Ideas@TheCentre
Back to 1643? Bob Brown and the press freedom time machine
What agenda did Greens leader Bob Brown have for calling for greater media regulations? Surely, by now, we understand free speech and free press are necessities for a healthy democracy. Should governments be concerned with the editorial tone of the press?
Apparently for Greens leader Bob Brown, first out of the blocks with calls for greater media regulation in response to the recent News of the World hacking scandal, the answer is ‘yes’.
Brown perhaps drew inspiration from the great tradition of newspaper licensing in England.
For nearly 200 years after the invention of the printing press in around 1440, the British Crown exercised strict control over the fledgling print media. Anyone who dared to criticise Charles II in print was severely punished.
A power struggle between the King and the Parliament in the mid-1600s, in which each tried to use the press to generate public support, led to these controls being effectively and dramatically loosened. Within 20 years, the number of news publications rose from just a few to around 300.
Unfortunately, this nascent freedom of press was short-lived.
The British Parliament passed the Licensing Order on 16 June 1643 to bring the press more firmly under government control. The order required that all printers submit their work to official censors before publication. In the following decades, the number of printers and publications plummeted.
Liberals immediately saw the debilitating effect the order would have on political freedom. John Milton’s 1644 polemic Areopagitica (for which he incidentally did not obtain a license) was a blistering critique against the licensing regime, which he argued was a not-too-subtle attempt at state-sponsored mind control.
Milton’s thoughts became the basis of modern arguments for free speech and free press as a necessary condition of a healthy democracy.
Almost 400 later, it seems not everyone has learned this lesson. Maybe Brown has not read Areopagitica? Maybe he just wants to go back to 1643?
Jessica Brown is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
