Unfreedom of the Press

Have you ever wondered why so many Americans no longer trust what they read or hear in the news? In Unfreedom of the Press, Mark R. Levin argues that journalism in the United States has strayed so far from its original mission that it no longer functions as a free press. He contends that the greatest threat to press freedom today does not come from government censorship, autocratic power, or even verbal attacks from political leaders—it comes from the press itself. Modern American media, he argues, have become partisan activists, more devoted to ideological narratives than to factual, objective reporting.

Levin, a constitutional scholar and broadcaster, builds his case by tracing the dramatic transformation of the press from the revolutionary pamphleteers who stirred America’s founding to the politically aligned party-press of the 19th century, to the self-proclaimed objective professionals of the 20th century, and finally to the hyper-partisan, progressive, and self-reinforcing media institutions of the 21st century. He sees this evolution as a steady decline: while the early press championed liberty, today’s press, he asserts, has aligned itself with the ideologies of collectivism and progressivism, frequently echoing the positions of the Democratic Party.

From Watchdog to Advocate

Instead of serving as an independent watchdog of government power, today’s major newsrooms act as amplifiers for one side of the political spectrum. Levin doesn’t argue that journalism should be politically sterile—indeed, early American newspapers were often openly partisan—but he does insist that transparency and honesty about bias are essential. Now, however, the media claim to embody professional objectivity while simultaneously advancing a specific ideological program. This, Levin argues, is a betrayal not just of journalistic ethics but of the republic’s very foundation.

A History Rewritten by the Press

To ground his critique, Levin takes readers through key historical moments. He begins with the “patriot press” of the American Revolution—pamphleteers like Benjamin Edes and Thomas Paine—who used their printing presses to rally the colonists toward liberty. He contrasts them with the modern “activist press,” which no longer fights for freedom but for ideology. He follows how a once dynamic and pluralistic press evolved into what he calls a “Democratic Party-Press,” tracing its progressive roots to early 20th-century intellectuals like John Dewey and Walter Lippmann, who saw journalism not as a reflection of reality but as an instrument for social reform.

Along the way, Levin revisits forgotten episodes where journalists abandoned their duty of truth to serve political agendas—from The New York Times’ willful suppression of the Holocaust and Stalin’s genocidal famine in Ukraine, to the uncritical promotion of Woodrow Wilson’s and Franklin Roosevelt’s propaganda machines. These examples, in Levin’s view, demonstrate a recurring pattern: the press weakening itself by becoming a partner of power rather than its opponent.

The Pseudo-Press and the Age of Propaganda

Levin draws on thinkers such as Edward Bernays and Daniel Boorstin to reveal how modern journalism has become a producer of “pseudo-events” — manufactured spectacles that simulate reality rather than just report it. Whether through anonymous leaks, sensationalized stories, or the constant repetition of partisan talking points, he argues that today’s media often shape public perception rather than inform it. The so-called “Russia collusion” narrative surrounding Donald Trump serves, in Levin’s account, as one of the most striking recent examples of this phenomenon: a politically motivated story that devoured years of public attention, only to collapse under its own lack of evidence.

Why This Matters Now

For Levin, the consequences extend far beyond partisan politics. When the public loses faith in the press’s objectivity, civic trust itself collapses. The press, he reminds us, was intended to be the guardian of truth and a check on power, not an extension of political movements. He closes with a warning: unless journalists reclaim their foundational purpose—to inform the people rather than indoctrinate them—their credibility will continue to erode, and the republic itself may suffer.

In the chapters that follow, Levin explores the press’s transformation in greater depth: the founding era’s revolutionary journalism, the rise of the modern party-press, the myth of professional objectivity, the press’s historical complicity in censorship, and the self-destruction that comes with turning news into ideology. Whether you agree with him or not, Levin’s argument calls on every reader to question not just what the media tells us, but what it deliberately leaves unsaid.

Levin begins with America’s revolutionary press, reminding readers that free speech and a free press were not mere privileges—they were weapons of liberation. The early American printers, pamphleteers, and journalists saw themselves as partners in nation-building. They challenged authority, exposed tyranny, and helped shape the principles that would become the backbone of American democracy.

Pamphlets and Rebellion

Figures like Isaiah Thomas and Benjamin Edes exemplified a press rooted in conviction. Edes’s Boston Gazette became an engine of revolution. It didn’t strive for neutrality—it spoke unapologetically for liberty. Likewise, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense sold hundreds of thousands of copies by directly addressing ordinary citizens in plain language. Paine’s idea that “society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness” encapsulated the revolutionary view that press freedom existed to protect individuals from centralized control.

Freedom through Conviction, Not Neutrality

The press’s role was not simply to inform—it was to persuade, to ignite debate, to mobilize. Unlike today’s claims of neutrality, early printers proudly embraced their biases as expressions of moral purpose. Levin points out that these early voices risked imprisonment and ruin to print ideas that fostered independence. Their loyalty was to truth and the public good, not to the approval of monarchs or advertisers.

