The eventual printing of The Federalist Papers , and the lesser-known Anti-Federalist Papers , fueled the argument that the press was vital to American democracy. It was also clear the press had the ability to affect public opinion and therefore public policy. It said:. This amendment serves as the basis for the political freedoms of the United States, and freedom of the press plays a strong role in keeping democracy healthy.
Without it, the press would not be free to alert citizens to government abuses and corruption. In defending John Peter Zenger against charges of libel against colonial governor William Cosby, Andrew Hamilton argued that a statement is not libelous if it can be proved.
Credit: modification of work by the Library of Congress. The media act as informants and messengers, providing the means for citizens to become informed and serving as a venue for citizens to announce plans to assemble and protest actions by their government.
Like the other First Amendment liberties, freedom of the press is not absolute. The media have limitations on their freedom to publish and broadcast. That is, the media do not have a general right under the principle of protected free press or speech to commit slander to speak false information with an intent to harm a person or libel the printing of false information with intent to harm a person or entity.
They do this and yet they are not often sued. The key reason for a lack of litigation is that the average citizen must be treated differently by the media than individuals who are public figures or government officials. The government has different standards depending on whether the individual is a private or public figure. Libel and slander occur only in cases where false information is presented as fact.
When editors or columnists write opinions, they are protected from many of the libel and slander provisions because they are not claiming their statements are facts. Second, it is up to the defamed individual or company to bring a lawsuit against the media outlet, and the courts have different standards depending on whether the claimant is a private or public figure. This test goes back to the New York Times v. Sullivan case, in which a police commissioner in Alabama sued over inaccurate statements in a newspaper advertisement.
Supreme Court applied a stringent test of malice to determine whether the advertisement was libel; the court deemed it was not. A private individual must make one of the above arguments or argue that the author was negligent in not making sure the information was accurate before publishing it. For this reason, newspapers and magazines are less likely to stray from hard facts when covering private individuals, yet they can be willing to stretch the facts when writing about politicians, celebrities, or public figures.
But even stretching the truth can be costly for a publisher. The media have only a limited right to publish material the government says is classified. If a newspaper or media outlet obtains classified material, or if a journalist is witness to information that is classified, the government may request certain material be redacted or removed from the article.
The Supreme Court ruled that while the government can impose prior restraint on the media, meaning the government can prevent the publication of information, that right is very limited. The court gave the newspapers the right to publish much of the study, but revelation of troop movements and the names of undercover operatives are some of the few approved reasons for which the government can stop publication or reporting.
The liberties enjoyed by newspapers are overseen by the U. The Communications Act of created a powerful entity to monitor the airwaves—a seven-member Federal Communications Commission FCC to oversee both radio and telephone communication. The FCC, which now has only five members, requires radio stations to apply for licenses, granted only if stations follow rules about political advertising, providing a public forum for discussion, and serving local and minority communities.
With the advent of television, the FCC was given the same authority to license and monitor television stations. The FCC now also enforces ownership limits to avoid monopolies and censors materials deemed inappropriate. It has no jurisdiction over print media, mainly because print media are purchased and not broadcast.
Concerned about something you heard or viewed? Would you like to file a complaint about an obscene radio program or place your phone number on the Do Not Call list? The FCC oversees each of these. To maintain a license, stations are required to meet a number of criteria. The equal-time rule, for instance, states that registered candidates running for office must be given equal opportunities for airtime and advertisements at non-cable television and radio stations beginning forty-five days before a primary election and sixty days before a general election.
Should WBNS in Columbus, Ohio, agree to sell Senator Marco Rubio thirty seconds of airtime for a presidential campaign commercial, the station must also sell all other candidates in that race thirty seconds of airtime at the same price. This rate cannot be more than the station charges favored commercial advertisers that run ads of the same class and during the same time period. This policy has had limited success.
The development of the Internet, cable services and wireless services has raised questions whether new legislative initiatives are needed. Congress has monitored developments, but as of has not undertaken a major revision of the regulation. The FCC is directed by five commissioners appointed by the president. The president designates one of the commissioners to serve as chairman.
Only three commissioners may be members of the same political party. None may have a financial interest in any FCC-related business. The FCC regulates broadcast stations, amateur radio operators, and repeater stations as well as commercial broadcasting operators. Burden of proof would be on the complainant in a petition to deny.
While the FCC maintains control of the written and Morse testing standards, it no longer administers the exams, having delegated that function to private organizations. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. The Media. Search for:. Regulation of the Media. Regulation of the Media Media of the United States consists of television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based Web sites. Learning Objectives Describe the media landscape in the United States.
Key Takeaways Key Points Many media are controlled by large for-profit corporations that reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions and sale of copyrighted material. A media conglomerate, media group or media institution is a company that owns large numbers of companies in various mass media. Advertising regulation refers to the laws and rules defining the ways products can be advertised in a particular region.
These rules can define a number of different aspects, including placement, timing and content. Key Terms regulation : A law or administrative rule, issued by an organization, used to guide or prescribe the conduct of members of that organization; can specifically refer to acts in which a government or state body limits the behavior of businesses.
Journalistic Standards Journalism ethics and standards describe the principles of ethics and good practice journalists adopt in response to specific challenges. Learning Objectives Summarize the key components of ethical journalism.
Key Takeaways Key Points Codes of journalism are designed to guide journalists through numerous ethical challenges, such as conflict of interest. According to the accuracy and standards for factual reporting, reporters are expected to be as accurate as possible given the time allotted and the space available, and to seek only reliable sources.
Independent fact-checking by another employee of the publisher is desirable. News writing attempts to answer every basic question about a particular event— who, what, when, where, why, and often how— at the opening of the article. Key Terms journalism ethics and standards : Journalism ethics and standards describe the principles of ethics and good practice journalists adopt in response to specific challenges.
Government Regulations A regulation is a legal provision that creates, limits, or constrains a right, creates or limits a duty, or allocates a responsibility. Learning Objectives Describe several key debates in which the FCC is currently or has been recently involved.
Key Takeaways Key Points One can consider regulation as actions of conduct imposing sanctions, such as a fine, to the extent permitted by the law of the land. Key Terms network neutrality : A principle proposed for user-access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by ISPs or government on the content, sites, platforms, equipment, and modes of communication over the network.
The FCC is directed by five commissioners appointed by the president, who designates one of the commissioners to serve as chairman. The FCC regulates broadcast stations, amateur radio operators and repeater stations as well as commercial broadcasting operators. Key Terms communications act : The Communications Act abolished the Federal Radio Commission and transferred jurisdiction over radio licensing to a new Federal Communications Commission.
Specifically, while the traditional media business model can lead to significant polarization, the limited bandwidth and editorial oversight generally incentivizes these companies to attempt to reach broad er markets, keeping them from publishing extremely fringe content. And the violence at the Capitol last week graphically illustrated that danger.
A possible silver lining of those horrifying events, however, is that they highlighted the ongoing problem so clearly that they could serve as a real turning point in efforts to work towards a solution.
There are a few key areas where we can expect to see effective, systemic reform in the coming weeks and months:. First, the voluntary actions taken by Facebook and Twitter highlight the important role of self-regulation from within the industry. That said, the fact that mainstream social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter took so long to censor Trump has raised serious questions over whether the violence the world witnessed last Wednesday could have been avoided entirely if companies had done more to protect against algorithmic political polarization in the first place.
To elicit real change, it will be essential that business and government leaders not simply use this as partisan opportunity to take down a single actor or further a single political cause, but rather, that reforms are enacted to address the root causes at play. To that end, self-regulation will be an important component of effective reforms, but government support will almost certainly be needed as well in order to achieve real change.
More notably, the U. Recent events as well as ongoing antitrust concerns suggest that early in the Biden-Harris administration, we can expect a robust examination of how the regulation could be adapted to better protect the public from harmful content. Congress might, for instance, push for social media platforms to be required to meet certain standards concerning transparency and data protection in order to qualify for Section protection — in fact, bipartisan legislative reforms along these lines have already been introduced for consideration.
Alternatively, Congress could propose carveouts from Section liability protection, so that social media companies could be held liable for user-generated disinformation or hateful content. Such measures would be similar to the carveout approach already applied in the recent FOSTA-SESTA legislative package, which reduced protections for online platforms that enable trafficking.
For example, a potential low-hanging fruit is the Honest Ads Act , the digital political ad transparency bill spearheaded by Senator Mark Warner but stymied by a Republican Congress.
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