Freedom of the Press

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Decades before there was a United States of America, the groundwork had been laid to protect freedom of the press. In 1735, John Peter Zenger, a journalist and publisher in New York, was charged with libel. After more than eight months in prison, Zenger went to trial. The jury returned in ten minutes with a verdict of not guilty. In defending Zenger, his lawyers established the precedent that a statement, even if defamatory, is not libelous if it can be proved. That was the begining of freedom of the press in America. Even when set aside by the powerful, freedom of the press could not be ignored. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln ordered Union Gen. John Dix to stop publication of the New York Journal of Commerce and the New York World, because they'd published a forged presidential proclamation calling for another military draft. The editors were arrested. But after the authors of the initial forgery were identified, the newspapers were allowed to resume publication. In 1952, he U.S. Supreme Court uphelde conviction of a white supremacist for passing out leaflets that characterized African Americans as dangerous and criminals. The group libel law under which the supremacist was prosecuted makes it a crime to make false statements about people of a particular race, color, creed or religion for no other reason than to harm that group. The Court also ruled that libel against groups, like libel against individuals, has no role in the marketplace of ideas.

Freedom of the Press: Assignment

For each of these cases: the Supreme Court's 1971 decision in the Pentagon Papers case Michael Moore's quoting George Orwell in the film Farenheit 911 cite what you consider to be the aspect of the case in which the First Amendment's suppoort of freedom of the press had the most impact (e.g., Moore's implying the wealthy did not bear an adequate share of the burden of national security)

Freedom of the Press: More Material

Each of the resources below can give you further insight into the relationship between the Federalist Papers, and Freedom of the Press as defined in the First Amendment: First Amendment - Freedom of the Press Federalist # 84 Jefferson, the First Amendment, and Freedom of the Press