Fact Finders In Media Martyrs

Every society and state will find at least a few eminent ones who stood for free speech down the ages. Some probe can trace the struggle and suffering many of them underwent. Truth and facts are hard to swallow to those embroiled in events and processes far from flattering.  Exactly 185 years ago on November 6 — that is 50 years after the Constitution of the United States was formally declared — something terrible happened to a publisher-editor in the US. He fell to five quick bullets fired by a mob enraged by his newspaper’s anti-slavery advocacy. He was Elijah Parish Lovejoy, America’s first media martyr — more than 30 years before Germany and Italy recorded national unifications.

Abolitionists were shocked by the dastardly attack on the great free speech advocate. They, however, quickly recovered to pay rich tributes to the first media man so devoted to the cause of freeing the nation from trade in slavery. Although it took three more decades for slavery to be declared illegal, the vestiges of enslavement continued for more than 125 years. 

There is no denying that racism manifests in various forms even today in a country that wants the world to reocognise it “the greatest democracy”. The black population, now referred to as African-Americans, obtained the right to vote only in 1965 without any discriminatory restrictions earlier imposed on them. This was slightly over 40 years after all white women were given the voting right, that is, after 135 years after the US was formally form as an independent state.  

America’s first 

Lovejoy suffered so much and had to pay with his life for advocating against slavery in a country like the US, where so much is loftily credited to the long deliberations on various aspects of the draft Constitution by many bright and brilliant brains. That was at the time when people in the vast colonial territories risked enormously greater challenges and worse hardships. Among the other highly harsh and brutal independent states until the 1940s, the tales of any one daring to defy traditional views and the practices the ruling class wanted observed without question offer an insight into the then style of governance and social adherence.

So a newspaper editor in first few decades of the mid-19th century, like Lovejoy, had to bear far more loud jeers than occasional, barely audible whispers of cheers. Passionate conviction in his belief and missionary zeal made him defy the overwhelmingly powerful sections of American society that profited from slavery. Requests, followed by threats of dire consequences or outright intimidation did not deter Lovejoy. Those who shared and admired his stand did not come out in public to support the cause the bold editor pursued. 

Even today, well into the 21st century, news media are extremely reluctant to peg their stories on the Lovejoy killing that produced their first media martyr, in an indication that not all was well with the state functioning and social outlook even as the US boasts of being the greatest democracy — and a republican at that. 

Not happy with a teaching career, the eldest of nine siblings and rejecting his father’s desire that he become a pastor, Lovejoy, in 1827, went to St. Louis in Missouri, a slave state. After brief stint in a number of newspapers, he started the St. Louis Observer that was very critical of slavery and its patrons. Unable to bear the relentless threats to his person and repeated violent attacks on his printing press, the publisher-editor moved to Alton in Illinois state, a slave-free state. 

In all, the editor found his press attacked at least four times for the news and editorial contents the paper carried. His printing press was repeatedly vandalised some of the equipment was thrown into the Mississippi River. Yet, he stood firm in his conviction and refused to wilt under mob fury. Ironically, the pro-slavery mob in the slave-free state attacked Lovejoy’s press on November 6, and criminally fell him down with a rain of five bullets that snuffed out the last breath in him. The media martyr drew massive vocal sympathy and the abolition campaign gained momentum all over the American territories.  

The vandals struck such fear in the general public, that the martyr’s grave was kept more or less a secret to avoid “controversy”.  Some 60 years after Lovejoy’s death for a cause that carried a high moral grounding, some admirers erected a monument in his honour.

Danger zone

Dissemination of information and free speech is always lauded by those who are not adversely affected; others would prefer the information to be no public knowledge. Vladimir Putin in September granted Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden, a former contractor with the US National Security Agency. The whistle blower Snowden a decade ago disclosed to the press classified information for what he perceived as a citizen’s duty to inform the public that numerous people were surreptitiously put under state surveillance. When the US government began legal proceedings for his arrest, Snowden sought refuge in Russia, where he has been living since 2013.

Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks, and Snowden, a whistle blower, are both wanted by the US government for what they disclosed and enormously embarrassed the No. 1 superpower. While the many major media outlets in the US itself have gone scot free for using the information, Snowden was compelled to flee and seek citizenship of another country just as Assange has been met with stony silence from his government in Australia even as Washingtonians exercise every means to put him behind bars for a long time.

Regarded as the founder of Western philosophy, the Greek thinker Socrates, born in the 5th century BCE, said: “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.” The Buddha, two centuries before Socrates, counselled his followers to verify and cross-verify proposals and statements coming from anyone, including Buddha himself. This is an eminent emphasis hard to trace as to who else said so before the enlightened one. Journalism, today and tomorrow, would do well to borrow a lesson or two from fervent advocates of justice and facts.  

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)