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
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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