A free and responsible press

Author: [US] Committee on Freedom of the Press, Zhan Jiang, et al
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-08-01
Features: In the 1940s, the concentration and monopolization trend of mass media in the United States intensified. Out of concern over the decreasing number of media owners, Henry Luce, founder of Time magazine, invited Robert Hichens, president of the University of Chicago, to lead a group of professors in 1942 to explore the growing issues in the field of mass communication as outsiders and scholars. This research team, later known as the Committee on Freedom of the Press (also called the Hichens Committee), consisted of over a dozen top scholars, including communication scholar Harold Lasswell, each having published an average of 12 books. The committee revised its draft nine times and published its final report, titled A Free and Responsible Press, in 1947, which later became the foundation for the "social responsibility theory" in media.
Around major issues concerning American-style democracy, such as freedom of the press and preventing the abuse of power by the media, the U.S. Committee on Freedom of the Press proposed the following increasingly recognized and important recommendations in this report regarding the role of the press:
- A truthful, comprehensive, and wise report on current events in their contextual meaning.
- A forum for exchanging commentary and criticism.
- A tool for social groups to communicate opinions and attitudes.
- A method for presenting and clarifying social goals and values.
- A channel to deliver the flow of confidence, ideas, and emotions provided by the media to every member of society.