Week Seven: Freedom of the Press
“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government . . “
-- Justice Hugo Black
Our seventh series focuses on the US Supreme Court and civil liberties. Rather than focusing on a single case, this week we’ll use a short (25-minute) documentary from the Leonore Annenberg Center for Civics at the University of Pennsylvania to look at how freedom of the press has evolved from Colonial America through the early Internet Age.
The documentary begins with the pre-history of our Bill of Rights and focuses heavily on the watershed case of New York Times v. United States (the “Pentagon Papers” case). Our guides through 250+ years of American history and law on this subject include some of our favorite teachers and commentators from previous sessions, notably former-Bush Administration Solicitor General Theodore Olson and Yale Professor of History Joanne Freeman. Along the way, we learn about “seditious libel,” “prior restraint,” and take another look at the “clear and present danger” standard we first learned about in week six. The video at the link below runs 25:19.