Media Reviews
The Rise of the Right to Know: Politics and the Culture of Transparency, 1945-1975 By Michael Schudson The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2015 Reviewed by Taunya Painter
The Houston Lawyer
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NN’s “The Lead” host, Jake Tapper, recently had some challenging words for President Obama. In the midst of a highlypublicized presidential election, the President challenged the media to do a better job at probing candidates. Tapper agreed with the President, but questioned: “Is President Obama the right messenger?” Tapper said the media’s job of probing “has been made far more difficult by his administration than any in recent decades, a far cry from the assurances on transparency he offered as he first took office,” citing an in-depth report by The Washington Post that “Obama hasn’t delivered. In fact, FOIA [the Freedom of Information Act] has been a disaster under his watch.” This exchange is not surprising, as Michael Schudson, author of the book, The Rise of the Right to Know, points out that every American President has had a
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challenge with the media, starting with George Washington. Schudson documents, though, just how far our country has come: the people’s “right to know” is really about someone’s ability to access information about their government, their finances, or their health and livelihood. The United States Constitution grants no such right. Even the few quotes that appear to support such a right, in context, were simply statements about the need for elementary education. Schudson focuses extensively on how the years, 1945-1975, greatly advanced the public’s right to know. First, though, he shows his readers how pervasive the tendency of nondisclosure was, not just in government, but in all aspects of private life, education, and the private sector. One quite shocking example is the field of medicine. As late as the early 1960s, not even 12 percent of doctors would disclose to a patient a cancer diagnosis, and even fewer doctors would disclose possible side-effects or dangers of any surgery or attempt to get an informed consent. Schudson discusses changes in society and education, as well as several major events of the time, that collectively set the stage for transparency initiatives. He concludes, however, that none of these were a sole ignitor of sweeping changes. The real warriors for the people’s right to know are what Schudson calls a sort of “second lieutenant” – he gives the credit not to the most powerful, not to the masses, but to people in the middle that we may have never heard of. By way of example are Esther Peterson and Representative John Moss (D-CA). Peterson made a career out of changing food packaging. In the early 1960s,
consumers were confronted with only marketing on packages. Peterson wanted accurate weights, ingredients, nutritional value, and shelf life. While Peterson had multiple Presidential appointments, she ultimately wielded her greatest power working for the grocery store chain, Giant. Giant went down Peterson’s path of transparency. Consumers responded. Congress responded. Then the entire market flipped toward the consumer’s right to know. Moss is the founding father of the FOIA, and Schudson gives us his story. When Moss was just a new Freshman, he was given a lowly spot on the Post Office committee. He requested some documents from an agency, and they stonewalled. This brush-off lit a fire in his belly to draft FOIA. A colleague described Moss as the “hardest working member of Congress I knew,” recalling a hearing that Moss was chairing, which was still going strong at 10:30 p.m. The electricity went out, and the participants were thrilled, thinking they would finally get to go home. It was pitch black, and Moss said, “Let’s find some candles.” They did, and he carried on. His authenticity helped him get the backing of major media outlets. They helped him charge through all obstacles and later declare that FOIA was “like gaining a fleet of nuclear subs” in the fight for information. The fiftieth anniversary of FOIA is July 4, 2016. This Independence Day is a great time to pick up Schudson’s book. You will understand why it was a positive step for President Obama to be reminded of the public’s right to know, but you will also see a historical context for the confrontations that will no doubt be coming the way of the next President, whomever that may be. Taunya Painter is a business lawyer and a member of the Painter Law Firm PLLC. She is an Associate Editor of The Houston Lawyer.