Imagine a society in which journalists are licensed by the state, credentialed and monitored in a way similar to members of other professional guilds. Assume also that in this society, journalists can be jailed for up to two years for merely failing to register with the state. Further, envision a society rife with constant monitoring and “tailoring” of the news, a society where the news is constantly filtered to ensure that dissenting voices are kept quiet.
Imagine no more—this society is Zimbabwe. And it’s about to get much worse. A new law—blandly but appropriately entitled the Interception of Communications Bill—is being considered that would allow the government to intercept all communications transmitted over the internet. Though the constitutionality of this proposed law is in doubt, many fear that if implemented it would exacerbate the media’s tendency to only print news that is favorable to the government and bury stories that reveal what life is really like in Zimbabwe.
It is fortunate that the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has publicly denounced the law and has vowed to challenge the constitutionality of the bill if it is enacted. But when I was reading this story, I couldn’t help but think that despite trends toward greater media concentration in the United States, our media is free of many of the ills that plague Zimbabwe.
To be sure, an argument could be made that the reporter’s privilege is essentially meaningless (at least in federal courts), though state statutes often protect reporters from being forced to reveal their sources. Judith Miller, remember, was jailed under the authority of 18 U.S.C. § 1826, otherwise known as the Recalcitrant Witness Statute. But the federal government has not adopted a policy of monitoring reporters and sanctioning them publicly when they fail to toe the party line. And unless one sincerely believes that the current Administration’s flirtation with “pre-paid news” reveals a deep tendency in the U.S. media to kowtow to the government’s political vision, I think we (thankfully) are far removed from the kind of heavy-handedness that is asphyxiating meaningful political discourse in Zimbabwe.