Hutchins Commission
The Hutchins Commission was formed during World War II, when Henry Luce asked Robert Hutchins to recruit a commission to inquire into the proper function of the media in a modern democracy. One scholar views the commission as a response to criticism from the public and government over media ownership. Another sees it principally as the product of Luce's intellectual curiosity.
Membership
Hutchins and Luce jointly chose members of the commission. The final group was made up of twelve prominent American intellectuals plus Hutchins as chair. Although all members were respected intellectuals with sterling reputations, none were journalists. Hutchins thought the commission would be more open-minded if it contained no journalists, but critics of the commission, particularly in the press, used that to attack its credentials.Conclusions & Social Responsibility Theory
After deliberating for four years, the Commission came to these conclusions in its final report, A Free and Responsible Press, published in 1947: the press plays essential roles in the development and stability of modern society and, as such, it is imperative that the press recognize and heed its responsibility to society. According to this social responsibility theory, the press has a moral obligation to consider the overall needs of society when making journalistic decisions in order to produce the greatest good. Though there had been journalism "codes of ethics" for decades, the commission's report was considered a landmark by some scholars, a pivotal assertion of the modern media's role in a democratic society.Social-responsibility theory was born at a time when large and powerful publishers were unpopular with the public, and when the public had a high degree of suspicions about the motivations and objectives of the press. The press had mushroomed into an unwieldy and powerful entity, and criticism of the Fourth Estate was widespread. Critics contended that the media had monopolistic tendencies, that corporate owners were not concerned with the rights or interests of those unlike themselves, and that commercialization produced a debased culture as well as dangerously selfish politics.
Social-responsibility theory thus proposes that the media take it upon themselves to elevate society's standards, providing citizens with the information they need to govern themselves. It is in the best interest of the media to do this; if they do not, social theorists warn, the public will demand that the government regulate the media.