1. Media Censorship’s Effect on the American Public
By:
Adam M. Blazek
The recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael
Brown, at the hands of a Ferguson county police officer, sparked not only national debate on
racial inequality but also on the media coverage of the entire situation. The Aug. 9 altercation
between Michael Brown and Officer Darren Wilson resulted in a life lost and a national spotlight
fixated on the city of Ferguson. In a National Public Radio (NPR) article, author Eric Deggans
pointed out several important issues regarding media coverage of polarizing events. One issue is
that cable news channels fine-tune coverage for a target audience. In an effort to boost ratings,
media outlets tend to appeal to their viewers. At MSNBC, Rev. Al Sharpton has been a strong
advocate for the victim’s family which aligns with the station’s status as 2013’s most-watched
among black cable news viewers (Deggans, 2014). Fox News personalities like Bill O’Reilly
and Sean Hannity mirror the views of their target audience in their coverage of racial issues like
the Ferguson shooting, challenging the notion of white privilege and insisting there is little racial
bias among institutions like police departments (Deggans, 2014). Often times the media and its
reporters or anchors do not ask the right questions. By right questions, Deggans referred to the
lack of thorough reporting on the deeper issues of a situation. Because African-Americans are
disproportionately poor – 27.2% below the poverty line compared to 9.6% non-Hispanic whites
(Gabe, 2013, pg. 6) – and poverty leads to more crime, does that affect the murder rate and crime
rate among blacks? Deggans suggested questions similar to these need to be discussed rather
than tackling a difficult story – like Ferguson – in a 5–minute panel debate. But often times,

2. talking about an issue as large and complex as systematic racial inequality becomes much more
difficult in times of crisis.
It’s the Catch-22 of covering racial issues. The public tends to pay the most attention
after a calamity: someone is dead, has been hurt or victimized. But in that moment, the
public debate becomes polarized. People are more focused on winning arguments than
understanding other perspectives and cherry-pick data to serve their own side (Deggans,
2014).
This type of close-mindedness, or censoring, hurts public discourse and only intensifies the
tension and distance between either side of the debate. News and the speed required to publish
information to the American public can damage public trust toward news outlets and in the case
of Ferguson, the judicial process as well. In an interview with TIME.com, U.S. Attorney
Richard G. Callahan expressed frustration with the public demand for immediate judicial results.
“The modern 24-hour news cycle hampers law enforcement’s ability to conduct a successful
investigation,” Callahan told TIME. “While the lack of details surrounding the Ferguson
shooting may frustrate the media and breed suspicion among those already distrustful of the
system, those closely guarded details give law enforcement the best yardsticks for measuring
whether witnesses are truthful” (Von Drehle, 2014).
According to a communication theory discussed by Vu, Guo and McCombs (2014) in the
Journal & Mass Communication Quarterly, America’s media and subsequent coverage have
great power on the public perception of events. The Network Agenda Setting Model is the third
level of agenda-setting theory. Agenda-setting theory assumes that issues are transferred through
salience – prominence of an event dictated through media coverage – from the media to the

3. public. There are three levels to the agenda-setting theory. The first level implies that news
media can affect what the public thinks about. The second level further states that the media
have the ability to influence not only what the public thinks about but the public’s perception
about events and how objects are viewed. The third level to agenda-setting theory, Network
Agenda Setting, makes a connection between how often multiple issues are reported upon – at
the same time – and the topics interrelationship that can be retrieved by the public later. Thus
claiming that the way news media associates issues will influence the public’s perception,
creating network agenda. “The Network Agenda Setting model hypothesizes that the salience of
interrelationships among objects and/or attributes can be transferred from the media agenda to
the public agenda” (Vu et al, 2014). Often referred by Vu et al. (2014) as “the picture in our
heads,” this agenda is a collective mix of major public issues and news topics presented by the
news media to the public. If one news topic is dwarfing all other topics, it is also more likely
that the general public will notice the issue that is heavily reported upon. An example would be
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. This collection of world news presented every evening
sets the agenda for what the public will be thinking about and discussing the next day at work.
The usual gamut of economy, war, politics, and health news coverage can drive home stories or
topics into public discourse. Another interesting notion came from an empirical study based on
data from Texas elections from 2002 through 2010. “This study found that the interrelationships
among political candidates’ attributes emphasized by the news media had significant links with
the public’s perceptions” (Vu et al., 2014, p.670). This connection to the Network Agenda
Setting theory proves not necessarily shocking, but eye opening. Studies now have proven that
what the media covers and displays, especially in events as impactful as elections, directly affect
how the public view objects. And even more interesting, Vu et al. (2014) and their study on the

