Book Review: America’s Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform by Victor Pickard

Abstract

America's Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform. Victor Pickard. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 247 pp. $85 hbk. $29.99 pbk.In the 1940s, according to Victor Pickard, the decline of New Deal liberalism and other economic and societal changes presented window of opportunity to reform the American Media system. In America's Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform, he chronicles the efforts of grassroots activist groups, progressive policy makers, and media consumers to make the American media system more responsive to the needs of a democracy and less driven by commercial imperatives.Pickard presents three case studies: the so-called in which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) attempted to assert greater authority over programming policy and the major radio networks; the Fairness Doctrine, which replaced the FCC's ban on editorializing with a requirement to balance other points of view; and the work of The Hutchins Commission, bankrolled by Henry Luce, the publisher of Time and Life, to stipulate policies for the proper function of the press in a democratic society. In this endeavor, Pickard builds on the work of others-most notably Robert McChesney-who have chronicled the efforts of reformers in the 1930s to fight the dominance of commercial interests in formulating media policy. Even though these earlier efforts came essentially to naught, Pickard contends that in the 1940s there were still opportunities to chart a different course for the entrenched commercial media system.Each of Pickard's case studies follows a similar trajectory. First, media reformers propose structural changes that seek to emphasize the public service responsibilities of media. Second, the proposals get watered down to the point of being-at best-modest tweaks to the commercial system. Third, the industry howls in protest and eventually discredits even the watered-down proposals. Finally, we are left with what Pickard calls corporate libertarianism, in which corporations are granted individual doms, and unregulated marketplace is alleged as the best way for the media to meet the democratic needs of society. 10.1177/1077699015625201In the case of the Blue Book, New Deal FCC chairman James Lawrence Fly and fellow progressive commissioners sought to address radio's programming shortcomings by going after the major networks: CBS and NBC. After much deliberation, what emerged was an assertion of the FCC's right to consider programming practices in license-renewal decisions, and somewhat vague requirements that stations run less advertising and more public interest programming. Although public reaction to the Blue Book was initially positive, commercial broadcasters, as Pickard notes, responded as if their very existence were in question. The National Association of Broadcasters claimed that the FCC was seeking to control and censor radio programming, and the industry's leading trade magazine, Broadcasting, wondered if the Blue Book had been cribbed from the Nazis. …