Books, Arts & Manners: The Right Books

Perhaps because federal regulation of the electronic media owes so much to Herbert Hoover (“The ether,” he said at a radio convention summoned by his own call in 1925, “is a public medium”), their deregulation has not been of pressing concern to conservatives. However, there is now an excellent little book out called Laissez Parler: Freedom in the Electronic Media (Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403; $4), by David Kelley and Roger Donway, that makes an exceedingly strong—indeed, to my mind, a really unanswerable—case for the proposition that “Democracy would be better served by private ownership and unrestricted markets in the media.”

The authors begin by stating the irrefutable: “Electronic communications is … a regulated industry. There is an old name for the regulation of communications: The name is censorship. The current system does not differ, in principle, from the system of press licensure which the Founding Fathers regarded as a basic violation of free speech. Indeed, the Supreme Court has recognized that such regulation would be unconstitutional if applied to the print media.”

CW

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Chilton Williamson Jr.

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Perhaps because federal regulation of the electronic media owes so much to Herbert Hoover (“The ether,” he said at a radio convention summoned by his own call in 1925, “is a public medium”), their deregulation has not been of pressing concern to conservatives. However, there is now an excellent little book out called Laissez Parler: Freedom in the Electronic Media (Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403; $4), by David Kelley and Roger Donway, that makes an exceedingly strong—indeed, to my mind, a really unanswerable—case for the proposition that “Democracy would be better served by private ownership and unrestricted markets in the media.”

The authors begin by stating the irrefutable: “Electronic communications is … a regulated industry. There is an old name for the regulation of communications: The name is censorship. The current system does not differ, in principle, from the system of press licensure which the Founding Fathers regarded as a basic violation of free speech. Indeed, the Supreme Court has recognized that such regulation would be unconstitutional if applied to the print media.”