Until the mid-nineteenth century "Pressefreiheit," the current German term for freedom of the press, was written "Preßfreiheit" (freedom of printing). This small difference holds the key to the best definition of this basic civil and human right: it centres on the freedom to publish and duplicate, the freedom to express one's own (critical) opinions without hindrance, the freedom to exchange news and information. Today - in view of the dynamics of communications technology - we now generally speak of "freedom of communication." The expression refers to every person's right to exercise both the freedom of expression and the freedom to access information. This freedom is based on the ideal of an open society, where everyone can participate in the public processes of forming political opinion and formulating political demands and objectives. This is the basis of forming public opinion that can, and should be, a constant corrective to state rule. This type of constitutional statute is based on many important pre-conditions: it presupposes tolerance of dissidents, calmness in face of criticism, the acceptance of plurality, and patience with often prolonged and erring social discussions. The use of violence, or even the threat of its use, does not fit in with a political culture that is imbued with such a high level of freedom. These premises make one realize that such conditions in the world - including the present-day - are more of an exception than the rule. But a total two-thirds of the world's population lives in countries where there is no freedom of expression or the press. This painful truth is confirmed every day by the newspapers - often as a result of work done by watchdog organizations, such as the International Press Institute (IPI) or Reporters without Borders. Piece by piece the reports fit together to form a horrifying picture of worldwide abuses and the struggles, including the established western democracies, to defend this freedom against constant attempts to restrict it. The freedom of the press is threatened not only by censorship but also by state or private media monopolies, the murder or arrest of journalists, intimidation and state regimentation. These conditions in so many countries have fatal consequences: without freedom of communication a society foregoes the prospect of developing a thriving economy and culture.
Freedom of expression as a basic human right
As a result, the denial of this freedom will continue to cause many pathological conditions. Without freedom of the press, no democracy - without democracy, no freedom of the press. Many people in Germany were aware of this two hundred years ago. For instance, the German Jacobins who fought for the sovereignty of the people and human rights. However, in Germany the constitutional understanding of freedom of the press was not fully formulated until the Basic Law of the Federal Republic was created in 1949, particularly in the brief but momentous Article 5: "Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures, and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. (...) There shall be no censorship."
Press freedom as a learning process
It's true that, after twelve years of National Socialist dictatorship, the Germans did not gain freedom of the press as a result of their own struggles, through underground activities or resistance. It was systematically prescribed at the end of the Second World War (this applies only to West Germany, in the Eastern part of the country there was no freedom of expression and the press in the GDR until the fall of the Wall in 1989). Much of the credit goes to the American military governor, Lucius D. Clay. In his memoirs, published in 1950 on his departure from Germany, he remained sceptical, but recognized certain opportunities for development: "There is still much to be done, if people in Germany want to develop a true sense of what a free press and a free broadcasting system really mean for the safeguarding of democratic rights and institutions. The governing democrats always want to take some kind of legal action against critical editorials in the press or dissenting commentaries on the radio. On the other hand, however, the independent newspapers and broadcasting stations clearly manage to make themselves heard, and silencing them will become increasingly difficult." What happened in the following years - and will most likely continue forever - could be called the hands-on history of learning to communicate freely. And it was by no means easy. Many difficulties were encountered in the post-war years, for instance in broadcasting policy, an area that Lucius D. Clay was particularly clear about. The key document, a written order dated November 21, 1947, began with the following statement: It is the fundamental policy of the US military government, that control over the media of public opinion, the press and broadcasting should be diffusely distributed, and that the media must be kept free of government control. A few years later the allied communications experts slowly withdrew their protective supervision. This was followed by what Hans Bausch entitled "German Course Corrections" in a chapter of his book about the history of broadcasting. The changes that took place between 1950 and 1956 brought the "increased political tendency to bring the newer broadcasting organizations closer to state influence and increase their dependency on the ruling party political forces by creating changes in their constitutional make-up."
