U.S. journalist Tucker Carlson, who lost his job at the right-wing platform Fox News after he dialled up criticism of the country’s foreign policy in the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is making waves this week, by announcing his plans to interview Russian president Vladimir Putin, which no other U.S. platform would do. Mr. Carlson pointed out that endless interviews of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on multiple U.S. platforms were merely propaganda, “not journalism.”
At the Jaipur Literature Festival recently, the ‘Closing Debate’ was on whether free speech will survive surveillance technology and privacy invasions. While reflecting on how old surveillance and speech control was, a bit from World War I history came in handy for me. Woodrow Wilson, often celebrated as a progressive president, tried to control information when he decided to take the U.S. to the war. He started a Committee on Public Information, headed by a muckraking journalist, George Creel. It deployed an army of volunteers, called ‘four minute men’, who would appear at any place with a small gathering of people and deliver a four-minute propaganda speech. Wilson also outlawed criticism of the government under espionage and sedition acts, and the Supreme Court upheld it. At least 1,500 people were arrested; 400 periodicals were disallowed from using the postal services, which was also authorised to intercept mails.
Before free speech, there has to be free thought. Without free thought there is no free speech. Dominant groups try to control both thought and speech in a society. Thought is controlled by propaganda and speech by censorship. Various forms of propaganda and censorship have existed throughout history. But at no time have dominant groups acquired as much power as they have today, to control both thought and speech.
