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Citizens and journalists(Other Editors Speak)“The guarantees of the First Amendment are not for the benefit of the press so much as for the benefit of us all, A broadly defined freedom of the press assures the maintenance of our political system as an open society.“ ... The newspapers, magazines and other journals of the country, it is safe to say, have shed and continue to shed more light on the public and business affairs of the nation than any other instrumentality of publicity; and since informed public opinion is the most potent of ail restraints upon misgovernment, the suppression or abridgement of the publicity afforded by a free press cannot be regarded otherwise than with grave concern ____**No, that is not an excerpt from a speech by some spokesman for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, currently convening in New York. It is, rather, a fused quotation from a couple of Supreme Court decisions of the past few years. We offer it to you because we know that the same thing said by a journalist would seem self-serving and be suspect. But we do believe that the First Amendment serves you more than it serves us. To put it another way, the First Amendmentis more important to us as free citizens than it is to us as newspapermen and women.Since Chief Justice Warren Burger and Richard Nixon’s three other appointees joined the court, it has gone far beyond what any previous court did in trimming back the First Amendment. Its most recent decision in this area said in effect that the most intimate and subjective details of the editorial process, including private conversations and “state of mind,” may be inquired into when public officials sue for libel. This from an institution that time and again had said that burdens on or regulation of the editorial process are a burden on or regulation of the expression.This most recent decision appears to us to invite judges to “regulate” the editorial process, thus burdening exercise of the First Amendment rights. The decision is certainly going to intimidate the instruments of free expression who cannot afford the crushing costs in legal fees and time that such charges can entail. CBS may be able to afford to let a reporter spend a year answering a lawyer's pretrial questions, filling up 2,903 pages of transcript (not enough! said the Supreme Court, when the reporter finally drew the line), but your average small town daily newspaper or radio station, or country weekly certainly can’t.The Burger court has ruled in recent years that reporters must turn over their notes and identify their sources, that police may raid newspaper offices and rifle files, that newspaper telephone records may be inspected in a search for informants, and now that a journalist’s state of mind may be examined. Mr. Burger has made it clear off the bench that he has an extremely low regard for journalism. That is his right, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that this state of mind affects his performance as chief justice as well — to the detriment of us all. — The Sunday Sun.
Newspaper Details
The Frederick News Post
Frederick, Maryland, US
Thu, May 10, 1979
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Pete E.
NA, 19 Aug 2023
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