First Amendment: An Open Question

 

The First Amendment is the foundation of an open society. Two of the five protections guaranteed by the First Amendment -- freedom of speech and freedom of the press -- help ensure that we provide citizens with a "marketplace of ideas" free from censorship. Yet the right to free expression often comes into conflict with other rights, especially when it infringes on the safety or morality of others. Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre, for example, is not protected by the First Amendment. Neither is child pornography or material that is considered obscene in nature. This is why the First Amendment is not just a static document that was written by our forefathers over 200 years ago. Because society and technology change and evolve, the First Amendment is continually challenged by cases that need to be interpreted by the courts.


Click here to access the link to the T-shirt story we discussed in class. Does it meet the Tinker standard of "substantial disruption"? Does the school have the right to forbid this 6th grade student from wearing an anti-abortion shirt? Or should he have a right to wear it under the First Amendment? You be the judge.

The First Amendment is often problematic because it leaves questions of exactly what is protected speech open to debate. Yet the many freedoms it guarantees far outweigh its flaws. Here is a good example that illustrates why. A Florida pastor recently stirred up tremendous controversy when he threatened to burn copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, to protest plans to build an Islamic center in New York City near where terrorists brought down the World Trade Center nine years ago. He later backed out of his threat. Under the Constitution, he does have the right to burn the Quran. But should he? Read this column for an interesting analysis of the incident.

The Only Thing Certain is Change

Welcome to a new school year! And welcome, young journalists, to Waldsmith's Dispatch, our journalism class blog. I began this blog in the fall of 2009 and it goes on hiatus when our semester-long class is over. I'm excited to get the blog up and running again because it works as a great tool to accompany and emphasize issues covered in class, as well a place to share your thoughts and comments.
Some of the posts will be "greatest hits" of earlier posts; others will be brand new. So here are some questions to ponder.

Are newspapers a dying breed? It would seem so. As we've discussed in class and as chapter 4 in your textbook points out, traditional newspapers are fighting to survive and scrambling to adjust to new technology to meet the needs of a new generation of readers who are more likely to get their news from an iPod or cell phone.

On the other hand, journalism itself isn't dying. Only its mode of delivery is changing and adapting. Click here to read a recent Time magazine article about the closing of The Ann Arbor News. It's not just the story of another newspaper closing its doors. What makes The Ann Arbor News story unique is that, unlike many other newspapers, The A2 News was not forced to stop its presses. Instead, it deliberately shut down so that it could launch a new online model. What do you think of its decision?

 
What about the trend of citizen journalism? These days, anyone can post anything on the Internet. As we saw in the For Neda documentary, ordinary citizens as well as journalists were able to use cell phones and social networking sites like Twitter to report news that would have otherwise been suppressed by the Iranian government. While the digital revolution has enabled us to have incredible opportunities and resources at our fingertips, it has also spawned problematic trends. How, for example, do we sift through it all? How will young people, in particular, know the difference between legitimate news sources and biased or unsupported propaganda? There's a lot of garbage out there.

Does the world still need professionally trained journalists? As Sarah Palin would say, you betcha. While it's wonderful that anyone can snap pictures of breaking news, for example, and post them on the web, it would be foolish or even dangerous to abandon journalism's watchdog role to the bloggers and citizen journalists of the world. Read these two articles from Time magazine to consider two different viewpoints.

 

Click here to read "It's all about us". Then click here to read "Enough about you".


Photos courtesy of Time. These images appear under the legal concept of Fair Use in copyright law. Fair use allows the reproduction of copyrighted material for certain purposes without obtaining permission and without paying a fee or royalty. Purposes permitting the application of fair use generally include review, news reporting, teaching, or scholarly research.

Where do we go from here?

Photo by Lynn Waldsmith

Some final thoughts . . . Check out this example of a high school newspaper that has gone online. The Patriot is a print and web publication of The John Carroll School in Bel Air, Maryland. Do you think high school newspapers are becoming obsolete? That is, should they go online? Is it time for high school news websites instead of papers?


Which brings me to an interesting blog post I'd like to share about how journalism isn't really about "new media" or "old media". It's about journalism. Click here to read the "New Year's resolution" post from Carrie Brown-Smith, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Memphis. Though she wrote the post one year ago, I think it's a more than timely way to begin a discussion of journalism for the new decade.

I hope you've enjoyed our journalism blog this semester. Waldsmith's Dispatch will be on hiatus until September 2010 when a new crop of aspiring writers joins me for another semester of journalism bootcamp!

Creative Commons photo, "Sunset Road", by Kopfjäger

The importance of copyright

Coming up next on our list of media legal issues is copyright. While it's true that copyright law can get a bit complicated, the important thing to know in this Internet Age is that you can't simply download photos, song lyrics, cartoon characters, etc. into a student publication without permission.    

