Week 5: Freedom of the Press

what did Thomas Jefferson say in 1787

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

The First Amendment to the Constitution

forms the Bill of Rights

• Passed by Congress September 25, 1789.
• Ratified December 15, 1791.
• “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances.”

Schenck v. United States 1919

• Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer, who were
socialists, had given out leaflets (see the photo)…
claiming the military draft violated the 13th
amendment to the Constitution. (The one that
mentions involuntary servitude.)
• Supreme Court ruled against him, saying
freedom of speech isn’t absolute but at times like
war can be restricted.

Debs v. United States 1919

Under the Schenck standard, the Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs
could be jailed for giving an anti- war speech in wartime.
• The court found that what Debs said in his speech was not
important… what mattered was that he was going against the Espionage Act when he advocated people should not serve in World War I

New York Times v. Sullivan, 1964

first time the 1st amendment was tested in court

Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia 1980

• The newspaper company sued the state of Virginia because a trial judge
had not allowed any news reporters into courtrooms to hear proceedings
in a murder case.
• The Supreme Court ruled 7-1 that a lower court had no right to close a
murder trial to the press.
• The Supreme Court held that the First Amendment covers not just talking
freely but also the freedom to listen and to receive information and
ideas.

Hustler Magazine v. Jerry Falwell 1983

• The pornographic magazine parodied the Rev. Jerry Falwell in a crass liquor ad.

• Falwell sued. He won in a lower court, but the Supreme Court defended Hustler’s right to satirize Falwell because he was famous: a public figure.

• Although Hustler's parody was judged to be in poor taste, the court nevertheless held that it fell within the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech and the press.

• Falwell, who died in 2007, was a well-known religious conservative and founder of the Moral Majority, a political advocacy group.

Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, 1988

• Students in the Journalism II class at Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis,
Missouri wrote stories about their peers’ experiences with teen pregnancy and the
impact of divorce.
• The principal deleted the pages from the school newspaper before publication
without telling the student editors.
• The students sued in a U.S. District Court claiming the principal had violated their
First Amendment rights. The trial court said the principal could censor work written
in a public school class.
• The students appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which
reversed the lower court, finding that the paper was a "public forum.”
• The school appealed to the IU.S. Supreme Court.
• In a 5-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the principal's actions did not violate
the students' free speech rights. It said the school had sponsored the paper so could
do what it wanted. It said the school paper was not a public forum

Masson v. New Yorker magazine, 1991

• Prompted by the lawsuit of a psychiatrist, Jeffrey Masson, against journalist Janet Malcolm (shown here during the court proceedings), claiming she had misquoted him.
• She actually had misquoted him, but not maliciously. The court ruled that journalists have some leeway in how they quote people.

Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 1997

Most of the Communications Decency Act, which had attempted to protect minors from harmful material on the Internet, was struck down as a violation of the First Amendment. Only remaining provision was Section 230, one protecting reposters of material, saying anyone reposting is not the publisher

U.S. v. Manning, 2012

• In a court martial, Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, later Chelsea Manning, was found guilty of espionage for leaking a vast trove of classified material to WikiLeaks.
• The documents were about civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison. President Barack Obama commuted all but four months of the sentence in 2017