Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
“Media, Men and Morality” is undoubtedly an overblown tide, inspired in part by the alliterative propensities of one of the best-known and most vocal of contemporary media critics—former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. The problem it suggests is too vast to be encompassed here, but it is possible to get at some of its aspects in a limited way.
1 The Commission, composed of 13 distinguished teachers and scholars, was established in 1943 by Henry R. Luce—publisher of Time, Life, Fortune, and other magazines—to inquire into “the present state and future prospects of freedom of the press in America.” Robert M. Hutchins, then president of the University of Chicago, was asked by Luce to chair the Commission, which has usually been identified as the Hutchins Commission. Its report, titled A Free and Responsible Press, was published in 1947 by the University of Chicago Press.
2 “The Press Under Pressure,” Chafee, Zechariah Jr., Nieman Reports, 04, 1948, Vol. 2, No. 2, p. 19.Google Scholar
3 “The Press as Mob,” The New Republic, 08 19 and 26, 1972, Vol. 167, Nos. 6 and 7, p. 19.Google Scholar
4 “Before We Forget Eagleton,” Columbia Journalism Review, 11/12, 1972, Vol. XI, No. 4, p. 2.Google Scholar