The Newspaper that Touts Chilling Effects

One would think that a newspaper – in the business of printed and online speech – would wish to reduce chilling effects, that is, threats of lawsuits or government action that might intimidate citizens into refraining from the exercise of free speech rights. 

One might think that about some newspapers, but for the Janesville Gazette a lawsuit against a student for comments about his UW-Whitewater professor is a chance to opine against online speech, generally.

I have no idea about the merits of this case (it may be sound), but it’s simply strange for a newspaper to seize on this as a general warning against speech. 

Here’s the Gazette‘s editorialist on what this lawsuit says to students in America: “Other students, in college or high school, should proceed with caution before risking similar fates amid today’s proverbial Wild West of online commentary.”

See, Our Views: Students must proceed with caution in criticizing instructors.

Next up for the editorialist: (1) Keep Off My Lawn, (2) Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: Benign Media or Radical Plot Against America? and (3) Why Don’t You Leave the Thinking to Movers and Shakers Like Me?

The editorial follows the line of argument in Greg Peck’s blog post on the subject from last week.  

Reading the Gazette is sometimes a sad and frustrating experience.  It’s like watching a ship slowly sink while the crew fuss with passengers over whether everyone has the right dress for a formal seating. There’s a value to proper attire; formal clothing means little when waves are washing over the ship’s decks.  

The Gazette‘s saddled with a crony-capitalist editorial opposition to free markets, has an editorialist-blogger who whines about how hard he has it (in working-class Janesville), publishes editorials that distort developments at Whitewater’s meetings, and frequently pushes views that are mediocre effort after mediocre effort in defense of insiders’ big spending. 

It’s a multi-million-dollar paper where all that money’s not enough to arrest decline, not enough (seemingly) to cure a profound cluelessness about new media. 

Wisconsin has a robust blogosphere, of left, center, right, and libertarian.  I’d never be so foolish as to trade places with those of an old media outlook. There are precious few independent bloggers anywhere who’d make that trade. 

Stodgy, befuddled, and perhaps embittered: a whole world of independent publishing and free expression is simply a ‘wild west’ to this editorialist.  One could remind of Clay Shirky’s Shock of Inclusion repeatedly, but it would either be misunderstood or simply ignored.  

That’s why, despite generations of publishing, old newspapers struggle, while other, dynamic papers and websites flourish.