Press Censorship in Britain: Blurring the Boundaries of Formal Censorship

‘Censorship’ is a harsh word indeed. It conjures up thoughts of authoritarian regimes crushing dissent and stifling artistic expression. However, the quotation from Orwell’s preface to Animal Farm above suggests that the silencing of opinion need not be as apparent as the controls enforced by the ‘Ministry of Truth’ in his novel 1984. The assertion that opinions can be silenced even by the weight of public orthodoxy was also a concern of John Stuart Mill in On Liberty (1859). This paper suggests that subtle forms of silencing have been a feature of the British press since the mid-19th century and that our understanding of the term ‘censorship’ requires some reconsideration so as to take into account these forms or, what I broadly term informal censorship. In thus broadening our conception, I suggest that we may be better able to challenge attacks on press freedom which compromise our democracy. In making these claims, I offer a synthesis of some of the more provocative literature on the issue of media control. In developing this argument, I focus on two specific areas where informal censorship compromises the democratic imperative: coverage of war, and the relationship between journalism as a profession and capitalism.