest levels of government, but they evidently wield considerable power within state, corporate and cultural institutions. In articles, in Twitter mobs and in everyday conversations, they are reshaping our consensus about what counts as a legitimate opinion and what sort of ideas should be allowed to appear in the public sphere.
Again, the problem for free speech here isn’t that there isn’t enough of it, but that the wrong class of people are protected by it. If a professor or a journalist wants to go out there and say things that are controversial, then in a free society that means people talk back. Many times that yields no consequences, as calls to cancel comedian Dave Chappelle for a transphobic Netflix special or podcaster Joe Rogan for spreading Covid misinformation haven’t really hurt their careers. The insinuation is that the right to offend trumps the right to vocally express that one is offended, when, in fact, both should have equal value under the right to free speech.
The Kumbaya doctrine
And what follows in the Times piece is the true chilling effect, a line that seems innocuous but really isn’t: “Free speech is predicated on mutual respect.” Is it? Where is this doctrine of Kumbaya writing into constitutional theory? The American ideal of free speech is predicated on the idea that the government should not control printing presses, dictate what can be said out loud or limit how we peaceably assemble.
Lately, many free speech advocates wonder to what degree corporations, rather than government, are limiting discourse by virtue of the fact that only a few companies—Facebook, Twitter and Google—dominate the Internet. There is no legal argument that we all have to respect and like each other; we simply acknowledge that powerful institutions are not supposed to limit each other’s expression.
This editorial, with its appeal to niceties and decorum, flips this concept on its head, saying that discourse isn’t under threat by state and corporate power but by the fact the 99 Percent—students, readers, regular people—are getting too loud in a media ecosystem that is much more open and democratic than it was for previous generations.
Two decades ago, the late Nation columnist Christopher Hitchens (Wilsonian Quarterly, Autumn/04) observed the tendency of American political commentators to bemoan the intensity of partisan battles. But he noted that “politics is, or ought to be, division,” and that “it is simply flat-out mythological to suppose that things were more polite in the golden past.” A similar deception is happening here with the Times.
What the Times editorial is saying is that protecting the right of writers and academics to say unpopular things requires self-censorship for those who don’t have the privilege of being employed in the intellectual class. A columnist says something transphobic? Don’t you dare tweet about it. A television host engages in some casual racism? Better not put it in your blog, or else you’re contributing to the hostile environment of shaming that leads to self-censorship. Self-censorship by other people, that is, whose right to express themselves is presumably more important than yours.
The Times editorial is less about free speech than it is a protest against a shift in the power balance, anger at a world in which journalists have more exposure to the readership class, and to the reader’s anger as well.
ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com (Twitter: @NYTimes). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your communication in the comments thread.
What does “ratioed” mean please? As in “no right not to be ratioed on Twitter” ?
It’s like when you post something on Twitter, it’s the ratio of the number of Likes to the number of replies to the post. If 100 people replied, but only 1 person liked it instead of 99, or 100 liking it, you got ratioed.
I don’t know what the exact percentages or proportions officially(?) are.
What bothers me most about the NYT and the Washington Post is that they both have had discussion forums for many stories, but for certain issues they just leave them out.
Anything to do with the Ukrainian war seems to deliberately have no way to discussion or post thoughts about, and the few that do, or that marginally touch on it, are so full of Right-wing trolls posting rabid war mongering jingoism, and calling anyone who disagrees with them name that they are useless.
I hope at some point in the future, ASAP, that websites figure out how to promote intelligent commentary and remove troops and noisemakers.
You wrote,” What bothers me most about the NYT and the Washington Post is that they both have had discussion forums for many stories, but for certain issues they just leave them out.”
The CBC and the Toronto Star….do the exact same thing.
I believe…they don’t want Canadians….with credible differing opinions…to share with other Canadian readers….to provide a credible different opinion or…..for ordinary Canadians….to talk back.
Canada has had a serious problem with the, ” concentration of the corporate ownership and the resulting bias, outright lies and omission of the news since the late 60’s. The 1970 Davey Commission warned about it, so did the 1981 Kent Commission. The book by American Professor’s Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky informed the reader how todays public opinion is,” manufactured consent(Lippman) ” .
F.A.I.R. has been,” opening readers eyes” to this problem for at least 25 years. Keep up the good work.
People like Ari Paul love to bring up Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle whenever this subject comes up, but of course they’re not hurt by this – they built their massive followings long before social media had the power it has now and now have nine figure bank accounts that let them endure any controversy.
What matters is that less established entertainers as well as “civilians” in the culture wars see the massive firepower being directed at others for trivialities and decide that self-expression can make yourself a potential target. Writers like Ari Paul are blind to this chilling effect because they already unconsciously practice self-censorship and only produce writing that won’t lead to condemnation on Twitter.
The self-censorship argument is correctly attributed to Professor Noam Chomsky.
