从新闻职业化看西方新闻自由思想的历史演变

From Freedom of Speech to Freedom of News Media: The Historical Evolution of Western Thoughts of Freedom of the Press

西方新闻自由思想的历史发展与新闻媒介职业化历程存在着以下三个方面的互动关系 :第一 ,言论、出版自由最初与报纸无干 ,后因报刊在政治运动中的作用越来越大 ,导致统治者的压制 ,于是 ,言论、出版自由的问题也就延伸到新闻自由 ;第二 ,大众化报纸产生后 ,经济独立带来角色变异 ,成为代表民意、监督政府的独立力量。新闻自由恰为免除政府对报纸的干涉提供了法律依据 ,于是 ,法律中所规定的个体言论、出版自由实际成了媒介———制度的自由 ;第三 ,媒介———制度新闻自由的现实 ,与法律规定的个体言论、出版自由不谐 ,法律界人士遂提出“第四权力”理论 ,试图重新界定新闻自由 ,并使之与原有的言论、出版自由相区分。

It has always been despised by western historians of news if the press marry with politics, especially with any political party. In fact, these historians overlooked the fact that it was the close relationship between the press and politics in the history that made newspapers the important instrument of transmitting opinions and thoughts, and took on the roles that books or pamphlets had played. Therefore authorities or officials have turned their suppressing targets to newspapers just as they had done to books and pamphlets before. Hence newspapers have naturally been linked with the traditional freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and the thoughts of freedom of speech and the press have logically been extended to that of information, and eventually formed the general understanding of freedom of news media by western countries. The relationship between the press and politics or the government has changed radically since the (appearance) of popular press. Keeping political neutrality, representing the public opinion and monitoring the government are the social roles and professional orientation which the popular press have pursued and boosted. The appearance of the public opinion theories and the view about restricting public rights by public opinion in political science since the 1920's provided the theoretical basis for the new roles that the popular press would like to play at that moment. Freedom of the press, which is something that no external force, especially the government, is allowed to interfere with-for example, news gathering and releasing-has made a clear (distinction) between the government and the media and established a legal barrier for the media to perform such functions. When the press became the 'fourth estate', then freedom of the press naturally became freedom of media, namely, a kind of freedom of social organization and institution. Given this, therefore, the original meaning of (freedom) of the press legally referred to the individual, and it could not safeguard the special position of news media in a society, and is not fit in with the reality of (freedom) of news media at present. Potter Stewart, the grand justice of the supreme court of the U.S. federal government put forth the fourth estate theory in 1974, and he argued that freedom of the press is an (institutional) power and the main body of this right is news media but not individual. This assertion shows the radical distinction from the former definitions of free speech and freedom of the press.