Herbert Hoover and Media

President Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) had some encouraging words for discouraged citizens plagued by today’s one-sided approach to media. A Republican who rose from son of a blacksmith to become the president of the Unites States, his administration faced the Great Depression.

The former president warned of the dangers that a mass communication system controlled by one way of thinking would sway the nation into “untruth”. The 31st president wrote to the book The Challenge to Liberty in 1934 saying:

“Bureaucracy has already developed a vast ramifying propaganda
subtly designed to control thought and opinion…The constant use of the
radio, the platform, and the press, by device of exposition, news and
attack with one point of view, becomes a powerful force in transforming
the nation’s [mentality] and in destroying its independent judgment” (pp.
135-136).

Herbert Hoover stressed the importance of opposing viewpoints in media forums in order for the viewers (or listeners) to form their own opinion on a matter. He wrote in The Challenge to Liberty:

“Who may define Liberty?…It is far more than Independence of a nation…It
is not a catalogue of political rights…Liberty is a thing of the spirit—to be
free to worship, to think, to hold opinions, and to speak without fear—free to
challenge wrong and opposition with surety of justice…Liberty conceives
that the mind and spirit of man can be free only if the individual is free to
choose his own calling, to develop his talents, to win and to keep a home
sacred from intrusion, to rear children in ordered security…It holds he must
be free to earn, to spend, to save, to accumulate property that may give
protection in old age and to loved ones” (p. 2).

“Liberty dies of the water from her own well—free speech-poisoned by
untruth” (p. 17).

“In many democratic states [revolution] has meant the imposition
of a new philosophy, changed ideas and changed ideals without their
opening submission to the people, and often without the people recognizing
its approach until it has become a reality” (pp. 14-15).

The former leader of the free world stood for fairness, balance, and accuracy in media. Americans should stand for nothing less today in their own day and age.

Jeremy Hempel is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.