When the Chicks were punished even after Maines' immediate apology, it was amazing to see how many of Parker's fellow First Amendment "fans" responded by demonstrating a sudden enthusiasm for music criticism, or career advice for top-selling bands, or for most anything that diverted attention away from the core truth: that an artist's work was being suppressed in response to a mildly intemperate and unpopular political statement.
No, the Chicks-Nix was not a First Amendment issue (as John McCain complained, inaccurately); and yes, it's always fun to mock millionaire celebrities who take their hyperbolic Persecution For Dissent straight to the bank. But a climate in which a popular singer becomes the target of a boycott for a single political sentence is one in which a much less popular singer knows to keep his mouth shut, unless it says something in favor of the Iraq War.
Speech has consequences, obviously, but the ideal consequence is speech in rebuttal, not suppression. This is usually felt most keenly by those who agree with the controversial political statement in question. One of the biggest and most prolific supporters of Howard Stern during the shock jock's FCC trouble this year has been the weblogger Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine.com -- who happens to be a longtime fan of Stern.
Yet just a year ago, the same guy, who has been writing an invaluable Daily Stern roundup of all indecency-related news for several weeks running, found it humorous to refer to the Dixie Chicks as "the Vichy chicks," in part no doubt because Jarvis was just as vehemently in favor of the war that Maines was against.
There are two essential preconditions for the government to infringe upon the free press.
One is a bureaucracy that values its own political existence higher than the Constitution -- a virtual guarantee. The second, much less remarked upon, is a compliant press. When I was getting started in journalism during Ronald Reagan's second term, the ethics and constitutionality of drug testing was a hot topic in the country and especially in newspapers. Now you almost never see it mentioned outside the sports pages, where more urine testing is always better. Not uncoincidentally, most major newspapers now submit new employees to mandatory drug tests. The journalists rolled over, moved on, and quickly grew weary of the topic.
Since reporters probe the First Amendment's boundaries every day, checking their pulses on issues regarding the climate for free speech can be a good preliminary indicator of the patient's overall health. If that's true, then we have reason to be worried -- while the Bush Administration erects wall after wall between the truth and the American people, and adopts policies specifically designed to limit Americans' freedom of expression, some journalists are responding not with howls of outrage, but requests for more.
When the public or the press gives bureaucrats an inch of regulatory authority over speech, the instinct is to take a mile. In March the Senate Commerce Committee came within a single vote of passing legislation that would have expanded limits on "indecency" to satellite and cable.
Much further off the radar screen, the Treasury Department's notorious Office for Foreign Assets Control has issued a series of rulings during the last several months prohibiting American publishers from editing so much as a single comma when printing works originating from Iran, Cuba, Libya, and Sudan, using the absurd argument that it will help "protect American citizens."
Yet some journalists keep egging the government on. In March, Patrick Goldstein, "Big Picture" columnist for the L.A. Times, actually urged Congress to hold annual hearings to grill entertainment executives on whether their product has "any artistic value." Like many critics who conflate the indecency debate with media consolidation, Goldstein expressed support for increasing FCC fines.
How threatening individual broadcasters with penalties of half a million dollars per incident will help "the little guy" is beyond my comprehension. But Goldstein is positively thrilled at the emergence of a coalition to trash the First Amendment: "It's not a pure liberal-versus-conservative issue anymore -- and therein lies hope."
The real hope lies in refusing to let free speech battles be outsourced solely to journalists. In Sandra Tsing Loh's case, after dozens of regular KCRW subscribers wrote in to announce their withdrawal of financial support, General Manager Seymour caved and offered Loh her job back in a better time slot. Loh declined, then moved over to crosstown NPR rival KPCC.
"Unlike so [much] of my other work," Loh said at her victory party, "my firing has proven to be both a critical and popular success." In an ugly election year, one hopes the public support she received will set a precedent.
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