Boundaries and Journalistic Authority in Newspaper Coverage of the Hutchins Report

Abstract

In the weeks following its March 1947 release, the much-anticipated Hutchins Commission’s report on the press prompted intense US newspaper coverage on both news pages and in editorial columns. Using textual analysis, this study examines these reports on the Commission’s work, and builds on the research of Margaret Blanchard, Victor Pickard, Stephen Bates, and others. It finds that newspapermen immediately began working to stake their claim to journalistic authority amid the rise of broadcast. Newspapers took great pains to tell audiences that they, more than any other entity, answered to their customers’ interests. This paper argues that with radio thriving and the rise of television just around the corner, print news coverage of the report’s release largely marked an early case of newspapers attempting to set boundaries and establishing themselves as the true “press” that was willing to take responsibility on its own terms and knew its audience better than other mediums.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Carolyn Kitch, Kristina De Voe, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable guidance and feedback on this manuscript.

Notes

1 William Albig, “Book Department,” review of Commission on Freedom of the Press: A Free and Responsible Press, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 253, no. 1 (September 1947): 242–43.

2 Victor Pickard, America’s Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 124.

3 Robert C. Hutchins et al., Commission on Freedom of the Press: A Free and Responsible Press (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947).

4 Jerilyn S. McIntyre, “Repositioning a Landmark: The Hutchins Commission and Freedom of the Press,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication, no. 4 (1987): 136–60.

5 Stephen J.A. Ward, The Invention of Journalism Ethics (London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), 222–23.

6 McIntyre, “Repositioning a Landmark,” 138.

7 Hutchins et al., Commission on Freedom of the Press, v.

8 Ward, The Invention of Journalism Ethics, 223.

9 “Royal Commission on the Press,” The Scotsman, March 27, 1947.

10 “American Press Inquiry,” Guardian and Observer, April 13, 1947, 4.

11 Margaret A. Blanchard, “The Hutchins Commission, The Press and the Responsibility Concept,” Journalism Monographs 49 (May 1977): 52.

12 McIntyre, “Repositioning a Landmark,” 153.

13 Stephen Bates, “Media Censures: The Hutchins Commission on the Press, the New York Intellectuals on Mass Culture,” International Journal of Communication 12 (2018): 4784–4801; Stephen Bates, “Is This the Best Philosophy Can Do? Henry R. Luce and A Free and Responsible Press,” Journalism History, 95 (2017): 811–34.

14 Stephen Bates, “The commission and its lessons,” Communication Law and Policy, 3 (1998): 141–61.

15 Pickard, America’s Battle for Media Democracy, 124–89.

16 Ibid., 195.

17 Ibid., 177–81.

18 Stephen Bates, “Prejudice and the Press Critics: Colonel Robert McCormick’s Assault on the Hutchins Commission,” American Journalism, 4 (2019): 420–46.

19 Anthony Nadler, Making News Popular: Mobilizing U.S. News Audiences (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 153.

20 Hutchins et al., Commission on Freedom of the Press, 1–2.

21 Blanchard, “The Hutchins Commission.”

22 Juliet Corbin and Anselm Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2015), 85–105.

23 Teun Van Dijk, News as Discourse (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1988), 1–82.

24 Barbie Zelizer, Covering the Body: The Kennedy Assassination, The Media, and the Shaping of Collective Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 8.

25 Matt Carlson, Journalistic Authority: Legitimating News in the Digital Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 182–83.

26 Matt Carlson and Seth C. Lewis, eds., Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices and Participation (New York: Routledge, 2015), 2.

27 Hutchins et al., Commission on Freedom of the Press, v.

28 Carlson and Lewis, Boundaries of Journalism, 9.

29 Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials (Los Angeles: Sage, 2016), 187.

30 Van Dijk, News as Discourse, 40.

31 “Editors Ask News Pacts,” Baltimore Sun, April 20, 1947, 3.

32 Marquis Childs, “Report on Press Freedom Emphasizes Self-Restraint,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 28, 1947, 10.

33 “US Press Hailed as Best in World,” New York Times, April 7, 1947, 25.

34 Sidney Shallet, “US Slipping in Atomic Race,” New York Times, April 19, 1947, 1.

35 “Lilienthal Grateful to Free Press; Urges Atomic Educational Plan,” Baltimore Sun, April 20, 1947, 3.

36 “Editors Seek Free News Flow for All Nations,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1947, 9.

37 Walter Lippmann, “On Criticism of the Press,” Boston Globe, March 27, 1947, 14.

38 Walter Lippmann, “Outsiders Can Best Criticize the Press,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 27, 1947, 8.

39 Barry Bingham, “Report on the Press Sound in Some Respects, Disappointing in Others,” Courier-Journal, March 28, 1947, 6.

40 Frank Hughes, “A Free Press (Hitler Style) Sought for U.S.,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 27, 1947, 38.

41 “Professors and Freedom,” Wall Street Journal, March 28, 1947, 4.

42 “Report on a Commission of Freedom of the Press,” Chapel Hill Weekly, April 4, 1947, 2.

43 J.M. Lalley, “Posting the Books,” Washington Post, March 31, 1947, 6.

44 “Report on a Commission of Freedom of the Press.”

45 Associated Press, “Editors Cite Radio Needs, End Study After 3 Years,” Daily Boston Globe, March 28, 1947, 40.

46 Associated Press, “Radio Falls Short in Public Service, Group Reports After 3-year Study,” Washington Post, March 28, 1947, 11.