4. Network Agenda Setting model found that media network agendas constructed by online news
media had the “strongest correlations” with agendas constructed by other media outlets. The
internet’s popularity and power now affect what stories television, radio, and newspaper cover,
according to the Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly’s study. When there is a
relationship between intense media coverage of a certain issue and public attention toward the
same issue, it can be referred to as agenda setting. So with such powerful influence on society,
what should be asked of the media?
The media have three functions as described by Louis Alvin Day in his textbook Ethics in
Media Communication – information, persuasion, and entertainment. The media must provide
information to help citizens understand and learn about various topics in society. News media
must also be the ones to keep the government in check. The media must provide a forum for
persuasion, editorials, discussion, and advertising for the public. The media must be a platform
for enjoyment, providing an escape from reality or a display of art that teaches and delights (Day,
2005). In 1947, the Hutchins Commission was put together by Robert Maynard Hutchins and it
offered a list of guidelines for the media to abide by. The Hutchins Commission generated five
essential duties for the media.
First, the media should provide the public a truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent
account for the day’s events in a context that gives meaning. Second, the media should serve as
a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism. Third, the media should project an accurate
representation of the constituent groups in society. Fourth, the media should present and clarify
the goals and values of society. Fifth, the media should give full access to the day’s intelligence
providing the public’s right to know (Bowles, 2000).

5. Nowhere in the media’s Hutchins Committee functions or guidelines does it advise
censorship. The public turns to the news media as its platform for information on scientific,
political, foreign, domestic, and educational topics among others. Liisa Antilla in her 2010
journal entry for the Public Understanding of Science states: “The lay public relies on experts to
understand such topics, and the one platform that exists for the continual discourse between
experts and citizenry is the mass media” ( p. 243). Without a transparent media, people will be
under informed or misinformed.
One example of media bias, which is directly related to media censorship, is the
American news coverage of the Haitian earthquake in January 2010. Murali Balaji, author of
Racializing Pity: The Haiti Earthquake and the Plight of “Others” argued that the American
media framed the natural disaster as white America helping pitiful black Haiti. Balaji argued
that the news coverage of the Haitian earthquake highlighted civilized America helping
dysfunctional Haiti. Balaji stated that the United States media framed the disaster having pity on
Haitians rather than empathy. According to Webster’s Dictionary empathy is defined as “the
intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of
another” and pity is defined as “sympathetic or kindly sorrow evoked by the suffering, distress,
or misfortune of another, often leading one to give relief or aid to show mercy.” This slight –
whether accidental or not – distinction between empathy and pity by the media now framed a
story and may have unconsciously planted the seed of pity rather than empathy in the public’s
mind.
The media helped fuel this viewpoint by emphasizing Haiti as dependent on international
aid for many years. The disaster aid efforts of American citizens and charity organizations were
highlighted in news coverage while those who were receiving the assistance became a second

6. thought. “The Haiti earthquake was a textbook example of how do-gooders became the
privileged subject of stories, while Haitian victims blurred into the background as merely the
objects of the good deeds” (Balaji, 2011, pg. 55). Balaji pointed out American media bias or
censorship through the coverage of mainly negative stories regarding blacks. He claimed that
the media frame the non-white members of society with dialect such as violence, chaos,
dysfunction, and hopelessness. Teun Van Dijk (1989), a European scholar in the fields of text
linguistics, discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis, wrote in his paper Mediating
Racism: The Role of the Media in the Reproduction of Racism:
According to dominant (Western) news values, the media favor stories about negative
events, and such stories are generally recalled better, especially in the case of outgroup
members. This means that there is a complex ideological framework in which intergroup
perception, prejudices, White group dominance, cognitive strategies as well as
journalistic news values all contribute to the negative representation of ethnic minorities
in the press. (p. 204)
One communications theory that often coincides with the previously discussed agenda-
setting theory and produces credibility for Balaji and Van Dijk’s claims is the framing theory.
Framing theory, as described by Erik Knudsen in his 2014 entry titled Media Effects as a Two-
Sided Field: Comparing Theories and Research of Framing and Agenda Setting is defined as the
“central organizing of ideas or story lines that provide meaning to an unfolding strip of events”
(p.210). Knudsen goes on to define framing theory as a media effect that relates to how a
message is presented, rather than what is presented. The choice of words, images, video, music
and tone are some major factors that contribute to the way a story is framed. Inherent in news
media is the idea that a story must be framed. Every story has an angle. Not every story that