The Fourth Estate
What can we learn from this historical digression? Rather than simply describing the past, it is a question of recognizing forms of structural continuity. The list of indicators for such changes towards restoration is long and still shapes the conflicts between the state and broadcasting to the present-day. The state broadcasting model often seems to remain in close keeping with the Allies' post-war ideals of freedom. It was not until May 1955 that the reserved rights of the Allies ceased to be in force. That was when the broadcasting organizations created during the post-war years were relieved of their "tiresome protectors." In 1961 the Third Estate in the country, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, presented its comprehensive clarifications and created a kind of Magna Carta of broadcasting freedom that is still often quoted to this day. Basing its decision on the great English model of the 19th century, the court thus bestowed institutional status on the Fourth Estate in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Watchdogs of democracy
Apart from the Federal Constitutional Court, it was of course the journalists, political commentators and public affairs experts who acted as the often unpopular watchdogs of democracy, and especially the freedom of communication. One memorable example was Ernst Müller-Meiningen jr., born 1908, who focused his memoirs on his own watchdog role. Under the National Socialists he was banned from working as a journalist. In the post-war years his articles signed M-M. jr. in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" became the trademark of a champion of liberalism. He always raised his voice in protest from Munich against any developments that threatened the freedom of communication. His great dedication shaped a new tradition and served as a leading light to many professional colleagues. In 1989 Müller-Meiningen jr. wrote about the reasons for his vigilance: "The freedom of the press is being rapidly sold down the river throughout the world. Fascists and Communist dictators look down on it as some stupid foreign concept. But even in liberally organized countries, the freedom of the press is increasingly becoming a bare element in the process of advancing rationalization and automation with their relentless final goal of concentration. In the journalistic sphere these developments cause nothing but growing uncertainty, existential fears, conformist journalism and unhealthy developments in the political sphere with unscrupulously big monopolies, and the 'new media' are speeding up this process."
The Spiegel affair as a litmus test
The first major test of democratic freedom, and especially the freedom of communication, in the Federal Republic of Germany came in 1962, when the government of Konrad Adenauer and Franz-Josef Strauss tried to charge the news magazine "Der Spiegel" with treason, because of a cover article about a military topic. The events surrounding this move were dramatic, and had a long-lasting influence on the still young republic's domestic climate during the early sixties. Although the government finally failed to achieve its aims, it still enjoyed a great deal of support from the section of the population that - still - favoured a system of government with an authoritarian political leadership. On the other hand, however, the Spiegel affair acted as a catalyst in the formation of a broad and continuing protest movement. The feared threat to democracy surrounding the Spiegel affair triggered unexpected and widespread public protest, especially among journalists, writers, students and professors, forcing politicians to address the issues. To this day, the Spiegel affair can be seen a litmus test with people's pre-democratic trust in authority on the one hand, and the democratically alert who were ready to protest on the other. The affair is also one of the memorable milestones in the incessant struggle for civil rights in Germany. It was certainly no coincidence that of all the news publications "Der Spiegel" became the focus in this particular struggle for a democratic order. One reason was that this news magazine from Hamburg had built up a team of exceptionally well qualified journalists - journalism as spirited opposition, a typical journalistic variety of the Fourth Estate. The Spiegel affair occurred ten years after Lucius D. Clay had provided his comments, and the people in government had behaved more or less as he had predicted. But the way things developed, and the results, showed that although the freedom of communication is a laborious learning process, it does not necessarily have to be backward-looking. At the time, the judges of the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe proved to be the most influential teachers. We only have to recall the nature of the elementary lessons the court gave to the governing powers and other influential elites in society - for instance, that defending the freedom of the press was not reserved solely for the so-called serious press, and that the advertisement section is equally part of the whole complex. In Germany the credit also goes to the Federal Constitutional Court for postulating that the freedom of the press is a basic "classic constituent" in a democratic society. This is, without a doubt, both a normative and an empirical observation. What happened at that time in Germany is not merely history, but a model for the transformation process within a developing democracy.
Concealment is potential dynamite
If the well-founded thesis of communications experts is correct, then concealing problems does not get rid of them. In fact hiding them makes them far more explosive. And if the denial of communication provokes violence as a solution, then the Fourth - communications - Estate is responsible for creating an open public forum for positions including fundamental opposition. In so doing, it acts as an agent of social integration, and this should be of greater benefit to the ruling majority than to the minorities intent on maintaining distance to power. Despite the sensationalist reactions of some legislators, experience has definitely shown that a democracy should handle extensive and open freedom of communication with self-confidence, and that it has to encompass civil disobedience within its spectrum.
The freedom of the press is endangered not only by censorship but also by media monopolies, the murder and arrest of journalists. In industrialized countries self-censorship in the media caused by commercialization is also a problem
About two-thirds of the world's population still live in countries where there is no freedom of expression and communication. Suppression of the freedom to report always goes hand-in-hand with other human rights violations
"Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures, and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. (...) There shall be no censorship." Article 5, Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany
