Power Of The Press In Russia And U.S.   

Yeltsin knew when he climbed atop a tank that the world was watching.

The power of journalism – of public knowledge about ongoing events – was demonstrated awesomely in the Soviet Union's failed coup.

There were lessons for the U.S. journalism establishment in what happened there – lessons about the need for more and better news coverage at a time when most American media companies instead are cutting back.

Most pundits seemed bent on attributing the Soviet coup's failure to everything except what was probably the most important factor. The difference this time from earlier putsches was not that the plotters made up a "Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" but that everything they tried to do took place in the public eye.

Boris Yeltsin is no doubt a courageous man, but he knew when he climbed atop a tank in front of the Russian republic's "White House" that the world was watching. The plotters knew this, too, and it fatally hampered their ability to squash him.

Indeed, Yeltsin's success in facing down the coup owed a lot to Mikhail Gorbachev, who years before had opened Soviet society to the scrutiny of its own journalists and those of the West. For the first time since the 1917 revolution, public opinion counted.

The plotters did their best to control information from government organs, but there were too many other ways for events to unfold in public view for their efforts to work. The nongovernment newspapers and wire services were too bold and too dispersed throughout the vast country to be easily controlled.

Moreover, there had been too many years in which Soviet citizens of all stripes, including those in the military and the KGB, had become used to knowledge of current events and the right to react to them. Once Pandora's box is open, it is impossible to close it again.

True, the Soviet Union's domestic journalism is not yet market-driven like ours, and not yet wholly independent, but it is probably headed that way. Parts of it are unruly, which is characteristic of newly unleashed freedoms. This lack of orderliness, of journalistic custom, of set approaches to coverage of huge events, contributed mightily to the downfall of the coup's leaders.

Even if the plotters had succeeded in shutting down all Soviet journalism, there were still reporters and cameramen from the West in place to tell the story – again, thanks to Gorbachev's policy of openness. In an age in which satellite transmission to the rest of the world can take place from a hotel room, it is impossible to keep the public uninformed. Even Gorbachev, under house arrest, was able to tune in to the BBC.

The events in the Soviet Union underscored for those of us lucky enough to work and live in reasonably free market societies that a well-informed populace is the major deterrent to loss of freedom.

Freedom is not lost just by a coup ousting a set of officials, but in myriad other ways as well. Every time the public votes or takes any civic action without the benefit of exposure to responsible and complete coverage of issues, some freedom is lost. Every time a public official gets away with abusing his position because the press has not been vigilant, the public loses some freedom. Whenever government shifts decision-making and spending to some quasi-public authority that meets behind closed doors because the press failed to stir opposition to the change, freedom is lessened.

The tragedy in lax journalism is that the public becomes inured to the foolishness and transgressions of government officialdom. A sense of helplessness about the ability to effect change sets in, and there is no better measure of this than a growing disinclination to vote. The Soviet citizenry was helpless for decades, yet while still only partly enfranchised affected history behind the power of information.

Concerns about the breadth and quality of information the public receives should be paramount in any free society. In ours, the responsibility for this lies with media companies, and they are giving us cause to worry.

We read of staff cutbacks and curtailed coverage as the media companies respond to lagging advertising revenue. Yet last year the major newspaper companies that report earnings publicly enjoyed average operating-profit margins of 15 percent, in what has been described as the worst business year for the media in recent memory. Most non-reporting companies likely did nearly as well.

The margin indeed was lower than in former years, and will probably be lower yet this year. But profit even at these reduced levels is superior to what most industries ever hope to achieve.

It occurs to me that the media companies could stand to sacrifice a little more of these profits in order to maintain the broadest, deepest flow of information to the public. It may be a burden in these "tough" times, but it is part of the responsibility for making sure our society remains among the most free on earth. l