7. comes into a newsroom can be broadcast or published. One of the most cited definitions of the
term framing is from Entman’s 1993 definition:
To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a
communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, casual
interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described
(as citied in Knudsen, 2014, pg. 209).
This theory in some essence is a component of censoring. The idea that a story is conveyed in a
deliberate fashion suggests the decision to include some information and speak about it using
particular words. Framing theory is very similar to agenda-setting theory’s second level which
states that the media have the ability to affect the public’s perception.
A non-censored news media is vital to America’s democracy. The media that regulate
the content of modern communications are deciding what many citizens will see and hear about
events of the world. What the public is exposed to shapes its thoughts and opinions on
important matters that individuals will eventually bring into public discourse and potentially
make important decisions about. Barry McDonald (2012), in Censorship & the Media, points
out three ways media could be censored and thus impede communications flow throughout
society. The first type of censorship comes from the choices that media organizations make as to
what material will be published or left out. This decision is also known as editorial discretion. A
reality in news media is that some content is always censored out. This type of media self-
censorship can be good or bad – positive or negative – according to McDonald. Editorial
discretion must be practiced to continue to produce news, but how or why these decisions are

8. made is what is important. Bad self-censorship occurs when distributors of content are “chilled”
into altering or withholding information from the public by the prospect of legal sanctions.
An example of this was the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan Supreme Court case of 1964.
In a time of segregation and racism, newspapers in the South were hesitant to publish anything
claiming businesses or people were racist for fear of libel lawsuits (United States Courts). In
other words the papers were “chilled” from publishing certain topics. The New York Times Co.
v. Sullivan case resulted in the “actual malice” standard, which required the plaintiff in a lawsuit
to prove the publisher of the statement in question knew that the statement was false or acted in
reckless disregard of its truth (United States Courts). After this ruling, civil rights journalism in
the South during the 1960s was free from chilling and could report the facts. Fifty years later,
the Times v. Sullivan ruling has had an impact on just about every free speech and free press case
for the past half-century, influencing everything from how we accept debate and tolerate speech
we disagree with to our legal definitions of privacy, obscenity and indecency (Gutterman, 2014).
According to McDonald, good media censorship includes:
Decisions to withhold the name of rape victims or information that might harm national
security interests (in both cases, of course, where the costs of disclosure are deemed to
outweigh the public benefits), which is made possible by First Amendment protections –
namely, a right to silence embodied in Court decisions that have protected the exercise of
the media’s editorial discretion to publish certain information or not. (p.103)
The second type of media censorship is personal self-censorship. Many people censor
themselves consciously or subconsciously. Choices like what websites individuals go to for
news content or what news stations they watch will become the sources of their viewpoints and

9. potential self-censorship. Online news creates different dangers because of the vast availability
of information. According to McDonald (2012), “The Internet creates new risks along with its
benefits, because users now ‘pull’ the information they seek rather than having that information
‘pushed’ to them as had been the case with more traditional media channels” (pg. 107). One
particular danger that the Internet and its information overload presents is the ability for users to
only seek out ideas and information agreeable to them. The web user has effectively censored
differing views resulting in a lack of full understanding and impaired thought process. “Not only
is public discourse impaired, but so too is an individual’s ability to think broadly and in a fair-
minded way” (McDonald, 2012, p.107).
The third type of media censorship is from the government. Since the government has
such intrinsic power, it can censor the media at times. The government influences large media
conglomerates and has caused substantial censorship by the media of war critics and anti-war
campaigns, according to McDonald. The most recent example of this pertains to the war in the
Middle East. The Media Research Center, a self-proclaimed American media watchdog and
advocate for exposure of left wing bias, and the Pew Research Center performed a study in 2005
on news media and the war. The study looked at a public group and 72 of the top American
journalists and how each viewed the Iraq war and the war on terror during the Bush
administration. The public was nearly even split on whether the U.S. should have invaded Iraq
in 2003, but among journalists, 71 percent said they considered it a bad decision. Similarly,
while the public was split half and half on whether the war in Iraq would help or hurt the U.S. in
the overall war on terror, three times as many journalists said the war in Iraq had been harmful
(Media Research Center, 2009). Are the media censoring their true feelings on the war in their
publications? Were journalists writing about the truth or about what their editors told them? The

