Wes Vernon
Book review: 'Unfreedom of the press,' by Mark R. Levin (reviewed by Wes Vernon)
FacebookTwitter
By Wes Vernon
June 10, 2019

Mark Levin, perhaps best known as TV/radio's hell-raising intellectual, has outdone himself in taking down the media for their attitude, sometimes interpreted as "Hark! We are your betters, thus you must heed our wise words." In his New York Times bestseller Unfreedom of the Press, Levin punctures every form of fakery tossed at a sometimes over-tolerant public. The term "freedom" as applied to today's media – mainly as they deal with what today passes as "news" – often abuses the trust accorded by their readers, listeners, and viewers.

Levin believes this is brought about "through censorship, group-think, bias by omission, and passing off opinion, propaganda, pseudo-events and outright lies as news." Those who have experienced the pressures on the broadcast media from the inside – in those earlier days and today – will nod knowingly as the author roundly criticizes the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

That agency was granted authority in the thirties by a power-mad New Deal Washington to keep radio stations on a short leash. That was enabled by the regulator's more frequent broadcast license renewal schedules that granted President Franklin D. Roosevelt "maximum authority over the life and death of radio stations."

The networks? CBS got the message, and vowed not to permit any broadcast that "in any way was critical of the policy of the administration." NBC also caved. (Donald Trump, not yet born, might have some such authority on that. Today's' media – on the other extreme – rarely let the man up for air. Perhaps Trump's mistake today is in supporting pro-American policies that are anathema to the 21st century's hard left.)

But in the thirties, FDR, whose quest for more authority knew few bounds, indirectly recruited Senator Hugo Black (an Alabama hardline segregationist) to conduct a wide-ranging investigation of anti-New Deal critics, including journalists. Access to tax returns examined by the government in search of smear weaponry in that probe dated back to 1925.

These are mere examples of a volume that is chock-a-block with citations of heavy abusive pressures brought to bear on press freedom – again sadly enabled by the media themselves through their own inclination to act alike, do alike, and think alike...

Mark Levin tells his readers that he wrote UNFREEDOM OF THE PRESS to deal with "the complicated issue" of the media's collapsing role as a bulwark of liberty."

© Wes Vernon

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)

 

Stephen Stone
The most egregious lies Evan McMullin and the media have told about Sen. Mike Lee

Siena Hoefling
Protect the Children: Update with VIDEO

Stephen Stone
Flashback: Dems' fake claim that Trump and Utah congressional hopeful Burgess Owens want 'renewed nuclear testing' blows up when examined

Pete Riehm
Like our Commander-in-Chief, America is clueless, feckless, and powerless

Selwyn Duke
Did anti-white, DEI bias steal a state final spot from a white basketball team?

James Lambert
It’s time to get a Republican (like Steve Garvey) elected to the U.S. Senate in CA. It’s been 30 years!

Linda Goudsmit
Chapter 10: Objective reality is required for a free society

Michael Bresciani
Gay is OK, but trans for kids is on the skids – Have Americans now become judges of evil thoughts?

Linda Kimball
Nihilism…all that exists is matter and energy: The worldview that caused the collapse of Christendom and Protestant Amer

Peter Lemiska
China doesn’t need a Trojan Horse – It has Joe Biden

Rev. Mark H. Creech
Revelation Chapter 22: Getting beyond doubt, Billy Graham’s example

Paul A. Byrne, M.D.
2024 International Gift of Life Walk – NYC

Cliff Kincaid
Biden’s bloody revolution for America

Victor Sharpe
Senator Schumer enters the annals of Shame

Linda Kimball
Prayer against evil, insane Babylon
  More columns

Cartoons


Click for full cartoon
More cartoons

Columnists

Matt C. Abbott
Chris Adamo
Russ J. Alan
Bonnie Alba
Chuck Baldwin
Kevin J. Banet
J. Matt Barber
Fr. Tom Bartolomeo
. . .
[See more]

Sister sites