Musk Mucks It Up
A conversation with friend and colleague Charles Madigan about Twitter.
James: So, Charlie. I always enjoy progressive angst. That’s why I’m loving this latest temper tantrum about Elon Musk snapping up Twitter for $44 billion. Under the progressive playbook, everyone should just quit Twitter to protest Musk’s ownership of the social media platform. Baloney! They should be happy that a free speech guy is in charge. I plead guilty to a conflict in this brouhaha. I own one of Elon’s cars — a 2019 Model S Tesla with all the whiz bangs. In fact, it’s the second one I’ve owned. I loved them both, and I’ve never been a “car guy!” If Elon can revolutionize Twitter the way he upended the sclerotic auto industry, he just might save Twitter from itself and give us lots to talk about.
I confess to being a free speech absolutist, like Musk. In fact, I don’t think the First Amendment goes far enough. Elon’s made some tasteless comments about the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband. But that was Elon’s impulsive, immature side, which is unfortunately too often on display. He’s actually a shrewd operator. Unlike most of the media moguls we worked for, Musk doesn’t fear risk or shaking things up. If he restores Donald Trump’s Twitter account, so be it. Musk will give our colleagues in the press something to write about. What do you think?
Charlie: Jim, one of the things I’ve always cherished about our newspaper days at the Chicago Tribune was my sense that you and the other senior editors would never knowingly hire a fool or liar to add to the staff. We had them, for sure, but they were homegrown in my opinion. I must wander down history lane to tell you why I have problems with Elon Musk.
Two names: Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Most people only remember them as fabulously wealthy, very smart men, one of whom endowed Columbia Journalism School and all the great reporters and editors it has launched. But there was more. Those men were so eager to build their influence and fortunes that they turned their papers into sensationalistic rags driven by an unethical and dishonest push for circulation. They inflamed passions, made lots of stories up and took anything with a tad of nookie or corruption and ran it under screaming headlines. They also birthed the Spanish American War over Cuba, supporting it at every opportunity. Recall the headline: “Remember the Maine!” after one of our battleships exploded and sank. They certainly could not have known with any certainty what happened, but that did not deter them. They were rich, powerful and arrogant.
Did they do any good? Of course, but that’s not my point. They did a lot of very bad, too. Which brings me to our topic of the day: Elon Musk and his one-man control over a powerful medium unlike any other in our lifetimes, or before.
photo by freestocks
I don’t think his little embarrassment over the Pelosi story was an exception. He has more money than anyone we know of in the world, but I still think his head is full of poop on a lot of subjects. I, too, am an advocate of free speech, but screaming fire in a country where people are already at one another’s throats, and have lots of weapons to think fire means, well, fire, is not a healthy prospect for our democracy. Anybody can say anything they want on Twitter, which leads to a curious self-selection that invites Neo-Nazis and lots of other wackos to settle in with their own kind. I think, on the other hand, it would be fine to allow Trump to express himself again so people can confirm their most vile thoughts about the man. Trump unleashed is Trump hated. So fine. I’ve said enough! Finally, I agree that those are wonderful cars. He builds nice rockets, too. Henry Ford also built great cars and financed an anti-semitic newspaper that reflected what he thought about his fellow man. Back to you!
Jim: Good point about Henry Ford, great automaker terrible person. We agree on that. But Elon Musk also reminds me of another historic figure — James Madison, a prime author of our First Amendment. Madison knew well the evils of censorship imposed by someone with the law, power, and treasury of a government behind them, in his case King George III.
Madison advocated a First Amendment that took a rather sweeping view of the right to speak and write. I’m going to cheat and quote him: "The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.” Congress watered down the First Amendment we know from the version proposed by Madison. I think that was a mistake.
Nevertheless, as you point out, the dark side of powerful people like Hearst and Pulitzer suggests we should place some limits on the power of autocrats to control what the people see and hear. I cringe, though, when I hear people talk about passing laws to impose limits on speaking our minds in speech or words. I’d simply rather have that power in the hands of a private person. I understand where Musk is coming from; he wants money and power, probably more of the latter than the former. But I don’t pretend to understand the motives of the people now making our laws. Musk may be a powerful person, but he’s not immune from the law. We saw that when he tried to wiggle out of the deal to buy Twitter because he paid too much. He’s also not exempt from the clear and present danger test articulated by Judge Oliver Wendell Homes in 1919. If people want to quit Twitter, they have that right. But if it comes between trusting Congress or Musk to do the right thing, I’ll take Elon. Maybe he can do some good.
Charlie: I’m on the same page on the hanging it all out, because as you well know, my style has always been to let the hanging of it all out. I, too, fairly cringe at the thought of the government telling anyone what they can or can’t say. But there is a much more effective control already in place, one we call the marketplace. It has been decided that Musk makes great cars. It could also well be decided he makes a terrible media mogul. When you and I got into the business, we were on the front end of a big push for ethical reform that eventually touched everything newspapers did. They could no longer afford to be sleazy or dishonest like the Hearst and Pulitzer papers could. Given some time, I would hope something similar happens to Twitter. You know I like it and use it however I can. I think it’s an asset for free thinkers and speakers. But ethical changes take, first an awareness of wrongdoing and second, a determination to stop it in its tracks.
One might be able to draw millions of views with a bogus headline, but hopefully, the development of at least a modicum of ethical behavior will put an end to that kind of stuff.
—James O’Shea and Charles Madigan
James O’Shea is a longtime Chicago author and journalist who now lives in North Carolina. He is the author of several books and is the former editor of the Los Angeles Times and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. Follow Jim’s Five W’s Substack here.
Charles Madigan is a writer and veteran foreign and national correspondent for UPI and the Chicago Tribune, where he also served as a senior writer and editor. He examines news reporting, politics and world events.