When Objectivity Was Dangerous

In the colonial era, objectivity meant silence. A “neutral” press would have meant no revolution at all. The pamphleteers’ courage laid the foundation for the First Amendment’s protections of speech and press. Levin contrasts this spirit with today’s media, often too timid to challenge their own ideological conformity. The early press invited dissent and dialogue; the modern press, he says, suppresses them through gatekeeping and moralizing.

By exploring the patriot press, Levin reminds readers that true journalism thrives on freedom, not conformity. It exists to serve the people’s independence of thought, not to veil power under claims of moral superiority or consensus.

If the patriot press had fought for independence, the 19th-century party-press fought for influence. Newspapers became partisan instruments—sometimes serving politicians directly, often surviving on political patronage. Levin shows how this period, roughly from the 1780s through the Civil War, mirrored the young republic’s political evolution. Every faction had its own paper: Jefferson’s Republicans wielded the National Gazette; Federalists backed the Gazette of the United States; Jacksonians built a vast, loyal network of editors and printers across the frontier.

Rather than pretending to neutrality, party-papers were open about their allegiances. They saw their work as advocacy journalism—and their readers knew it. Levin contrasts their transparency with today’s media, which he describes as partisan but disguised behind a veneer of professionalism.

Politics Meets the Printing Press

Presidential campaigns eagerly exploited newspapers. During Andrew Jackson’s era, Levin explains, the administration rewarded friendly editors with government posts—dozens became postmasters or public printers. Newspapers in turn mobilized voters, spreading “talking points” before the term existed. This symbiosis birthed the first truly national political media machine.

Yet despite their bias, these papers kept debate alive. Citizens were rarely deceived—they knew a Whig broadside from a Democrat circular. Today’s problem, Levin argues, is that major outlets proclaim objectivity while functioning as ideological actors. This concealment undermines public trust more deeply than open partisanship ever did.

The Modern Echo: The Democratic Party-Press

Levin connects that earlier era to what he calls “the modern Democratic Party-Press”—a return of the old alignment but with far greater cultural reach. News networks, universities, and tech platforms now share an ideological consensus resembling that of Jefferson’s pamphleteers—but without the honesty to admit it. In his view, today’s media class unconsciously reenacts the partisanship of its ancestors while insisting it is above politics.

The lesson Levin draws is clear: societies can withstand bias but not deception. A media that openly supports an ideology can still serve democracy; one that hides its bias under the cloak of objectivity corrodes it from within.

Modern journalism, Levin argues, no longer aspires to merely report—it seeks to change society. He traces the shift to the Progressive Era, when intellectuals like John Dewey and Walter Lippmann began to see the press as an educational institution capable of reshaping public consciousness. The goal changed from informing citizens to reforming them.

From Objectivity to Interpretation

By the early 20th century, writers like Dewey proposed that the press should provide not just facts but “meaning.” Reporters increasingly offered “analysis” and “context,” often underpinned by progressive assumptions about democracy, equality, and government benevolence. By midcentury, journalism schools institutionalized these ideas, teaching that news should guide the public toward moral and social improvement.

Levin contrasts this theory with the principles of classical liberalism, which valued individual reasoning over collective indoctrination. Quoting figures like Walter Lippmann—who cautioned against the public’s “bewildered herd”—Levin argues that progressivism redefined journalism as a tool for elite control rather than popular empowerment.

Public Journalism and Moral Crusades

By the late 20th century, this mindset matured into what some academics called “public” or “civic journalism.” Reporters stopped merely covering communities—they consciously sought to organize, uplift, and engineer them. Levin cites media theorists like Jay Rosen, who urged journalists to “improve democracy” rather than chronicle it. The result, Levin insists, is activism disguised as reporting—an implicit conversion of the newsroom into a political campaign headquarters.

In Levin’s analysis, the activist press does not trust the public to think independently. It spoon-feeds narratives aligned with progressive causes, redefining virtue to match ideology. In doing so, it abandons its constitutional role as a guardian of information and becomes, instead, a self-appointed conscience of the republic.

To understand how modern media manipulate reality, Levin turns to theorists like Edward Bernays and Daniel Boorstin. Bernays, a nephew of Freud and the father of public relations, believed that propaganda was essential to democracy. In his 1928 book Propaganda, he argued that elites must 'engineer consent' by shaping what the public perceives as truth. This, Levin notes, laid the intellectual groundwork for a press that sees itself as a moral gatekeeper rather than a neutral observer.

Bernays’ Legacy: The Managed Mind

Bernays wrote that the “invisible government” of public opinion controls modern society. For Levin, this describes today’s press perfectly: news outlets that selectively decide which events deserve attention, which facts matter, and which voices are silenced. He cites the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal as a prime example—where aide Ben Rhodes bragged about creating an “echo chamber” of journalists repeating government-approved talking points. It wasn’t journalism; it was state-sponsored persuasion disguised as reporting.

The Pseudo-Event in Daily News

Drawing from Boorstin, Levin explains how the constant demand for content leads the press to manufacture events. When real news lags, reporters create news by interpreting trivial details, staging controversies, or amplifying speculations. The “Russia collusion” saga, he argues, exemplifies this trend—a manufactured moral drama sustained by leaks, anonymous sources, and circular reporting. Over two years of nonstop media frenzy produced not evidence but illusion, confirming Boorstin’s warning that modern audiences live “in a world where fantasy is more real than reality.”

