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A
MANIFESTO FOR MEDIA FREEDOM |
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The alternative-media revolution of the last twenty years has smashed the liberal monopoly over news outlets and created a true marketplace of ideas. Rather than fight back with their own beliefs, today’s liberals work relentlessly to smother this new universe of political discourse under a tangle of campaign finance reform and media regulations. Bestselling author Brian Anderson and Adam Thierer examine the crucial place of free political speech in our nation’s history, from the feisty polemics of Revolutionary-era pamphlets to the explosion of new media in the twenty-first century. Today, shockingly, freedom of political speech in America is facing sustained attacks unlike anything since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Anderson and Thierer debunk the principal arguments made in support of this counter-revolutionary effort, exposing the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 and recent FEC and FCC regulations of the blogosphere and airwaves as devastating muzzles on free speech. A Manifesto for Media Freedom is both a wake-up call for all Americans who care about their most fundamental rights and a strategy to guarantee an unfettered marketplace of ideas. ABOUT THE AUTHORS Brian C. Anderson is the editor of City Journal, the cultural and political quarterly published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He writes extensively on social and political trends and is the author of the bestselling book, South Park Conservatives: The Revolt against Liberal Media Bias. Adam D. Thierer is a senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation. As director of PFF’s Center for Digital Media Freedom, he analyzes public policy developments that affect the economic and social aspects of the media industry, and especially First Amendment issues. * * * ADVANCE PRAISE "Brian Anderson and Adam Thierer have written an important book about
the future of media freedom and why we must be vigilant in defending
that freedom against unjust and undemocratic regulatory proposals like
the Fairness Doctrine. This timely and concise manifesto serves as a
rallying cry for that cause." "Brian Anderson is that rare analyst who has conducted scholarly research,
edits a distinguished Old Media public policy journal, but has also written extensively on
the importance of New Media and pop culture. He and Adam Thierer were among the first to
grasp how the New Media was reshaping politics and cultural attitudes. That makes
them especially qualified to now warn about the dangers that government regulation is
about to pose to media democratization." "From radio talk to political campaigning, the First Amendment
is under sustained assault. In this concise, thin volume, Anderson
and Thierer demonstrate with concrete examples how a combination
of self-interested politicians, left-wing partisanship, and public
ignorance about technology and media markets have created the most
serious threat to free speech in America since the Red Scare."
"Not even Orwell could have conceived the bizarre threat to free
speech in today’s America by a monolithic mainstream media
of self-described ‘progressives.’ All praise to Brian
Anderson and Adam Thierer who, in their “Manifesto for Media
Freedom,” provide a necessary blueprint to salvage this situation
before it’s too late." |
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