47 Jack Gould, “New Cure for Radio,” New York Times, March 30, 1947, X9.

48 “Discipline of Press by Public is Seen,” New York Times, April 3, 1947, 23.

49 Associated Press, “Press Criticized, Defended,” Baltimore Sun, April 7, 1947, 14.

50 Edward T. Folliard, “Nation’s Problems Debated for Editors,” Washington Post, April 18, 1947, 2.

51 “A Much Needed Analysis,” Chicago Defender, April 5, 1947, 14.

52 “A Much Needed Analysis,” 14.

53 Blanchard, “The Hutchins Commission,” 9.

54 “Free Means Free,” Wall Street Journal, April 7, 1947, 6.

55 Blanchard, “The Hutchins Commission,” 43.

56 Pickard, America’s Battle for Media Democracy, 195.

57 Shallet, “US Slipping in Atomic Race,” 1; “Survival Seen Based on Military Force,” New York Times, April 22, 1947, 22; Lewis Wood, “Sulzberger Urges Responsible Press,” New York Times, April 18, 1947, 19.

58 “The Press and Criticism,” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1947, A4.

59 Walter Lippmann, “On Criticism of the Press,” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1947, A4.

60 “A Free, Responsible Press,” Christian Science Monitor, March 27, 1947, 24.

61 Marquis Childs, “Report on Press Freedom Emphasizes Self-Restraint,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 28, 1947, 10.

62 Walter Lippmann, “On Criticism of the Press,” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1947, A4.

63 “Press Responsibility,” Washington Post, March 30, 1947, B4.

64 Wood, “Sulzberger Urges Responsible Press,” 19.

65 Ibid., 19.

66 Associated Press, “Editors Hear Sulzberger,” Baltimore Sun, April 18, 1947, 15.

67 Blanchard, “The Hutchins Commission,” 52.

68 “Professors and the Press,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 27, 1947, 22.

69 “Fortune Finds ‘Free Press’ Not So Free,” People’s Voice, April 4, 1947.

70 J.M. Lalley, “Posting the Books,” Washington Post, March 31, 1947, 6.

71 Associated Press, “Editors Hear Sulzberger,” Baltimore Sun, April 18, 1947, 15.

72 Edward T. Folliard, “Nation’s Problems Debated for Editors,” Washington Post, April 18, 1947, 2.

73 Folliard, 2.

74 “US Press Hailed as Best in World,” New York Times, April 7, 1947, 25.

75 “The Press and Criticism,” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1947, A4.

76 Associated Press, “Editors Hear Sulzberger,” Baltimore Sun, April 17, 1947, 15.

77 “The People Speak,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 16, 1947, 10.

78 “Professors and the Press,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 27, 1947, 22.

79 Ibid., 22.

80 R.L. Duffus, “An Analysis of Our Mass Media,” New York Times, March 30, 1947, BR1.

81 Michelle Hilmes, Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922–1952 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 1997), 271–72.

82 Matt Carlson, “Metajournalistic Discourse and the Meanings of Journalism: Definitional Control, Boundary Work, and Legitimation,” Communication Theory, 26 (2015), 349–68.

83 Victor Pickard, America’s Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 164.

84 Walter Lippmann, “On Criticism of the Press,” Washington Post, March 27, 1947, 9.

85 Bates, An Aristocracy of Critics, 133–35.

86 Bates, An Aristocracy of Critics, 90–1.

87 Gwyneth Mellinger, “Conflicts of Interest in Journalism: Debating a Post-Hutchins Ethical Self-Consciousness,” American Journalism 34 (2017), 386–406.

88 Michael McDevitt, “In Defense of Autonomy: A Critique of the Public Journalism Critique,” Journal of Communication, 53 (March 2003): 155–64.

89 Blanchard, “The Hutchins Commission,” 53.

90 McIntyre, “Repositioning a Landmark,” 153.

91 Fred S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson and Wilbur Schramm, Four Theories of the Press: The Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility, and Soviet Communist Concepts of What the Press Should Be and Do (Freeport, NY: Books For Libraries Press, 1973), 1–6.

92 Pickard, America’s Battle for Media Democracy, 194–95.

93 Nadler, Making News Popular, 153.

94 Curtis D. MacDougall, The Press and Its Problems (Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown Company, 1964), 501.

95 Stephen Bates, “Media Censures: The Hutchins Commission on the Press, the New York Intellectuals on Mass Culture,” International Journal of Communication, 12 (2018): 4792.

96 Blanchard, “The Hutchins Commission,” 31.

97 “Press Responsibility,” Washington Post, March 30, 1947, B4.

Additional information

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Patrick Walters

Patrick Walters is an associate professor of English at Kutztown University in eastern Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses in journalism and mass communication. His research interests include media ethics, newspaper ownership, and the changing nature of media gatekeeping in journalism. His research has appeared in Journalism, Digital Journalism, Newspaper Research Journal, Literary Journalism Studies, Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication and other publications. A former reporter for the Associated Press, Walters’ journalistic work has appeared in the USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and other publications. He holds an M.F.A. in creative nonfiction from Goucher College and a B.A. in English from the University of Virginia. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Media & Communication Ph.D. program at Temple University, where his is working on a dissertation about journalistic collaborations.