Thoughtful proposals for protecting the integrity of news.
The federal government has a moral and constitutional right to regulate digital platforms.
In the latest installment of the publisher’s Inalienable Rights series, longtime Harvard Law School professor Minow offers a cogent analysis of the contemporary news ecosystem along with suggestions for much-needed reforms. Newton Minow, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and the author’s father, notes in his preface that “two words—public interest—are disappearing from communications policy.” With the dominance of digital sources, he adds, speech has become so democratized “that no one can be heard, bad actors flood social media, and democratic deliberation is damaged.” The author identifies major problems in news access, such as the declining roles of professional journalists and news outlets; the rise of “foreign actors, bots, and manipulative interests” on digital platforms; and the turning over of editorial activity to algorithms. Without reforms, she writes, “access to information, checks on falsehoods, government accountability, and journalism exposing corruption and other abuses of power are all in severe jeopardy.” The Constitution does not preclude governmental intervention, she asserts; “the First Amendment constrains Congress from abridging the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech, but it does not bar actions to strengthen them.” At present, antitrust law, tax law, government subsidies, intellectual property law, and libel and defamation laws all coexist with the First Amendment. Minow examines a series of possible reforms, including requiring payment for news circulated on social media, to help support journalists and editors; curtailing immunity of platforms such as Google and Facebook to liability suits; regulating large digital platforms as public utilities; enforcing terms of service agreements to guard against fraud and deception; regulating and enforcing fraud protections; and supporting nonprofit consumer-protection efforts and nonprofit news sources. Acknowledging that “no one initiative would be sufficient,” Minow underscores the urgency of restoring public interest to communications policy.
Thoughtful proposals for protecting the integrity of news.Pub Date: July 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-19-094841-2
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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