Press Protection as Anticorruption

As the partisan press of the Founding Era gave way to the commercial press of the nineteenth century, then to the professional press of the twentieth century, American journalism assumed an increasingly skeptical attitude toward governmental power. Today, the investigatory and information-spreading functions of the “fourth branch” are more important than ever to checking public corruption in a vast administrative state. At the same time, the press faces financial crisis, threatening the anticorruption interest. This Essay evaluates three mechanisms for shoring up the corruption-fighting role of American journalism: (1) constitutional speech protections for the corporate form taken by most modern news outlets; (2) the enactment of reporter shield laws at the state and federal levels; and (3) government subsidies for public broadcasting.

No single method is a panacea, but each serves its own role in strengthening the vicious bite of our public watchdog.