Liberty and the news by Walter Lippmann
"Liberty and the news by Walter Lippmann" is a collection of political essays written in the early 20th century. It is a non-fiction tract that examines how freedom, public opinion, and journalism intersect, with a concise focus on the crisis of news reliability and its consequences for democratic self-government. The book argues that democracy cannot function without a steady flow of truthful, relevant, and intelligible news. It critiques the press for subordinating
truth to patriotic edification, shows how classical defenses of free speech (from Milton and Mill to Russell) collapse when facts are missing, and explains how complexity, distance, and propaganda create a pseudo-environment that misleads the public and empowers demagogues. The author shifts the liberty debate from policing opinions to protecting the sources, organization, and comprehension of information. He proposes practical reforms: transparent sourcing and documentation, stronger accountability for falsehoods, professional training for reporters in evidence and language, and independent institutes to record and analyze government and public affairs. He urges universities to support this work and calls for an endowed, editorially neutral news service to compete with biased structures. The core message is that genuine liberty is secured by institutions that make facts accessible and trustworthy, so public opinion can be both free and responsible. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide
| Reading Options | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77035.html.images | 119 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77035.epub3.images | 156 kB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77035.epub.images | 154 kB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77035.epub.noimages | 102 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77035.kf8.images | 194 kB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77035.kindle.images | 181 kB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77035.txt.utf-8 | 105 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77035/pg77035-h.zip | 140 kB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Lippmann, Walter, 1889-1974 |
|---|---|
| LoC No. | 20004814 |
| Title | Liberty and the news |
| Original Publication | New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920. |
| Note | Reprinted in part from the Atlantic monthly. |
| Contents | Journalism and the higher laws -- What modern liberty means -- -Liberty and the news. |
| Credits | Sean/IB@DP |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PN: Language and Literatures: Literature: General, Criticism, Collections |
| Subject | Freedom of the press |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77035 |
| Release Date | Oct 12, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 319 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |