In no reference book I've checked is censorship defined so narrowly as to involve only government or national authority.
One dictionary defines a censor as "any supervisor of public morals who tells people how to behave." Another defines the verb "to censor" as to "examine, review, expurgate or change."
In ancient Rome, a censor was a magistrate whose duties included overseeing morals and conduct.
In fact, virtually all contemporary definitions describe the act of moral guardianship. William Bennett and C. Dolores Tucker, therefore, are classic censors, presuming to monitor public morals and instruct people in how to behave. So is Wal-Mart, which presumes to know what moral music is and effectively expurgates music it deems immoral. Or Blockbuster Video, which refuses to carry films with ratings it considers to suggest immorality.
In fact, government is doing relatively little institutionalized censoring these days, less than academics and intellectuals, far less than American corporations.
In a 30 April story in The Wall Street Journal, G. Bruce Knecht detailed how corporations like Chrysler demand to be notified in advance of magazines' editorial content "that encompasses sexual, political, social issues or any editorial that might be construed as provocative or offensive" if the car manufacturer had ads scheduled to appear.
According to the Journal, concern over a four-page Chrysler advertising insert in Esquire last year led the magazine's editor to abruptly cancel publication of a short story by the highly acclaimed novelist David Leavitt about a gay man who writes college term papers in exchange for sex.
Were the federal government to impose control of that kind, there would be a meltdown on both the left and the right. But the Journal said the auto maker is just one of a "host of major advertisers that are wielding their economic clout to change the rules of magazine publishing. While it isn't unusual for companies to avoid advertising in publications they deem offensive, or to pull ads after a magazine runs something objectionable, Chrysler and many others are going much further: demanding advance warnings about stories."
So in modern American society, discount retailers are changing the rules of music, video chains the nature of films, and auto manufacturers determining the content of magazines. And winning many admirers in the process.
The Journal reported that the Colgate-Palmolive Co. sends its ad agencies guidelines forbidding them from running ads in magazines with "offensive" sexual content or material the company considers "antisocial or in bad taste." Ford yanked ads from The New Yorker when the magazine failed to alert the car company about a June l995 article containing a four-letter word. In response, The New Yorker set up a formal system to warn about 50 companies on a "sensitive advertiser list" about articles that might offend.
If media conglomerates like Hearst, which owns Esquire, and Advance Publications, which publishes Conde Nast magazines and The New Yorker, are so vulnerable to advertiser pressure, imagine the impact on smaller magazines and newspapers, for whom giant advertisers bring in life-and-death revenue.
The epidemic corporatization of mainstream media by giant chains like Gannett, General Electric, and Westinghouse has homogenized journalism, reduced outspoken opinion, and leeched "offensive" and "antisocial" material from many publications and shows. In both the literal and metaphorical sense, this easily constitutes censorship - moral guardians expurgating material they deem inappropriate or immoral.
Companies like Disney, which now owns the ABC Television Network and is moving onto the World Wide Web with its ABCNews.com, are fanatic about presenting a "wholesome image." Microsoft, now one of the large new-media companies with Slate and its new Sidewalk local entertainment sites, has never generated or tolerated outspoken, "offensive," or "antisocial" editorial content.
The fact is, large corporations are notoriously vulnerable to pressure from special interest groups and others with particular agendas. Time Warner actually sold its rap music division when Tucker and Bennett protested that they published "offensive" rap lyrics.
Until recently, media companies were run by powerful individual entrepreneurs like Bill Paley, the founder of CBS. They had the power to stand up to advertisers. But modern media conglomerates are highly vulnerable to Wall Street analysts, consumer boycotts, federal regulation, lawsuits, and lawyers. They have strong financial incentives to take few risks and avoid controversy.
In a world in which Wal-Mart shapes music and Ford influences language, it still seems unclear to many people on and off the Web where the most menacing kind of censorship is coming from.
It is simply not true that only governments can censor, certainly not in the United States.
In fact, in contemporary American media, government barely needs to bother.
Thus, the Wal-Mart controversy is a landmark struggle over emerging values in the digital age, a fault line between the old and new information cultures.
Months after the Wal-Mart story broke, what emerges is that the issues raised by one retail chain's policy are much too important - and provocative - to remain a private conflict between me and my emailers. It needs to get back out into the open and stay there.
This is an opportunity to come to terms with pivotal questions of morals, values, and freedom to keep working to connect differing viewpoints with one another and to see if this new technology can get us any closer to finding common ground.
