Freedom of the Press—A Little Background

When discussing freedom of the press I believe it is imperative to know a little background first. One cannot talk about something if there is no basis for the discussion to begin with. Freedom of the Press was given to us through the First Amendment. In the beginning, there was a lot of disgruntled citizens in part because they felt that the Constitution lacked the power to protect them from the government—i.e. civil liberties. To give the people what they wanted, the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights was submitted to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789 and implemented on December 15, 1791. Along with many protections from the government, the First Amendment guaranteed its citizens Freedom of the Press.

The question to be discussed is what exactly is freedom of the press. How much freedom do we have, and who regulates that freedom. All of these questions have been brought up at some time in our nation’s history and it has been up to whom other else than the Supreme Court to decide.

Thomas Jefferson once said that "The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.” The right to freedom of the press can be defined as the right to publish newspapers, magazines, books, etc. without government interference or prior censorship. This particular little snip-it of the Constitution has created some huge rifts in our nation’s history. If the Constitution allows freedom of the press, it is no secret that the media is going to push that freedom as far as they can, and whenever someone tries to challenge their freedom the solution is simple—take them to court.

There have been a slew of Freedom of the press cases in our nation’s history. Just to name a few are, New York Times Co. v. United State, Branzburg v. Hayes, and New York Times v. Sullivan. All of these cases have basically ended up reinforcing the same decision. Each case reiterated that there are only a few exceptions to stopping Freedom of the press (actual malice—libel, and national security). Other than that freedom of the Press reigns supreme. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? This question calls for another blog…..