The privilege of irresponsibility

Like the rest of the country, the American press enjoys full freedom of expression; but unlike any other group or individual (except, perhaps, criminals who have bribed the po]ice to abstain from prosecution), it enjoys the unique privilege of not being held accountable for the deaths, injuries, and property destruction caused by its misinformation. The only limitation of this special privilege is that journalists may not wield the knife, gun, toxin or other lethal weapon with their own hands; they are required, in the manner of Mafia godfathers, to rely on trigger-men or manipulated killers.

This may sound strong, but I will make my case by comparing the media's exemption from accountability to two counter-examples.

The first is the proverbial man shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Like the press, he is not restricted by prior restraint (at least not by the government's; he is mostly restrained by his fear of being trampled to death). Yet he is so obviously a wrongdoer that the Supreme Court invented him as an example of not being able to claim First Amendment protection against being held accountable for the bodily harm he caused.

The second counter-example is that of a corporation's liability for a faulty product or unsafely provided service. Here there are endless examples not only of accountability, but of accountability exaggerated beyond all reason: the company that had to pay workmen's compensation for two employees who fell off the roof while engaged in stealing its copper gutters (the theft, ruled the judge, was performed during working hours); or the damages paid to the "victim" when a strap broke while he was running a race with a refrigerator on his back; or the class action in the case of Agent Orange with not a single injury tied to the alleged cause.

Compare this, for starters, with the 72 premature deaths per delayed gigawatt of nuclear power per year due to presently used and unreplaced power sources. Although these figures are demonstrable and undisputed, they are covered up under a flood of fraudulent information about the alleged absence of safe nuclear waste disposal and the dangers of radiation. Why is this information less fraudulent than that of the fictitious "Fire" shouter? It differs mainly in killing more people.

But it is the second group that provides the more damning comparison. In the Karen Silkwood case, Kerr-McGee was con-demned to $10.5 million damages in flagrant disregard of its undisputed proof of having meticulously observed every safety precaution prescribed by law. Compare this with the editor of the Boulder, Colo., Daily Camera, who does not merely misinform on all nuclear matters: on one occasion he actually boasted of throw-ing out, unopened, any report sent to him by the Atomic Industrial Forum. That is, he boasted of his intentionally main-tained ignorance, or more probably malice, before misinforming and panicking his readers with harangues about nuclear waste and allied matters; and though the damage inflicted is clearly larger than that Kerr-McGee was even accused of, he is guaran-teed total exemption from responsibility.

Why can the killers practice their trade with impunity? Why are mere comparisons such as I have just made described as "chilling" and an "attack on the freedom of the press?"

No friend of freedom will advocate prior restraint of the press, least of all this writer who is making full use of its freedom. But genuine friends of freedom will insist that all perpetrators of deeds damaging life and limb be held accountable for the conse-quences of their acts.

For freedom without responsibility is the road to Lebanon.