Someone has to set CNN Policy

[Robert Justin Lipkin]

In a message dated 10/31/2001 12:16:37 PM Eastern Standard Time,
volokh at mail.law.ucla.edu writes:


> Bobby Lipkin asks whether "media executives [should] micro-manage news
> reporting" -- I'm not sure what the answer is as a matter of sound
> journalism, but as a constitutional matter I don't see why they should be
> barred from controlling what is said by the organization whose owners they
> represent, and why reporters or producers have a greater right to
> micro-manage what the organization says than the owners' representatives
> have.
>
>
       Eugene's conclusion is clearly correct. I would go further and assert
that in general it is a news executive's prerogative to order her
subordinates to report the news in ways that might appear to be biased,
though there are, of course, important exceptions here. However, in
evaluating a news executive's order I do not believe our choices are limited
to "sound journalism" or doctrinal constitutional analysis.  Indeed, I
believe that constitutional theory contains an arena where questions of
political theory, especially democratic theory, need to be asked.  In this
arena we try to formulate and to understand the kind of democratic theory
that best explains and justifies American constitutional law.

       It must be granted, I would think, that the phrase "constitutional
matter" above is ambiguous between (1) what present constitutional law
permits and (2) what the most attractive theory of American constitutionalism
tells us  about constitution law as well as what it implies about the nature
of the important institutions in a free society?  My original post was in no
way asking a quest of the first kind. (I thought I made that clear, but
regret that I apparently did not.) Rather, I was asking a question of the
second kind whose implications, if any, are extremely important is two
senses: first, questions of the second type potentially have implications for
the correct analysis of doctrinal questions; and second, questions of the
second type help us understand the political responsibilities of those
institutions critical to the efficient and just functioning of American
constitutional democracy. Typically, these responsibilities are not legally
or constitutionally enforceable, but are nevertheless vital to the
understanding and operation of American constitutionalism.

Bobby Lipkin
Widener University School of Law
Delaware
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