Here is a comprehensive student guide to copyright law that's worth reviewing.


But there is an important exception that journalists, in particular, need to know about. This exception to the general copyright rule is known as the Fair Use Doctrine. It allows the use of limited amounts of copyrighted works for important purposes like news reporting, critiques and education -- as long as the fair use does not significantly cut into the commercial value of the original copyrighted work.

So, for example, it's permissible for a student newspaper to reprint a short passage from a new book to accompany a book review, or to include sample lyrics from a new album to accompany an album review. Or it's generally considered acceptable to reprint a small photo of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, but it probably would not be considered acceptable to reproduce that photo to a very large size for greater impact.

There are four key factors that determine fair use:                              

1) The purpose of your use  (Is your purpose for using the item for teaching or news reporting? Or to make money off of it?)
2) The nature of your work  (Is the work itself factual or highly creative like someone's copyrighted fiction. The more creative and original the work is, the more necessary it is to be sure you're only using a tiny amount for the purpose of critiquing, for example.)
3) The amount you're using  (A small quantity of the original work is usually acceptable.)
4) The effect of your use on the market  (Your use of this item will have no major effect on the market.)

Still, what constitutes "fair use" isn't always clear. Click here to read an interesting article about a copyright legal battle revolving around President Obama's image.


Flickr Creative Commons image by MikeBlogs

Exploring the Right to Privacy in a High Tech World . . . and Beyond

Invasion of privacy law can be a tricky thing because it aims to balance the public's right to know vs. an individual's right to privacy. If the information is "newsworthy" -- that is, if people have a right or a need to know about something, then that will prevail over a person's claim to privacy. Thus, if your next-door neighbor is having an affair, publishing a story about it in the local paper would be a clear violation of his privacy. However, when a public figure does the same thing, the press can reasonably assert that such an event is newsworthy. Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, for example, waged a prolonged legal battle claiming that hundreds of text messages detailing his illicit affair with a co-worker were private. He lost and ended up going to jail for perjury and other charges.

But sometimes a private citizen injects himself or herself on to the public stage, and by doing so, loses the defense of "right to privacy". If that neighbor of yours is having an affair with a 16-year-old, that information is no longer considered private. That's news because it's against the law. Other times, however, it's not always so clear who is a "public figure" and so the courts have to interpret some invasion of privacy claims on an individual basis.

What's more, social networking sites and the Internet have created a myriad of new questions about a private citizen's right to privacy. And when, exactly, does a person's right to privacy end? When he or she dies? Not necessarily, according to the plaintiffs in a new lawsuit. Click here to learn about this interesting case.

Finally, just in case you were thinking that you have no worries about privacy, check out this report about new cell phone spyware that not only tracks your every move but can also be used a means of harassment. Protect your privacy!

"Private" Flickr Creative Commons photo by James Cridland.
 

Media ethics volume I: What's wrong with this picture?

Plagiarism, fabrication, bias, fallacies. As we have seen, whether it's intentional misconduct or unintentional violations of sound journalistic practices, numerous ethical problems have the potential to exist when writing for print or broadcast news. Yet it's not just words that we have to be careful with, but photographs as well. Thanks to amazing software programs like Photoshop, it's incredibly easy to alter a photograph to make someone or something appear better (or worse). While that's fine for something like a senior picture, it's completely unethical to alter a photograph or video accompanying a news story. You wouldn't change someone's quote. Yet some people don't see anything wrong with changing a photograph. Remember, photojournalism must abide by the same ethical principles of truth and accuracy.

Recently political satirist and TV host Jon Stewart criticized Fox TV's Sean Hannity for playing with the facts, the visual facts that is. Click here to watch the clip from the show. Pay close attention to the video and what Stewart is calling Hannity out for. (By the way, Hannity later apologized for what he called an "inadvertent mistake".)

Photo courtesy of mnstate.edu

Who's in control?

We learned from the Tinker and Hazelwood cases that while students DO have First Amendment rights like everyone else, school administrators nonetheless DO have the right to prior review because most high school newspapers are not considered a "public forum".

But remember that sources do not reserve the right to review your work before it is published. Just because a source may be an adult or a teacher or someone in authority does not make them entitled to review your work before publication. However, a source does have the right to ask to see his or her quotes before you use them in an article. Most people don't ask to do this, but you should always comply with that type of request if asked. So if someone you've interviewed asks or demands to see your article before it's published, simply explain to them that "that's not our editorial policy." (In other words, that's not the editorial policy of news organizations, including school publications, that abide by sound journalistic practices -- not to mention the First Amendment.)

Click here to read an interesting article about a recent situation involving a private school that showcases this type of dilemma. Do you think the school did the right thing?