10. surprisingly large difference in opinion on the war in Iraq between everyday citizens and top
American journalists makes one wonder if the media publish the facts or if the government is
influencing them. The failure of adequate questioning by media outlets on the Iraq War
justifications seems to hint toward media censoring.
A serious case of government censorship comes in the case of soldiers killed in war that
are transported back to American soil. From 1991 to 2009, the media were never allowed to
photograph the coffins as they were taken out of the carrier airplanes. President George H.W.
Bush implemented the policy and under the blanket restriction, the media have been barred from
photographing the flag-draped caskets of about 3,850 U.S. service members killed in action since
2001 (Kruzel, 2009). President Obama has since removed the complete ban and now requires
the media to acquire family consent to photograph. This is one example of the power the
government has. Another form of government censorship is the withholding of documents
related to national security. McDonald (2012) argued in his paper Censorship & the Media that:
Government officials routinely over-classify information that does not present serious
national security risks, not only because it is an easier way to go but also because
knowledge is power, and government officials do not share that eagerly or wish to
provide their potential detractors with any more information than they have to.
(p. 110)
This is a fine line the media and government must walk. Similar to government censorship of
information to the media, military court cases and closure requests also flirt with media
censorship. Some media want the courts to adopt the presumption of access that the Supreme
Court established in the First Amendment right of access cases, where the media are granted the

11. right to attend trials, rather than the presumption of secrecy or deference that they contend
govern cases involving the denial of access to national security information. According to
McDonald, allowing the public and media access in terrorism trials, except when secrecy is truly
necessary for national security, maintains transparency in our judicial proceedings. With
transparency comes public trust and confidence that the government is fairly handling trials.
McDonald (2012) notes:
Citizens must have confidence that the government is not only effectively fighting
terrorism, but also that the government is doing so in a fair and just way – for instance, in
a way that does not target persons because of their ethnicity or religion, or that does not
target non-serious threats in order to claim victories in the war against terror. (p. 109)
These acts of transparency could build public trust in the government and the media. In
summation, the three ways the news media can be censored are by the media organizations
themselves, by media consumers conscious or subconscious self-censoring, and by government
restrictions.
The censorship of media affects the news and ultimately the public sector. Glenn
Halbrooks, author of the online article “How Media Censorship Affects the News,” speaks of
five ways media censorship blocks information and affects citizens. The first way occurs when
media are protecting a person’s privacy. When teenagers – minors – commit certain crimes,
their names are withheld in an effort to protect the youth from potentially more harm down the
road. But, when a minor commits a crime and is charged as an adult, the information can then be
released. The second way information can be censored from the public is when news media
report on graphic situations. This type of censorship withholds information for the benefit of the

12. reader, viewer or listener. According to Halbrooks, “Every day, someone commits a heinous act
of violence or sexual depravity. In newsrooms across the country, editors have to decide
whether saying a victim ‘was assaulted’ suffices in describing what happened.” Censorship of
this sort is designed not to leave information out but rather to spare the audience the often
gruesome, disgusting details. The third way media censorship affects the news involves
concealing security information. When WikiLeaks.org posted more than 250,000 secret United
States documents, lawsuits were immediately filed to shut the site down. In February 2008 a San
Francisco federal judge ruled in favor of a bank that had documents leaked by a disgruntled ex-
employee exposing asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion (Liptak & Stone, 2008).
WikiLeaks.org was disabled and shut down. A fourth way that news media censorship affects
consumers is by corporate interests. One example includes Comcast, a cable television giant,
and its hiring of a former Federal Communications Commission executive who voted for
Comcast’s merger with NBC while with the FCC. A counselor at a Comcast-funded summer
camp for teenage girls tweeted his negative opinion regarding the new hiring; the camp’s
$18,000 of funding was pulled shortly thereafter (Halbrooks). This is a prime example of how
corporate interests affect the public. The media are attempting to censor public discourse in
order to please the financial support of its organizations. The fifth way media censorship affects
the public is through political bias. Often news outlets lean left or right in terms of political
stances. The news coming out of these stations would then, hypothetically, be censored to align
with the agreeing interests. A survey done in 2000 by the Pew Research Center and Colombia
Journalism Review found that: “self-censorship is common and that a significant percentage of
news professionals ignore stories because they conflict with the interest of the news organization
or advertisers” (Antilla, 2010, p. 243).

