Americans ”believe they believe” in free expression but, upon close inquiry, ”it is obvious that they don`t,” according to a national survey released here Friday.
”It is unlikely that voters would support freedom of the press,” if it was put on a ballot today, said John Seigenthaler, chairman and publisher of the Nashville Tennessean, as he outlined the survey`s results at the annual meeting of the National Society of Newspaper Editors.
One of the many dispiriting findings for editors in the survey of more than 2,500 adults was that just 36 percent would allow journalists to keep sources confidential even if authorities wanted to know. Also, 34 percent would not allow reporters to even report mistakes made by a politician 20 years earlier.
”After nearly a year of surveying, it is apparent that free expression is in very deep trouble,” states a 281-page report done for the editors by Robert Wyatt, a journalism professor at Middle Tennessee State University and David Neft, research chief for Gannett Inc., the nation`s largest newspaper chain.
Only about one-third of those asked would protect absolutely a citizens`
right to buy magazines with nude pictures, and only about one-fifth said they would protect at all times the use of slang words referring to sex, or what the survey tagged ”a right exercised by many Americans every day.”
Those asked repeatedly said they supported free speech but would give the press far less protection than, for example, political speech. Those same people displayed what Wyatt called an inability to distinguish between what the law protects and what they dislike personally.
Typically, 70 percent supported a citizen`s right to advocate a candidate for political office, but only 36 percent would give complete protection for keeping sources confidential.
The same one-third who would protect the right to buy a magazine with nude pictures weren`t naturally disposed to protect publishing those magazines.
Only 20 percent said they would fully protect that right to publish.
Dozens of questions were asked about protecting specific actions, with respondents being queried as to whether they would protect such acts all the time, sometimes or not at all.
Fairly sizable numbers would not protect many acts at all.
That included keeping sources confidential (16 percent), allowing newspapers to editorialize about an ongoing political campaign (28), reporters criticizing the military (23), reporting classified material (48), reporting national security stories without government approval (45) and reporting
”sexual habits of public figures” (42).
Americans display ”an alarming willingness to remove legal protection from forms of free expression they disagree with or find offensive. That is, they only believe that they believe in free expression,” said the report.
The survey discerned sharp demographic differences from the results. Males are more tolerant of most free expression rights than females, and blacks are less protective than whites.
The well-educated and well-to-do economically tend to be the most tolerant.
The study reiterated that a large plurality, and frequently a majority, oppose protection for freedoms of expression that ”do not remotely affect the national security but merely represent things members of the public disagree with or dislike.”
”This is a predicament,” the study concluded, ”that would have made James Madison and Thomas Jefferson shudder.”
