A Free Press Cannot Exist Under Threat of Government Retaliation

The founding fathers wanted to make sure that people and publishers could disagree with the King’s version of events without punishment or censorship. That’s why the First Amendment promises free speech and a free press.

Government leaders who dislike a news story are, of course, free to speak out. What they are not free to do is use the power of their office to punish or censor those who publish news that contradicts or questions their policies. They are not free to strip a broadcaster of its license to operate.

Yet, that is what the administration threatens over reporting on the war in Iran.

“Broadcasters . . . are running hoaxes and news distortions,” Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr complained on social media over the weekend.

“The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,” Carr wrote.

He correctly quotes the law. Those who use the airwaves are required to serve the public in a way that newspapers are not. But serving the public does not mean adhering to the administration’s narrative.

Where Carr goes wrong is in confusing the public interest with the administration’s interests. Those interests often diverge, even conflict, which is exactly why we have a First Amendment.

“The press was to serve the governed, not the governors,” Supreme Court Associate Justice Hugo Black wrote in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971. Exposing government deception is “paramount” during time of war, he said, when citizens are called to fight on foreign soil.

That was Vietnam, not Iran, and times were different. But the core mission of the First Amendment has not changed. Then, as now, and as the founders knew in the 18th century, newsrooms, whether print or broadcast, must be free to resist government intimidation without fear of being silenced.

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