Thank you, you’re right. Funny that Chomsky’s argument works so well in this context – it shows that he’s done a great job of identifying the process that leads to journalistic self-censorship regardless of the journalists’ politics.
This spaghetti illogic of goofball terms, like cancel culture, Twitter, Kumbaya, all these hot words mixed together with the latest pretend-adult-sounding tell-it-like-it-is scolding is such a wish-mash of confusion … why publish stuff like this. Is there any point, and if so couldn’t it be a passing thought that could expressed in about 20 seconds. How is there enough money to support people like this, and isn’t paying for nothing, or for a waste of time going to bankrupt some at some point. This and most of the writing here is so pointless. I am glad that there are a few actual people who can think and write – at least sometimes.
The title “New York Times’ Fear of Ordinary People Talking Back” is more interesting and provocative than however many words are following it. And the real problem is that whenever there is actually something that needs to be said and is said well and backed up, there is so much other junk that no one can find it, and if they find it there will be toadies dropping poop all over so there is no way to really perceive what real other people are thinking or saying about it.
Fixing this is first a technical problem, and then one of management and courage.
Your writing is also in desperate need of improvement.
The kumbaya fallacy is a nice way of summarizing it. “You have to respect my belief that oppression isn’t real.” No, I actually don’t.
The result of any debate should show which argument is stronger. But if the goal is to tell people a hoax, say that global warming is a conspiracy, you’re not using the same strategy. What you’re really saying to people is, “Deep down, there is a quiet confusion you feel, a sense of distrust or fatalism that you have never given words, and I’m doing my best to keep you feeling that way.” It’s less of a debate than a constant management of opinion.
It’s Facebook that virulently censors its members who comment, and with an utterly clueless & idiotic algorithm that supposedly monitors “bullying”, “threats”, and/or racism & bigotry, but which gets it wrong most of the time. I enjoy using deadpan humor, satire & hilariously obvious exaggeration since I feel they are sharper at making a point than just a boilerplate rant, and have been “banned for 30 days” so often I wonder why I even bother staying of Facebook. I’m sure I am the first & only person who’s been banned for quoting Zsa Zsa Gabor! LOL
There is a HUGE difference between Facebook and and the New York Times.
So, by declaration of FAIR, Dave Chapelle is a “transphobe” and the Harper’s letter is “infamous” for violating the latest norms of social justice dogma…..?
You ain’t “left” if you ain’t “woke”? Did anyone at FAIR bother to ask “the left” about it? Has Ari Paul informed Chomsky that he, Chomsky, is a reactionary hater of social justice?
This small orbit of censorious scolds seems to mistake itself for the world — and the left — on a regular basis.
Bingo. In today’s world, its my way or the highway. Always double down. Never double check your long held assumptions or biases. All those poor people living in the middle, or better known as fly over areas, aren’t just misguided; they are racially intolerant inhumane pigs who need to ‘reeducated’ in woke camps somewhere.
Chappelle was mentioned here as an example of someone who wasn’t censored.
In the spirit of open discussion, here’s my take.
On gender criticism, he didn’t start with trans people. He started out upset with movies with Black actors dressing up as women. Even though white men (like Robin Williams) also did this, he was uncomfortable about the power dynamic of white movie studio heads setting this up.
Most people just laughed and shrugged, but I suspect it would have been good to investigate at the time whether this was feeding into the “mammy” stereotype, a nice, jolly, wholesome Black woman to make white masters comfortable. After all, even Black actors used to play Blackface. This stereotype was the reason Aunt Jemima was marketed to white people, and later protested.
But I don’t recall any big conversation involving Chappelle, and by now, the discourse on gender is now about how scared the overwhelming majority of us should feel about sexual and gender minorites, much the same we have been told to fear Black men coming after our daughters.
I think Chappelle has always been very funny, but he shouldn’t be seen as a counter balance to society as much as he’s being marketed to be.
Thank you for your comment.
Good article. Additionally, I thought a lot of the algorithms that the big newspapers use for rating their online journalists rated ‘engagement’ very highly, not whether there were positive or negative responses, but how MANY responses there were…? Also, last I heard, ‘Facebook’/‘Twitter’/‘Reddit’ social-media commenters don’t make hiring/firing decisions at these for-profit publications, so why would the critics of these commenters be so worried about what those people say, when commenters represent a small fraction of the readers, and it’s not clear that (for better or worse) that they represent the views of the majority of the readers? Are these critics saying that the newspaper editors are weak/easily-swayed personalities?
(2/2)
Chomsky basically said people should talk about class oppression, and thinks it’s getting ignored.
He does not go out of his way to take a side on the issue of trans or gay rights, but is decidedly sympathetc to them when he does.
To say Chomsky opposes social justice is to fundamentally misrepresent and misunderstand his point.
