Idaho editor discusses First Amendment and the media
Roger Plothow, editor and publisher of the Idaho Falls Post Register, visited Utah State University Wednesday to speak about the current state of the media and the First Amendment.
“The public is increasingly confused about what is legitimate, what is real,” Plothow told a class of journalism students Wednesday morning before his Media and Society lecture. “That is the reason I am interested in speaking to university students and readers in general, because they are media consumers who need to understand.”
Plothow said it can be argued that if given a straight-up vote today, the First Amendment wouldn’t pass.
“Lots of people’s first instinct is that the idea of the First Amendment is terrible, and that scares me,” he said. “Free speech is easy for us when we are talking about things we agree with. We don’t need protection from what’s warm and fuzzy, but we do need to protect what is obnoxious and controversial.”
Plothow, who said he has worked for nearly every daily newspaper in Utah, emphasized obtaining a broad base of knowledge, having a wide variety of experiences and doing good research as the most important steps a journalist should take.
He carried these points into the Media and Society lecture, sponsored by the department of journalism and communications.
His presentation, entitled “I’m all for free speech, it’s the newspapers I can’t stand,” which is a line from a Tom Stoppard play, began with a clip from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
Plothow said the scene is a satire about how power comes from the people, but said he thinks some have handed over the rights and promises of the First Amendment.
“To read Gallup Polls that show 33 percent of Americans think the First Amendment goes too far and 33 percent believe there is too much freedom of the press – that shows me we don’t understand that promise,” he said.
Things are messy and people are trying to clean them up, Plothow said. “But we’ve lost sight that things have always been messy.” The important matter, he said, is to encourage dialogue and see that people are not actually as divided as it appears.
“When you make compelling arguments, people say, ‘yeah, you’re right, I hadn’t thought of that,'” he said. “That’s why I want to go to these places, because by talking about it, people get it.”
He said, in general, more speech is better, and it is by trying to clean things up that people get into trouble.
“Cleaning things up is patronizing. At the end of the day, I really believe you can take it, we can take it,” he said.
Plothow said he isn’t suggesting individuals should become coarse as a culture, but that they need to become culturally sophisticated while embracing free speech. The leading place for this to be practiced, he said, is on university campuses, where “free speech ought to be guaranteed more than anywhere else.”
Plothow then read codes and rules from national universities that he said demonstrate the restriction of free speech, including USU’s rules on the topic. He quoted one portion regarding associations between students and faculty, which says interactions should be “conducted with courtesy, civility, decency and concern for personal dignity.”
Plothow laughed and said he understood the spirit in which that was written, but disagreed.
“If you expect people in the real world to always treat you in a ‘civil manner,’ you’re gonna be disappointed,” he said. “That is not the way it works. You shouldn’t regulate speech on a university campus.”
He said he believes in Oliver Wendell Holmes’ theory, the “marketplace of ideas.” If someone has a good idea, they should put it out there, Plothow said. “The good will rise to the top and the bad ideas will be exposed for what they are.”
He said he thinks people are ready to hear those ideas, but recognizes everyone’s threshold for indecency is different. “I argue, let things go. If people want to say or view things you are uncomfortable with, especially in private, then let them.”
Plothow also gave his opinion on the question of “shield laws,” or laws which protect a reporter who refuses to divulge a source.
“Resorting to unnamed sources has become a crutch for the American media,” he said. “I don’t support a federal or state shield law, but I’m definitely in the minority in that.”
Ted Pease, head of the department of journalism and communication, asked Plothow how concerned he is with the current state of the media. Plothow said while the statistics he mentioned on public opinion toward free speech are cause for concern, there has never been a better time to be involved in the media.
“The impact we can have is enormous. Though it is hard work, there is no more rewarding business to be in.”
-lindsaykite@cc.usu.edu