13. There are three major news outlets with perceived biases – Fox News, CNN, and NBC.
The left-wing Democrats accuse Fox of being biased against them and anti-Obama. A four-
minute video produced by Fox News’ cable channel morning program, Fox & Friends, created
controversy over what seemed to be an ad-style, Republican campaign video on its newscast.
The video – aired May 30, 2012 – had an ominous soundtrack and had clips of disheartened
news anchors talking about the economy, debt and high gas prices (Caldwell, 2012). The video
had clips of sarcastic graphics containing President Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan words of
“hope” and “change.” In response to the immediate controversy, Fox News Executive Vice
President of Programming, Bill Shrine released a statement covering the network saying: “The
package that aired on FOX & Friends was created by an associate producer and was not
authorized at the senior executive level of the network” (Caldwell, 2012). Sounds like an excuse
for biased reporting.
On the other hand, right-wing republicans claim CNN and NBC are biased against them.
According to a 2013 online article on The Guardian by Dan Roberts “Republicans voted
unanimously to boycott CNN and NBC during their next presidential primaries in protest to what
they claim is media bias in favor of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.” The Republican
Party felt because NBC was running a four-hour mini-series about Hillary Clinton that the news
station was biased. “A network that spends millions of dollars to spotlight Hillary Clinton is a
network with obvious bias and that is a network that won’t be hosting a single Republican
primary debate” (Roberts, 2013).
With so much media censorship and media bias, how does one combat this issue? Well it
is a two-pronged approach. The responsibility lies not solely on news media outlets, nor does it
lie directly on consumers of media, but rather somewhere between the two. News organizations

14. have a duty, as discussed at the beginning of this paper, to provide complete and truthful
information in a context that gives meaning. John Stuart Mill, famed philosopher and author of
Utilitarianism, Liberty, and Representative Government, pointed out four arguments against
censorship. These news outlets must avoid the many forms of censorship and these four points
provide just reason for the media to do so. Mill’s first argument against censorship according to
David Ward’s 1991 piece titled Philosophical Issues in Censorship and Intellectual Freedom
was that:
The opinion which is attempted to be suppressed by authority may possibly be true.
Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible.
They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other
person from the means of judging. (p. 85)
Secondly, even if the censored opinion was mainly false, it still may contain some small portion
of the truth, therefore justifying its existence. Third, Mill states that simply knowing the truth is
not enough. Without rich and stimulating discussion of a topic and its justification, the truth will
be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth. Lastly, Mill argued against censorship saying that
without full understanding through vigorous debate, the truth may be in danger of being
forgotten (Ward, 1991, pg. 86).
So the media have a responsibility to give all facets of a story so as not to leave out the
truth. But the consumers of news must also take responsibility and discover the truth in every
story through a wholehearted pursuit. Also, media consumers must be aware of the various news
outlets that allow them to search for differing viewpoints. Media consumer loyalty to one news
station is in itself media censorship. Variety is critical to avoiding self-censoring. Another

15. solution to media censorship is the opposition of large conglomerations of media interests. Often
referred to as gang reporting, having all of the news media outlets covering the same issues at the
same time are censoring out other potential stories or information. Since, as the textbook Ethics
in Media Communication stated, one of the functions of media is to keep the government in
check, then so too must the media be kept in check. Media watchdog groups, however left-wing
or right, provide at least comment and criticism of the media. Without examination of the media,
thesis papers like this would not be written. The media must be monitored as well.
Media censorship is clearly present in the United States, though not as obvious or
extreme as in countries like China or North Korea. Whether the censoring is done by the
government, the media consumers, or the media outlets themselves, it is happening. This
censoring of information directly affects the public and its discourse. The framing of stories, the
political connections, the advertising and corporate interests, and the choice of language all
affect how the public understand a topic. According to Antilla (2010), “Our daily news diet
influences how we as societies interact within and across cultures. As news distributors, media
are central institution of modern life, or put another way, create our social consciousness” (pg.
241).
Society cannot be content with censored information. A problem must be properly
defined before a solution can be molded. The decision to no longer accept media censoring must
be made individually, after one comes to the realization of the threat censorship contains. John
Stuart Mill came to that realization in the 19th century when he said:
Censorship, then, is undesirable because, whether the ideas censored are true or not, the
consequences of suppression are bad. Censorship is wrong because it makes it less likely

16. that truth will be discovered or preserved, and it is wrong because it has destructive
consequences for the intellectual character of those who live under it. (Ward, p. 86)

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