Thanks for the pushback.
Nobody’s saying anything about Chomsky “basically” opposing social justice. Chomsky was a signatory to the “infamous” Harper’s letter, and Mr. Paul makes no distinctions. That’s plain as day here.
Oppose the current understanding of “social justice” held by a tiny number of self-proclaimed saviors of society and you’re a miscreant. Conflating opposition to this unexamined social justice orthodoxy with promoting Covid misinformation is typical of the tribe. You expect this sort of thing from the very young, with no experience of the world, but what’s the excuse of the adults?
Fortunately for Chomsky and Chapelle, their access exceeds that of the would-be censors.
It’s interesting to see someone saying he is deeply involved in the culture war when the only evidence you can produce is a signature.
Chomsky doesn’t oppose gay and trans rights. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings but it’s a fact.
If the culture war is a swamp of poop, Chomsky is offering people to climb out of it and see the bigger fight against capitalism.
It seems you want to believe he is in the poop with you.
It seems to me this piece does not differentiate between free speech and cancel culture, but in reality they are opposite to each other.
There is a huge difference between pointing out the problems in a writer’s point of view and demanding the writer be punished. The first is free speech, the second is cancel culture.
Jonathan Weisman was a victim of cancel culture. He was demoted. Many other victims of cancel culture have been fired AND blacklisted. He must be feeling lucky it didn’t go that far for him.
Some victims suffered totally undeservedly, as with the guy who used the word “niggardly” in accordance with its correct dictionary meaning but was fired because too many people thought he used a different word.
But even if people do write things that are racist or sexist or insensitive to trans people or whatever, free speech fulfills its healthy societal function when other people argue and disagree – not when they demand that person’s head on a platter.
Frankly, the majority of people didn’t think he used a different word at all. They just objected to the sound of the one he did, which is even worse, in my book.
Cancel culture was invented by the political right and has been deployed numerous times in the past, including against the American Communist Party (the Red Scares in general, really), strike/union busting and of course the sin of criticizing Israel and siding with the Palestinians. In Texas one cannot become a teacher if one supports the BDS movement, for example. What should we call that? Pre-cancel culture?
Also, I don’t know if you recall, but in the runup to Bush’s invasion of Iraq, one was frequently called a traitor and even canceled at work or at school. Ask Phil Donahue – MSNBC’s highest rated personality at the time – about cancel culture.
Exactly
Until I’m cancelled, my writing will be available here: https://wastedink.substack.com/
I “government control” means anything, it means control by those who govern. Farcebook and Twitter censorship represent the views of the billionaires who own those social media, and use them to advance their oligarchical priorities. The Red Lion doctrine of the Federal Communications Commission required fairness in the use of the broadcast media because “the airwaves belong to the people.” The internet also belongs to the people, but the people have no recourse when social media owners censor communications that espouse skepticism about Phizer’s $47 billion profit from its vaccines, or the right of European Jewish settlers to destroy the homes and crops of the native population of Palestine. The internet based “social media” are just as much public utilities as the broadcast airwaves, and as such ought to be regulated and required to permit open debate rather than brainwashing the public by deciding for us what is “misinformation” and what is not.
I support FAIR, and generally agree with its articles. But, in this case, I do not agree with Mr. Paul’s conclusion expressed in the final paragraph. That is not to say that the NYT’s Editorial Board opinion piece is entirely accurate, or even correctly sees the problem of “free speech”. I see it as only as a lead in to their planned series on ‘cancel culture’.
“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” We have a long history of law related to speech, what will acceptable and what will not be acceptable. Therefore, objectively, we do not have “free speech”, that is, the absence of all legal restraints on speech, and we never did. We simply like to think we have this legal right.
What about the NYT’s contention of, “ … a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.” That may be some imagined future (or kumbaya), but it does not represent any actual condition in our USA history. Again, we delude ourselves.
So what is the problem of speech, free or not? Speech often expresses values. If one supports those values, then that speech is “good”. If one does not support those values, then that speech is “harmful”. Harmful speech is immoral, and justice demands action. Those harming us must be shamed, shunned, and canceled Justice requires it. It is a moral imperative.
What protects a “free speech right” claim, if there is any protection at all, is the individual restraint of fellow citizens. If you want more free speech, then you need to stifle your moral indignation. You must tolerate the intolerance of others. Good luck with that.
You lost me at “and a consequence of living in a free society”. What in the world does that have to do with it? Do you really think that people in other, allegedly not “free” (itself such a meaningless construct) countries don’t criticize journalists’ writings? I can guarantee you that they do in some “not free” countries, though I can’t speak for them all. The Chinese, for one, love to find flaws in local media, something many of them do on Chinese language websites quite regularly. Does that mean China is a free society or does it mean that your association of media criticism with living in a free society is merely a cliche that doesn’t actually mean anything?