Levin’s point is unsettling: propaganda now wears the mask of information. The same institutions that once exposed government deceit now manufacture it. The pseudo-event has replaced the factual event, leaving citizens disoriented between truth and narrative—trusting only what flatters their chosen tribe.

When journalists claim that criticism from politicians endangers a free press, Levin flips the argument: the true peril comes not from harsh words but from historical amnesia. He reviews episodes when presidents actually did suppress the press through law and force—episodes largely ignored by today’s defenders of journalism.

Presidents and Real Censorship

John Adams’s 1798 Sedition Act criminalized hostile journalism. Abraham Lincoln shut down newspapers and arrested editors who criticized his wartime policies. Woodrow Wilson’s administration jailed dissenters under the Espionage and Sedition Acts of World War I and ran the first government propaganda agency, the Committee on Public Information. Franklin Roosevelt’s FCC manipulated broadcasting licenses, monitored mail, and used the IRS to punish opponents during the New Deal. Even Barack Obama, Levin reminds readers, secretly spied on journalists, seized phone records, and prosecuted leakers under the Espionage Act more aggressively than any prior president.

Yet, says Levin, none of these actions provoked the collective outcry that greeted Donald Trump’s tweets calling the media “fake news.” Unlike his predecessors, Trump didn’t arrest journalists or restrict publication—he criticized them. Levin sees this as evidence of the industry’s fragility: a profession that mistakes verbal opposition for censorship while ignoring its own complicity in genuine suppression through bias and groupthink.

Ultimately, Levin concludes that freedom of the press is imperiled not because politicians challenge journalists but because journalists refuse to challenge themselves. The Constitution protects a free press from state power—but cannot protect it from self-corruption.

Nowhere does Levin’s case strike harder than in his riveting chapter on the Holocaust and the Ukrainian famine. He calls out The New York Times—the self-proclaimed “paper of record”—for its historical complicity in two of the twentieth century’s greatest atrocities. These weren’t sins of ignorance, Levin shows, but of deliberate silence.

The Times and the Holocaust

During World War II, when evidence of Nazi extermination surfaced as early as 1942, most American newspapers buried or downplayed the story. The Times, run by Jewish publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger, intentionally minimized Jewish suffering to avoid accusations of partiality. Reports of mass killings were relegated to brief items deep inside the paper. Scholars like David Wyman and Laurel Leff have documented how this editorial choice helped mute public outrage, easing the Roosevelt administration’s refusal to act. Sulzberger’s personal discomfort with Jewish identity—he opposed Zionism and separated religion from ethnicity—translated into policy: the genocide of millions became a “minor story.”

The Denial of Stalin’s Famine

Less than a decade earlier, the same paper had whitewashed Stalin’s engineered famine in Ukraine, in which millions died. Its Pulitzer Prize–winning correspondent, Walter Duranty, knowingly disseminated Soviet propaganda, assuring readers that “there is no actual starvation.” Private letters later revealed that Duranty admitted famine deaths in the millions to foreign diplomats, even as he lied in print. Despite calls to revoke his Pulitzer, the Times retains it to this day. Others who reported the truth, like British journalist Gareth Jones, were expelled from the USSR or mocked by colleagues following Duranty’s lead.

To Levin, these decades-old scandals expose a timeless moral failure: a media class so enamored with progressivism that it shields tyrants and discredits truth-tellers. The press, he argues, cannot atone for these betrayals until it confronts its role not as a victim of power but as its enabler.

Levin closes with an indictment of what he calls “a standardless profession.” Despite lofty codes of ethics and schools of journalism, modern news culture has lost any shared vision of truth. It confuses activism with integrity, entertainment with enlightenment, and narrative with knowledge.

Forgotten Principles

Citing The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, Levin notes that journalism’s first obligations—truth, verification, independence—have become casualties of speed and ideology. When reporters see themselves as “moral actors” rather than evidence-based investigators, objectivity becomes obsolete. The collapse of ethical discipline, illustrated by events like the Rolling Stone rape hoax, Dan Rather’s forged documents, and the Covington Catholic smear, reflects a deeper sickness: the substitution of righteousness for rigor.

Levin quotes former CBS anchor Ted Koppel’s lament that today’s journalists “are not the reservoir of objectivity we once were.” From The New York Times’ open embrace of “resistance journalism” to social media–driven outrage cycles, he sees a self-reinforcing tribe more interested in validation than verification.

Restoring Integrity

Levin concludes not with despair but with a challenge: the survival of a free republic depends on an independent, self-policing press. Citizens, he insists, must become critical thinkers—consumers of news who demand sourcing, evidence, and transparency. The fight for truth no longer belongs to the newsroom; it belongs to the reader.

His message is as moral as it is political: liberty dies not when the state silences journalists but when journalists silence themselves. To preserve freedom, the press must rediscover its original purpose—the pursuit of truth in defense of the individual—and admit that its unfreedom is self-inflicted.